Response to a Pastor's Recent Question on Erasmus and the Confessional Text

Note: Post taken from twitter/X:

A pastor messaged me this week on X who has been working through issues related to text and translation of the Bible and considering the Confessional Text position.

He noted, “One hangup I have is that it seems that Erasmus was in some way engaging in a form of text criticism that confessional text folks would reject in the modern day.” Part of my response to him: Here are some things to consider: 1. Erasmus was providentially used to recognize the canonical text, but we should also remember that his efforts were reviewed, slightly edited, and affirmed by Protestant scholars like Stephanus, Beza, the Elzevirs, etc. So, it does not all depend on Erasmus. 2. These men were living in the pre-modern era. They were not affected by the Enlightenment, hyper-rationalism, etc. 3. They were not doing "modern" textual criticism. They were not attempting to "reconstruct" the text merely using empirical methods to "weigh" the empirical evidence. 4. They were taking into consideration the doctrine of Scripture, ecclesiastical usage, providential circumstances, etc. Modern text criticism would reject all these things. They [modern critics] want a religiously neutral approach. As one prominent "evangelical" scholar (Tommy Wasserman) has put it: "I want to do text criticism as if God did not exist." Hope this helps and may the Lord be with you as you continue prayerfully to consider these things.

JTR

Podcast Interview (Part Two) with Dwayne Green: Textual Presuppositions; Debating James White; 1 John 5:7 & Erasmus

 

JTR

WM 151: Review: McDonald on Erasmus, the CJ, Foucault, and "Epistemes"

WM 151: Review: McDonald on Erasmus, the CJ, Foucault, and “Epistemes” has been posted. Listen here.

This episode is a reading of a draft of my review of:

Grantly McDonald, Biblical Criticism in Early Modern Europe: Erasmus, the Johannine Comma and Trinitarian Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016): 384 pp.

Here is the closing analysis:

This work represents a significant contribution to the reception history of the Johannine Comma from Erasmus to the present. Any future study of this controversial New Testament passage will need to consult, benefit from, and make reference to this work.  This reviewer is especially appreciative of McDonald’s debunking of the Erasmian “myths” that have developed relating to his inclusion of the comma in the third edition of the Dutch scholar’s Greek New Testament, as well those relating to the history and influence of Codex Montfortianus.

One of the most intriguing ideas put forward by McDonald in this study is his analysis and application of Michael Foucault’s concept of the “episteme” to understand the division that has resulted over the acceptance of the comma. An “episteme” is defined as “an internally consistent mode of conceiving the world that determines which questions may conceivably be asked, and thus judged to be either true or false” (146). In what he calls “the premodern episteme” critical thought was “subordinated to a theological a priori” (146). This meant, for example, “it was almost inconceivable to doubt the inspiration of Scripture” (146). With the development of the historical-critical method, beginning with Richard Simon and Baruch Spinoza, critical questions were disconnected from theological ones. Though McDonald does not use this term, we might call it the “modern episteme.” Rather than one episteme neatly yielding sequentially to the next, as Foucault envisioned it, McDonald suggests that “the episteme that existed before Spinoza and Simon never ended. Rather their work fractured the hermeneutical consensus, leading to a situation in which two epistemes came to exist in parallel” (147). McDonald describes these two parallel epistemes as follows:

One maintains an essentially premodern attitude towards Scripture, submitting judgement in textual matters to the ultimate criterion of doctrine, while the other has accepted, internalized and built upon the insights of Spinoza and Simon, using the tools of philology, history and sociology to illuminate the beginnings of Christianity (147).

He concludes, “I suggest that many of the conflicts between academic liberal critics and conservative apologists arise out of a basic epistemological incompatibility” (147). It is this fundamental “epistemological incompatibility” that compels disagreement over the Johannine Comma as those who hold the “premodern episteme” continue to a affirm it, while those who hold the “modern episteme” continue to reject it.

According to McDonald then, the reception of the comma represents a proverbial “fork in the road.” As he puts it, “One path was followed by those who insisted on the providential preservation of Scripture. The other was taken by those who believe that Scripture, whatever its source, is subject to the same process of transmission as any other text” (12). The story that results is one of “constantly competing claims, in which outcomes are rarely clear and motives are often obscure” (12).

McDonald is hardly sympathetic to those who continue to uphold the comma against the modern scholarly “consensus”, held since the mid-twentieth century, that the “three heavenly witnesses” passage is a spurious and late “interpolation” (9).  He associates renewed debate over the comma to the “revival of the Christian right,” conspiracy theories, and internet discussions, where it has become a “hot-button issue” (9). McDonald suggests, “As a result of an informational cascade amongst non-scholarly believers, the divide between academic consensus and lay conviction is growing” (9). What McDonald does not explicitly seem to acknowledge is that he is hardly a neutral observer. He holds, in fact, to the “modern episteme,” which he so helpfully describes. Nevertheless, McDonald is to be thanked not only for his historical review of the various clashes over the comma, but also for his insights on the epistemological divide over this matter. To paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, when we come to the comma as a fork in the road, the path we take does indeed make all the difference.

