Open AccessErasmus and the Book That Changed the World Five Hundred Years Ago
Author(s) -
Daniel B. Wallace
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
unio cum christo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2473-8476
pISSN - 2380-5412
DOI - 10.35285/ucc2.2.2016.art2
Subject(s) - erasmus+ , scholarship , philology , classics , protestantism , new testament , the renaissance , ancient greek , art , literature , history , philosophy , theology , art history , feminism , law , political science
The rst published Greek New Testament (NT), Novum Instrumentum Omne, appeared on March 1, 1516. It was a diglot—a Latin-Greek NT. The Reformation was born because Luther had Erasmus’s Greek NT in his hands. This article looks at the history behind that momentous publication, who Erasmus was, and how his most controversial work became the spark that was fanned into the ames of the Reformation. All Protestant translations of the NT for the past half millennium nd their roots in the Novum Instrumentum. Ironically, producing a Greek NT may have been a “side issue” for Erasmus. Yet this Renaissance man wedded historical and philological scholarship of ancient texts to the study of the Bible and thus initiated the modern era of NT scholarship.