Sunday, March 1, 2009

Erasmus and the Greek New Testament

It was on this date in 1516, 493 years ago, that Desiderius Erasmus published his first edition of the Greek New Testament. This was one of the first steps in starting the scholarly disciple known today as Textual Criticism. His Greek NT was about 1,000 pages. Since he could not find a Greek manuscript of the last six verse of the Book of Revelation, he translated the Latin Vulgate in to Greek and used that for his text. His Greek Bible, know as the Textus Receptus, became the standard for many years to come. For more on this see here.

1 comment:

  1. Correct me if I am wrong, but his translation (i.e. the choosing of specific words and phrases)also helped to shape the Reformers approach to the Scriptures.

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