Jeffrey T. Riddle, Pastor, Christ Reformed Baptist Church, Louisa, Virginia

Article: Erasmus Anecdotes

I have two articles and two book reviews that appear in the January 2017 issue of the Puritan Reformed Journal (Vol. 9, No. 1). You can order this issue of the journal here.

I just posted the “Erasmus Anecdotes” article to academia.edu (find it here). In the article I question the reliability of two frequently told scholarly anecdotes related to Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum: (1) the “rush to print” anecdote; and (2) the “rash wager” anecdote [related to the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in the third edition]. I also point out that these anecdotes began to circulate during the nineteenth century in order to undermine and diminish the authority of the Textus Receptus.

The article is a revision of a paper I delivered at the Eastern regional meeting of the SBL last year (there is an audio version here).

Perhaps it will help in checking the assumption and repetition of these legendary stories.

JTR

A. T. Robertson on the Textus Receptus

Image:  A. T. Robertson (1863-1934)

I’ve begun reading through A. T. Robertson’s An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Broadman Press, 1925). Robertson (1863-1934) was Professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a scholarly giant in his generation. Perhaps best known for his massive Greek grammar, he probably remains the most respected academic scholar ever to come from Southern Baptist life.

The book is dedicated to Robertson’s friend B. B. Warfield.  Indeed, Warfield and Robertson may have done more than any others to introduce modern text criticism into the mainstream for otherwise conservative Reformed and evangelical Christians. In this regard, what Warfield did for Presbyterians, Robertson did for Baptists.

In the opening chapter Robertson reviews the Textus Receptus.  In his discussion of Erasmus, he shows the same tendency of that age to diminish the Novum Instrumentum.

Here is Robertson’s summary of the Greek mss. of which Erasmus made use:

He based his printed text on 2, a poor minuscule of the twelfth century and corrected it by the cursive (minuscule) Greek manuscript 1 (a tenth century MS. kin in source to 118, 131, 209, and of considerable value). He also used 2 (fifteenth century) for Gospels, 2 ap (thirteenth century) for Acts and Paul, and 1r (twelfth century) alone for Apocalypse” (p. 18).

Note: I am finding that there is little agreement among scholars on this question of which and how many Greek mss. Erasmus used in compiling his Greek NT.  The number usually suggested is seven (see Roland Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, p. 133). In his 1923 biography of Erasmus, Preserved Smith suggests he used ten (Erasmus: A Study of His Life, Ideals, and Place in History, p. 163).

Robertson also makes the standard charge of Erasmus having back-translated the final verses of Revelation, but provides no footnote directing the reader to Erasmus’ writings to substantiate the claim:

It is probable that he had Latin manuscripts of the Vulgate which he occasionally put into Greek. He confessed doing this for the last six verses of the Apocalypse save verse 20, which had been already translated by Laurentius Valla (p. 18).

Though Robertson does not relay the “rush to print” anecdote regarding Erasmus’ 1516 Greek NT, he does convey the “rash wager” anecdote with regard to the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in the third edition (1522).  He writes:

The third edition of 1522 introduced the passage in 1 John v:7 because of a foolish promise made to Stunica … that he would insert it if he found it in any Greek mss. (p. 19).

Later, he adds that when Codex 61 was produced “he put it in because of his rash promise and thus it got into the Textus Receptus” (p. 19).

Note:  For my analysis and challenge of both the “rush to print” and “rash wager’ anecdotes, listen here.

It should be added, however, that although Robertson thoroughly embraced the modern critical text, he does express some admiration for the Textus Receptus (Did he think that he might need to placate his more conservative SB constituency?).  So, he writes:

It should be stated at once that the Textus Receptus is not a bad text. It is not a heretical text.  It is substantially correct (p. 21).

And later:

It is clear, therefore, that the Textus Receptus has preserved for us a substantially accurate text in spite of the long centuries preceding the age of printing when copying by hand was the only method of reproducing the New Testament (p. 21).

In the end, however, with the rise of modern text criticism, Robertson concludes, “But its days were numbered” (p. 26).

JTR

A Questionable Greenlee Anecdote on the CJ in Erasmus

Image:  NT scholar J. Harold Greenlee (1918-2015). Read a tribute to Greenlee here.

There appears to be no end of confusing the story of Erasmus and his Greek NT.

I recently ran across another curious example of this in J. Harold Greenlee’s well respected Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Eerdmans, 1964).  In addition to promoting the “rush to print” and “rash wager” anecdotes (see this talk), Greenlee makes a statement that I have not seen elsewhere regarding Erasmus’ insertion of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7b-8a) in his third edition (1522).  After noting that Erasmus added it to the 1522 edition in dutiful fulfillment of his rash “promise,” Greenlee adds:  “He again omitted it in later editions; but it was the third edition which primarily influenced textual tradition, and the 'heavenly witnesses' thus found their place in the Greek text” (p. 71).  So, Greenlee asserts that Erasmus added the CJ to his third edition but then removed it again from his fourth (1527) and fifth editions (1536).

