Poor Erasmus

Who is Erasmus?

Desiderius Erasmus was a Renaissance Latin and Greek scholar who developed a system for non-native speakers to learn Greek. His system diverged from how Greek was spoken during his day in that he assigned different phonemes to the vowels and consonants, differentiating them when spoken. His method greatly enhanced a copyist to duplicate accurately the Greek New Testament. In addition, his approach allowed non-natives to learn rapidly to read the Greek New Testament.

Erasmus’ pronunciation gained a foothold in 1588 A.D. when two British professors at Cambridge began to use his method in their Greek classes. The classes were such a success that the approach spread rapidly to other schools, including Bible colleges, universities, and seminaries, both in Great Britain and eventually the United States. Erasmus’ pronunciation method proliferated when many New Testament Greek professors also used his pronunciation in their grammars.

SOURCE: Introduction to NTGreek by William Ramey

That's Erasmus. Unbelievable and amazing. He wrote other great works and his biography from other websites tell a lot of other stories, but can you imagine, reconstructing an ancient Biblical language? Can there be something more productive during his time?  It not like creating Klingon (a fun-crazy language) which is trivial, at best.

Now why did I call him poor Erasmus? Therein lies the rub!

As I've mentioned, Erasmus made other achievements and one of them is the Novum Instrumentum omne, the first published New Testament in Greek.

There were 5 editions but I'd like you to take notice of the 2nd. It was published in 1519 and here's an excerpt: 

That's 1 Jn 5: 7 and a portion of verse 8 (yes, we're still talking about that). Here's an english translation of those verses from the New American Standard:

For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood

After 3 years, the 3rd edition was published. Check this out:

The Codex Sinaiticus is really much easier to read. Anyway, here's the King James Version of that greek text:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

I know I already discussed this in my previous article, that the "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" part are not in the earlier koine greek manuscripts. But why do you think Erasmus, who knows this, that's why it's not in the 1st and 2nd edition, decided, after 3 years to insert this spurious trinity phrase in his 3rd edition? Why? Therein lies the rub.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... (drum roll please)...

The 1 Jn 5:7 Conspiracy 

From W. Hall Harris book, 1, 2, 3 John - Comfort and Counsel for a Church in Crisis, page 214:

One of Erasmus' most vocal critics was Stunica, one of the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot, who charged that Erasmus' text lacked the trinitarian affirmation of 1 JN 5:7-8.

Erasmus responded that he had not found any Greek manuscript containing these words...

Stunica was probably the 15th century's greatest bully.

The manuscripts that this bully, Jacobus Stunica, used for the Complutensian Polyglot were actually just from the 10th century and later. So no wonder there. Anyway Stunica's bullying was so fierce that the Catholic Cardinal Ximenes rebuked Stunica saying:

I would that all might thus prophesy; produce what is better, if thou canst ; do not condemn the industry of another

Nevertheless, the psychological attack of Stunica was effective. Erasmus was persuaded to include in his 3rd edition, which was the basis of the King James Version, which is not found in earlier manuscripts, to add that spurious, bogus, phony, trinitarian phrase.

Poor Erasmus.


PS
To know more about the leaders of our Church, kindly check this out: http://www.mcgi.org/about/leaders/