Though I do not have access to check this against printed copies of the fourth and fifth editions of Erasmus’ Novum Testamentum, my hunch is that Greenlee is mistaken in this “fact.”  I cannot find anyone else who says this, including Metzger, whose comments imply that once the CJ was added in the third edition it appeared “in future editions” (see Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament, fourth edition, p. 146).  If Erasmus added it and then removed it again, surely Metzger would have pointed this out.  Historian Preserved Smith, speaking disparagingly of the CJ’s inclusion in the third edition, likewise states:   “Thus the forged verse was put back into the Greek to be kept there until the nineteenth century” (Erasmus, p. 166).  Thinking that perhaps others had already picked up on what appears to be Greenlee’s error, I checked the 1995 revised edition of his work and the statement stands uncorrected (p. 64).  Of course, it is also possible that Greenlee is right and everyone else overlooked this point.  That seems unlikely, however.

Whatever the outcome on this question, the point is that ample confusion surrounded Erasmus’ printing of the Greek NT in the text critical scholarship of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  As I’ve pointed out before, there seems to have been a distinct effort to disparage Erasmus’ work by modern critics who were keen on toppling the Textus Receptus in favor of the rise of the modern critical text, beginning early in the nineteenth century.  Though by the twentieth century the modern critical text had largely prevailed among scholars, even among evangelical men like B. B. Warfield and A. T. Robertson, disparagement of Erasmus continued well into the twentieth century and beyond, as the focus turned to the popular promotion of modern translations based on the modern text.  Greenlee’s work is evidence of this.

The upshot:  When it comes to Erasmus anecdotes, “let him that readeth understand.”

JTR 

Erasmus Anecdotes

Image:  Erasmus section at the Dunham Bible Museum, Houston, Texas

I have posted a recording of the paper titled "Erasmus Anecdotes" which I presented at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in New Brunswick, NJ on March 11, 2016 (listen here). The paper explores two dubious scholarly anecdotes which frequently circulate regarding Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum (1516), which I refer to as the "rush to print" anecdote and the "rash wager" anecdote.  Here is a snippet from the paper:

It is the contention of this paper that during the nineteenth century, as part of the effort to topple the Textus Receptus and support the rise of the modern critical text, a number of unflattering scholarly anecdotes regarding Erasmus’ Greek text began to circulate in secondary literature on the text and translation of the New Testament.  Several of these anecdotes have taken on legendary if not mythic proportions, having been passed from scholar to scholar and from student to student, often without any firm evidence or proof from primary sources to support their veracity.  Furthermore, these anecdotes continue to be retold from teaching lecterns and to be reprinted in contemporary works on text and translation.

JTR

HBU Erasmus Conference Notes: Lecture 4: Herman Selderhuis on Erasmus' Influence on the Reformation (2.27.16)

Image:  Dr. Selderhuis ponders a question during the Q & A session after his lecture.

Lecture 4:  Herman Selderhuis, The Impact of Erasmus’ Biblical Work on the Reformation

Note:  Selderhuis is professor of Church History at the Theological University Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, author of John Calvin:  A Pilgrim’s Life, and president of the International Calvin Congress (among other distinctions).

I have also posted the audio of this lecture to sermonaudio.com (look here).

Image:  Anonymous Dutch engraving t'Licht is op den kandelaer gestelt (c. 1640-1684).

HS started with a picture (above) of Reformers sitting at a table around a candle with RCs attempting to blow it out.  Who is missing?  Erasmus.  Where should he be, with the papists or reformers?  In the end he was rejected by both Protestants and RCs.  HS says he should be on the Reformers’ side.

1.  Philosophia Christi

HS questions whether Erasmus was really more interested in the Latin than the Greek with his Novum Instrumentum.  He wanted to make the Bible accessible to all.  He wanted to pursue a Biblical based spirituality.

He gives an interesting quote from Erasmus in which he pointed to the Muslim devotion to the Koran and said Christians should correspondingly be committed to the Bible.

He gives a quote where Erasmus says he wishes the Bible to be in vernacular:  “I vehemently dissent from those who would not have private persons read the Holy Scriptures nor have them translated into the vulgar tongues…  I should like all women to read the Gospel and the Epistles of Paul.  Would that they were translated into all languages…..”

2.  Hermeneutics

Erasmus’ Annotations were included with the Greek and Latin text.  He propagated ad fontes but not without his own fontes!

Erasmus said God intentionally put obscure things in the Bible but he would explain these.

His rule for how to read Scripture was the loci method.

He also published his Paraphrases.

He used the “accommodation” method.  He believed each word conveyed a message.  God’s people have forgotten God, because they have neglected the NT.  This why the text and grammar are so important.  He urged his contemporaries not to seek Christ in relics but in text.  This is the grammatical-rhetorical method.  Translations are helpful but we must read the originals.

Erasmus:  “Latin scholarship, however elaborate, is maimed and reduced by half without Greek…..”

3.  Samples of Reformers

Luther makes use of Erasmus as soon as his work appears.

Erasmus’ Annotations were influential.  Example:  In Ephesians he notes that the text says marriage is a mysterion not a sacramentum.  He asks, Does this mean marriage is not a sacrament?  Erasmus asks but does not answer.  HS suggests his low view of his birth made him unwilling to give answers.

Zwingli had many works of Erasmus in his library.  He knew the whole NT in Greek.  He said Erasmus deserved praise.

Philip Melanchthon, whom Erasmus called Ille graeculuos, that little Greek guy, also read Erasmus.

Martin Bucer owned many books of Erasmus.  His influence is seen in Bucer’s exegetical works.  Compare his views on marriage and divorce.  Bucer listed 15 grounds for divorce.

Menno Simons.  He used Erasmus’ work as a tool.

John Calvin was perhaps the most faithful follower of Erasmus.  He often disagrees with him, but even these show his interest in his work.  Erasmus’ influence is seen in Calvin’s use of the concept of “accommodation.”

4.  Claritas Scripturae

Erasmus believed God put obscurity in text on purpose.  Some things could not be understood.  This is why there must be church authority of there will be exegetical chaos (as among Protestants).  At the same time, Erasmus often questioned church interpretations and spoke of the value of individual interpretation.

5.  Conclusion

HS noted the following in conclusion on Erasmus’s Biblical work and its influence on the Reformation:

Intensive but independent.

Philology not exegesis.

Methodology not theology.

Power of the text..

Ad fontes.

Theological curriculum.

Knowledge of Hebrew (I think he was pointing out that Erasmus did not learn Hebrew and that, though known today for tolerance, he was, in fact, often anti-Semitic).

JTR Analysis:

This was a very solid and thoughtful presentation.  IMHO, it was the best plenary talk of the conference.  HS pointed out how the significance of Erasmus for the Reformation is not merely his production of the first printed Greek text, but his method, including his focus on the importance of the original language, text criticism, the focus on verbal communication (each word important), etc. 

HBU Erasmus Conference Notes: Lecture 3: Dan Wallace on Erasmus' Greek New Testament (2.26.16)

Image:  Dan Wallace of Dallas Seminary speaks at the HBU Erasmus Conference.

Afternoon breakout session (2.26.16):

Jeff Cade, Martin Luther and the Reliability of the NT Manuscript tradition.

Cade noted that Luther was not a text critic but he did examine and make a number of textual decisions reflected in his translations.  He points to the following places where conjectures are found in Luther’s NT:  Acts 13:20; John 18:13-14, 24; James 4:2; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Romans 3:28.

Jeff Riddle, John Calvin and Text Criticism (see here).

Session III:  Dan Wallace:  Erasmus and the Publication of the First Greek NT

DW says Erasmus used only seven manuscripts, and he thinks he might only have used three.

Erasmus’ Novum Testamentum was rejected by Catholics and embraced by Protestants.

DW says there were imperfections in Eramus.  There was a rush job in printing, that resulted in “hundreds and hundreds of errors.”  There were Latin interpolations, as at Acts 9:4-6 and Revelation 22:17-22.  See especially “book of life” versus “tree of life” at Rev 22:19.

There was also the notorious inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in the third edition. Erasmus asked a friend to check Codex B.  DW says a scribe working at Oxford seems to have “made to order” a complete Greek NT ms (Codex 61) that had the CJ.

DW reported that the CJ now found in 9 mss (4 in text and 5 in margin).  The earliest is from the 10^th century.  DW wonders if more will be found.

Erasmus’ work was a great success.  Over 300,000 (!) copies were printed and circulated.

JTR Analysis:

Wallace offered few surprises in his presentation on Erasmus. He was appreciative of Eramus' work but sees the modern critical text as superior. He perpetuated the “rush to print” storyline. To his credit, he noted that the “rash vow" story on the CJ is not historically reliable but then proceeded to covey the related account of Codex 61 as created by Froy/Roy.

In the Q and A I asked about the number of papyri and later Greek mss. we have of 1 John. To say we only have 9 mss. with the CJ sounds devastating but there may not be that many extant mss. or early fragments of 1 John, so that the number that have the CJ might, in fact, be fairly respectable. DW did not know the details on the number of 1 John mss. off-hand.

HBU Erasmus Conference Notes: Lecture 2: Craig A. Evans on Erasmus and "Textual Fundamentalism" (2.26.16 AM)

Image:  Craig A. Evans speaks at the HBU Erasmus Conference.

Session II: Craig A. Evans:  Erasmus and the Beginnings of Textual Fundamentalism.

CE notes that Erasmus used seven mss. to create his NT.  His focus initially seems to be on the Latin and later shifted to the Greek.

The influence of the text of Eramsus:  The editions of Stephus and Beza.  The second edition of the Elzevirs gave us the textus receptus.  The KJV translators depended on TR.

CE suggests that with the TR began textual fundamentalism.  It laid a foundation for a new form of fundamentalism.  The idea of a text with no errors arrives in this period with the standard printed text.  He draws a parallel with the quest for the ipsissima verba Jesu.  He says we have autographa of ancient works and copies always vary.  With printing of identical texts the view emerged of an error-free original text.

He cites the discovery of new mss. including papyri, the discovery of new variants, and a harmonizing tendency in the Byzantine texts.  Fundamentalists tried to defend the text and were threatened by a crisis of faith.

CE draws a parallel to differences among the Synoptic Gospels. Evans assumes Markan priority.  He says that most traditional Christians are not aware of the fact that the Gospels were edited and that the sayings of Jesus were edited.  Pastors should teach this to their people, he says.

He surveys Jewish and Greco-Roman views on history and rhetoric and says they overlapped. He cites the classic study Hellenism in Jewish Palestine by Saul Lieberman, which argued that Jewish scholarship was heavily indebted to Hellenism.  More recently Jaffe has come to the same conclusions.

CE says that the discrepancies in the Gospels begin with Jesus himself.  How do we know this?  We have the handbooks from antiquity.  Young Greeks began by memorizing brief anecdotes (chreia).  As the student progressed he began to assert these in his argument and to string together several.  He learned how to introduce them.  He was permitted to edit these and was indeed required to by necessity.  Change in wording was not prohibited nor was expansion or abbreviation.  The focus was on clarity.  CE is dismayed that most traditional Christians are unaware of this.

He says this view was also present in the pre-print culture up to the time of the TR.  A change takes place with Guttenberg.

We see this comfort with variety in the ancient historians.  He cites various accounts of the Roman Emperor Otho.  CE says the Gospel writers were not tape recorders but disciples.  He cites Matt 13:32 describing scribes bringing out treasures old and new. CE says Jesus did not expect his disciples simply to repeat his words verbatim.

He cites Dale Martin who said Bart Ehrman let text study ruin his faith because he had an inadequate theology of the Bible.  CE recommends Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible:  Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture.

JTR Analysis:

There was more than a little which I found unsettling about this presentation. CE represents the assumptions and approach of a classic evangelical “restorationist” approach.  There was, for example, no mention of the doctrine of the preservation of Scripture.  Those who seek stability in the Biblical text are “textual fundamentalists.”

I also have questions about some of the historical statements.  Examples:  He stressed how Jewish scholarship was affected by Hellenism, but does not tell us how it was also different.  If ancient Jews, like ancient Greeks, were as comfortable with differences in texts, variants, etc., as CE suggests, and did not expect precision in transmission why were the Masoretes so meticulous in their care for the OT text?

In the discussion period I raised a related question about the early Christians.  If they were so comfortable with diversity in the NT text and in supposed differences in the Synoptic accounts of Jesus due to the chreia pedagogy, why was there such an early effort to harmonize the Gospel accounts (see, e.g., Tatian’s Diatessaron)?  As regards the Church Fathers, what about Augustine’s efforts to harmonize the Gospels?  And in later church history, why did Calvin harmonize the Pentateuch in his OT commentaries and the Synoptic Gospels in his NT commentaries?  Can it be that desire for harmony, agreement, and uniformity existed prior to the printing press (and the TR)?

I also asked about another seeming logical inconsistency.  On one hand, CE says there is a harmonizing tendency in the textual tradition.  On the other hand, he then tells us that the ancients were comfortable with differences and variants among texts!  If they were so comfortable with these variants, why did they supposedly harmonize them?

One valuable thing I gained from this lecture: The realization of parallel issues regarding modern text criticism and modern “Synoptic Problem” criticism.

I also could not help thinking that what Protestant liberals suggested in the nineteenth century, modern evangelicals have thoroughly embraced in the twenty-first century (e.g., Markan priority, Q, rational eclecticism, etc.).

Friday AM Breakout Sessions

Gregory Barnhill and Natalie R. Webb, “Tolle Lege:  Reader’s Aids and Nomina Sacra in Early Christian Mss.”

First half:  Readers’ aids developed in Christian texts as they were read.  Presenters say there was a shift in 2-3 century with emergence of the office of lector.  Some have suggested that the letter carrier was the reader.  Reading aloud was an act of interpretation that needed to be done correctly.

They showed images of Codex B with paragraph division lines with raised dot and over-lining.  There are a variety of dots in the text, which they interpret as reading notes:  raised dots (end of complete thought; major pause); middle dot (take a breath); lower dot (shorter break).

Hurtado and others have suggested early origins for these reading helps.

Second half:  Nomina sacra.  Why these 15 words?  Unknown.  They focused on Israel as nomina sacra. Was it one way Christians staked their claim on this term?  They note that the Church Fathers’ use of Israel as a term in Barnabas, Justin Martyr (church as the true Israel), Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.

This paper shows shift of interpretative traditions in text.

Timothy Bartel, When Virgil met St. Simeon:  Luke’s Canticle in Juvenicus.

Juvencus used Virgil’s hexameter verse style to paraphrase the Nunc Dimitis in Luke 2.

Stanley Helton, Origen and the Endings of Mark’s Gospel.

Metzger said Origen did not know the end of Mark’s Gospel.  But it has been pointed out that Origen also shows no evidence of knowing Mark 2 or 5 or even 16:1-8 at all.  Rather we have to learn about Origen’s approach to texts generally.

In Origen’s neglect of Mark generally, we see the church’s preference for Matthew over Mark.

Thompson showed Origen’s Mark was closest to Codex L (019), a ms. Similar to Vaticanus.  Helton suggests Origen would have known a tradition that Mark ended at 16:8.  See also Eusebius’ citation on the ending of Mark that most trace to Origen.

If you include Origen’s early work, his text of NT is closer to L.  In later years he shifted more to the so-called Caesarean text (so like Theta, 565, 700).

We know Irenaeus used the ending of Mark, and it is likely Origen would have read it.

Helton’s conclusion:  Origen would have known Mark ending at 16:8; the shorter ending, and the longer ending.

HBU Erasmus Conference Notes: Lecture 1: Timothy George on Erasmus and the Christian Life (2.25.16)

The 2016 Theology Conference at Houston Baptist University was titled “Ad Fontes, Ad Futura:  Erasmus’ Bible and the Impact of Scripture.”  The conference theme was in honor of the 500 year anniversary of Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) which provided the first printed Greek NT and became the basis for the so-called Textus Receptus.  The conference was held February 25-27, 2016 Thursday evening to Saturday morning.  There were four plenary lectures and four break sessions.  Here are my notes from session one (2.25.16):

Session 1:  Timothy George, “Erasmus and the Search for the Christian Life”

TG is dean of the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, AL. TG noted that it is good to smell the printer’s ink in Basel before moving to the anniversary of Luther in 2017.

Who was Erasmus?  What made him tick?  How did the Greek NT fit into his thought?

TG says he is the most tragic of the Reformers (?), living at the confluence of Renaissance and Reformation.  Though he remained RC, by 1559 all of Erasmus’ works were put on the banned index.

What did he look like?  According to an early biographer who was his friend he had a fair complexion and blue-ish gray eyes.  He was winsome, reticent, a brilliant conversationalist.  He had arched eyebrows, wry smile.  He had a delicate constitution.

He was one of the world’s first best-selling authors.  He was always on the move, always traveling.  There were FOEs (Friends of Erasmus) all over the world.

He was at Cambridge from 1511-1514 (dates?).  He worked there on the Greek NT and on the letters of Jerome.

He was the first well-known public intellectual.  He knew he played a unique role in introducing the world to new learning.  He believed he had awakened the world from its “pharisaical slumber.”

He brought together the classical and Christian traditions, the good and the sacred.

In April 1517 Erasmus wrote to Pope Leo X:  “If ever there was a golden age there is good hope there will be on in our time.”  He was filled with optimism and hope.  He had ties with the Pope and with the kings of Europe.  Soon, however, the earthquake of Luther’s Reformation would come.  Erasmus would eventually flee Basel due to uproar over the Reformation.  He later called it the worst century since Jesus Christ.

The formation of Erasmus:  He was born the illegitimate son of a Dutch priest.  We must be careful of psychoanalyzing, but this was certainly a cloud over his life.  His enemies often threw this in his face.  Is this why he moved so much?  He even backdated his birth.  He lost his parents in the Plague.  He was 13 when his mother died.  Many of his fellow students also died.  Luther also had a brush with death in the thunderstorm.  Whereas his experience gave Luther a combative nature, Erasmus would speak of his experience giving him a “weakness of spirit,” pusillanimity.

Erasmus entered the monastery and became a monk but his heart was not in it.  He snuck away to the library.  R. Bainton:  Luther went to the monastery to save his soul; Erasmus to enlighten his mind.

He became a secretary to a bishop and found a place to teach in Paris at the College de Montague (the same school where Calvin and Ignatius Loyola studied).

Erasmus was not pleased with the scholastic education system of his day.  He wanted to pursue “the philosophy of Christ.”  He first used the term in 1503 in the Enchiridion.  It was a program of moral reform for the individual and society and centered on personal devotion to Jesus.  His views were shaped by three persons:

1.  John Colet:  Erasmus heard his lectures on Paul.  Colet set his piety ablaze by pointing him to Paul and Plato.   From Paul he learned about grace:  the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.  Erasmus wrote four commentaries on Paul, now lost.   From Plato he learned idealism.  His spirituality was focused on stillness.

2.  Petrarch:  He was interested in history as more than merely a series of events/facts and in rhetoric.  He thought of history as a golden age, a fall, and a renewal.  Erasmus also thought in this way.

3.  Lorenzo Vallla.  He had a critical role in philology.  He examined the “donation of Constantine” and found it a forgery.  This gave focus to the importance of text criticism.  Erasmus discovered Vallas’s “Annotations” on the NT in a monastic library and published it.  This fueled interest in text criticism.

Erasmus’ “evangelical” heart is what makes him so important for the whole church:  Catholic, Protestant, Quaker, etc.  He wanted the Bible in the language of the people.

Luther would translate the NT in 1522 using Erasmus’ second edition (1519).  Tyndale would use Erasmus to translate the NT into English.

Erasmus died in Basel, then a Protestant city, in 1536.  This was the same year of Calvin’s first edition of the Institutes.  Erasmus’ last words in Dutch:  Liebe Gott, Dear God….

TG sees these last words as significant.  He says we can commend this type of piety in Erasmus.

Q and A:

In discussion George notes that he has grown more sympathetic to Erasmus over the years.

When asked about Erasmus and Luther TG cites a work by a Jesuit author, H. J. McSorely, titled, Luther Right or Wrong?  (1969).  TG says Luther was right, but he does not see this as the final word on the debate.

JTR Analysis:

This was a thoughtful and informative lecture from George. TG has long expressed sympathies with RC positions and on supposedly bridging the divide between Protestants and the RCC (cf. his input on the “Manhattan Declaration”). My friend Rob Stovall and I heard TG speak at an ETS event a few years ago and were struck by his references to the Pope as “the holy Father.” He did so at least once in this lecture also. Thus, it was not surprising that he presented a favorable view of Erasmus’ spirituality and counts him as a 'reformer' (though there was little reference to Erasmus' understanding or articulation of the Biblical gospel in it). 

Word Magazine # 46: Reeves on Erasmus

I have recorded a "spoken word" version of  my written critique of Ryan M. Reeves' recent Reformation 21 blog post on "Erasmus and the Greek NT" and posted it to sermonaudio.com as WM # 46:  Reeves on Erasmus.

JTR

Response to Ryan M. Reeves: "Church History's Greatest Myths: Erasmus and the Greek NT"

Update (2.12.16):  I have posted a "spoken word" version of this critique as Word Magazine # 46:  Reeves on Erasmus.

A friend recently called my attention to an article by Ryan M. Reeves posted this month (February 2016) on the Reformation 21 blog [read the article here].  The article is titled “Church History’s Greatest Myths:  Erasmus and the Greek New Testament.” Reeves is assistant professor of historical theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

The topic sparked my interest, particularly since I’m gearing up to attend the HBU Conference marking the 500 year anniversary of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament (1516) [see Dan Wallace’s recent post on the conference here].  I was also intrigued by the mention of “myths” surrounding Erasmus, thinking the article might address some of the modern scholarly myths that continue to circulate in seminary classrooms and textbooks without documentation from reliable sources (e.g., the first edition of Erasmus’ Greek NT was an error-filled rush job attempting to beat the Complutention Polyglot to the market; when receiving criticism for omitting the CJ in the first two editions, Erasmus made a rash promise to include it if a Greek manuscript containing it could be produced and one was then custom made by his critics to force his hand; Erasmus had an inadequate number of Greek mss., so he liberally back-translated long portions; etc.).

Unfortunately, I found Reeves’ article disappointing.

He begins promisingly by noting the “mythology” surrounding Erasmus’ Greek NT. Unfortunately, he then proceeds to further scholarly myth by noting “Erasmus’ slapdash effort to bring the text to print” and his stepping “into a quagmire of textual criticism.” He adds, with overmuch flourish, that “the tale is embellished to the point of being an overfed caricature of Reformation hagiography.”

He proceeds to note how Erasmus “cobbled together a series of Greek texts” with his supposedly “flawless” (very odd adjective used here) humanistic skill that “fueled the rise of textual, linguistic, and scholarly work on the Bible.”

Having inadvertently promoted a number of Erasmian myths, we finally get to what Reeves says is the real Erasmian myth:  a misunderstanding of the historical context in which his Greek NT appeared. The “first misstep” is “the idea that Greek had been completely lost until the sixteenth century.”  According to Reeves, there was robust interest in the Biblical languages prior to the Reformation and Catholics only staked out dogmatic commitments to the Latin Vulgate after the Reformation.  I know this is only a popular blog post and not an academic article, and certainly not an academic monograph, but at this point I wanted to say:  What?  Can Reeves please give the evidence for this?  Sure, there was some interest in the Biblical languages prior to the Reformation but was not one of the guiding slogans of the Reformers ad fontes, back to the sources?  Was this not a significant insight and commitment of the Reformers which distinguished them from the pre-Reformation RC theologians?  Was this not fueled by an array of providential circumstances, like the fall of Constantinople and the movement of Greek mss. (both pagan and Christian works) and Greek-speaking scholars into Western Europe and the rise of Renaissance humanist interest in the classical age? Even Wycliffe made his English translation from the Latin, did he not?  Yes, only after the Reformation had begun did Trent codify RC views on the Vulgate’s authority and the Westminster Confession declare that the Scriptures are only immediately inspired in the original languages, but were not these developments the result of the inherently conflicting visions of Catholics and Protestants that was at the heart of the Reformation dispute about the Bible?

Reeves then proceeds to assert that Erasmus was not a true “Greek scholar by today’s standards.”  He did not have modern 1400 page grammars.  He only spent five years learning Greek while in Cambridge from 1510-1515.  There are several things that do not seem quite right with this assessment.  First, in his celebrated biography of Erasmus [see Erasmus of Christendom, p. 59], Roland Bainton states that the Dutch humanist “learned the rudiments” of Greek before ever coming to England and had used several Greek quotations in his 1500 work Adages.  By the time he left for Paris he supposedly declared he would rather spend his money buying Greek books than clothes! More importantly, Erasmus was a peerless classical scholar and brilliant linguist.  Men of his generation had a facility with ancient languages that cannot be duplicated in the modern scene.   He was hardly held back by lacking a modern Greek grammar (even one with 1400 pages!).

Reeves also strangely suggests that Erasmus had a naïve view of the Greek manuscripts of the NT, thinking he need “only to walk into a library, find several editions [sic; rather:  manuscripts] of the Greek text, and then head off to the publisher.”  Erasmus has indeed often been faulted for the relatively few Greek mss. he used to compile his Greek NT.  Given, however, that his text was based on the Majority or Byzantine text, scores of mss. were hardly necessary.  A single Byzantine ms. would be basically the same as hundreds of others.  Nevertheless, Erasmus exercised due diligence in seeking out Greek ms. evidence as it was available to him, apparently even writing to compare readings in Codex Vaticanus in Rome.  Reeves repeats the popular anecdote about back translation of the ending of Revelation, but this assertion is not easily verifiable and Reeves provides no references (again, it is a popular blog post and not an academic article).  He throws out other anecdotes regarding Erasmus “at one point" adding a phrase at Acts 9:6 and forgetting “which verses in Revelation were his,” but, again, no hard or specific evidence is provided.  We are only left with questions:  If Erasmus merely considered options for Acts 9:6 but did not adopt them in the end, how can you fault him?  Which verses in Revelation is he talking about?

Reeves furthermore repeats the “rush to print” and the work was "error-laden" myths of Erasmus’ Greek NT.  He even has the audacity to blame Erasmus for creating “one of the great publishing catastrophes in early modern history. Errors in typesetting and transcription appeared everywhere.”  Ouch!  Oxford University Erasmian scholar M. A. Screech does not agree, however, with Reeves’ assessment of Erasmus’ work [see his “introduction” in Anne Reeve, Ed., Erasmus’ Annotations on the NT:  The Gospels, p. xii).  He describes the idea that Erasmus “hurriedly skimped” in his editing work on the Greek NT in order to beat the Spaniards to print as a “legend, repeated from book to book for a century or more.”  He also says that the Annotations “were remarkably free from misprints” and “even the Greek NT is not quite so full of them as is often alleged.”

Yes, Erasmus’ work was not well received by some in his day, most especially by those committed to the RC church, who did not welcome his challenge to the Vulgate.  As Reeves rightly points out and other scholars (like H. J. de Jonge) have solidly explained, Erasmus’ first concern in the Novum Instrumentum was his own new Latin translation.  His Greek text was a supplement to the Latin.  Early Reformers (like Luther, Tyndale, and even Calvin) no doubt used Erasmus, but it was the later printed editions of the TR from Protestant scholars like Stephanus and Beza that would have wider influence.  Reeves fails to note this.

The “second misstep” which Reeves identifies is the supposed assumption that the early Reformers could learn biblical languages “without limits.”  This is another place where I’d like citations.  Who has assumed this, for example?

He notes especially the weaknesses of the early Reformers with Hebrew.  Two objections:  (1) Reeves provides no specific examples but only generalities; (2) He fails to note that the transmission of the Hebrew Bible did not depend on the Reformers but on the Masoretic scribes.

One of the main rubs I have with Reeves throughout is that he seems to assert that we know the Bible and the Biblical languages better now than the Reformers did.  We may have “a comedy of riches” (strange term) at our digital fingertips but this does not mean we have the mastery and discipline of the great men of the Reformation.   Would Luther’s access to the Dead Sea Scrolls or to the Akkadian language really have made him a better expositor of justification by faith?  Does a modern seminary graduate really finish his degree with “a stronger foundation in biblical grammar” than Erasmus had?

Yes, 2016 marks 500 years since Erasmus’ Greek NT was published.  It is a work still surrounded by myths.  I am afraid Reeves has added to this condition rather than alleviated it.

JTR