Novum Instrumentum omne - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Novum Instrumentum omne was the first published New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

(1516). It was prepared by Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus , known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and a theologian....

(1469–1536) and printed by Johann Froben

Johann Froben

Johann Froben, in Latin: Johannes Frobenius , was a famous printer and publisher in Basel...

(1460–1527) of Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

. Although the first printed Greek New Testament was the Complutensian Polyglot

Complutensian Polyglot Bible

The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the name given to the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible, initiated and financed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros . It includes the first printed editions of the Greek New Testament, the complete Septuagint, and the Targum Onkelos...

(1514), it was the second to be published (1522). Erasmus used several Greek manuscripts housed in Basel, but some passages he translated from the Latin Vulgate.

Five editions of Novum Instrumentum omne were published. Of these four and five were not regarded as being so important as the third edition (1522), which was used by Tyndale for the first English New Testament (1526) and later by translators of the Geneva Bible

Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...

and the King James Version. With the third edition, the Comma Johanneum

Comma Johanneum

The Comma Johanneum is a comma in the First Epistle of John according to the Latin Vulgate text as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages, based on Vetus Latina minority readings dating to the 7th century...

was included. The Erasmian edition was the basis for the majority of modern translations of New Testament in the 16–19th centuries.

First edition

In 1512 Erasmus had been in negotiation with Badius Ascensius of Paris to publish the Vulgate

Vulgate

The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

of Jerome and a new edition of Adagia

Adagia

Adagia is an annotated collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled during the Renaissance by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus. Erasmus' collection of proverbs is "one of the most monumental ... ever assembled" Adagia (adagium is the singular form and adagia is the plural) is an...

. It did not happen, and Erasmus did not continue contacts with Badius. At that time Erasmus did not think about a Greek New Testament. It is uncertain when Erasmus decided to prepare his edition of the Greek New Testament, but on a visit to Basel in August 1514 he contacted Johann Froben. Many scholars believe that Froben had heard about the forthcoming Spanish Polyglot Bible

Complutensian Polyglot Bible

, and tried to overtake the project of Alcala (e.g. S. P. Tregelles

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was an English biblical scholar, textual critic, and theologian.- Life :Tregelles was born at Wodehouse Place, Falmouth, of Quaker parents, but he himself for many years was in communion with the Plymouth Brethren and then later in life became a Presbyterian...

). Some scholars doubt this motivation of Froben (e.g. Bruce Metzger

Bruce Metzger

Bruce Manning Metzger was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament and Old Testament, and wrote prolifically on these subjects.- Biography :Metzger was born in Middletown,...

), because there is no evidence to support it. Most likely he included the Greek text to prove the superiority of his Latin version.

The next meeting took the place in April 1515 at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. As a result, in July of 1515 Erasmus came to Basel and started his work. Johannes Oecolampadius

Johannes Oecolampadius

Johannes Œcolampadius was a German religious reformer. His real name was Hussgen or Heussgen .-Life:He was born in Weinsberg, then part of the Electoral Palatinate...

served as his editorial assistant and Hebrew consultant. Erasmus did not take any Greek manuscripts to Basel, hoping to find some there. He borrowed some manuscripts from the Dominican Library at the Basel. He used seven manuscripts, they were identified:


Manuscript	\|Content	Minuscule 1^eap Minuscule 1 Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 2, Minuscule 1 , δ 254 ; formerly it was designated by 1eap...	the entire NT except Revelation Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...	12th century

Minuscule1^rK Minuscule 2814 Minuscule 2814 , Aν20 . Formerly it was labelled as 1rK in all catalogues, but it was renumbered as a 2814 by Aland. It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, dated palaeographically to the 12th century....	Book of Revelation Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...	12th century

Minuscule 2^e Minuscule 2 Codex Basiliensis A. N. IV. 1, known as Minuscule 2 , ε 1214 . It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, dated palaeographically to the 11th or 12th century. It was used by Erasmus in his edition of Greek text of the New Testament and became the basis for the Textus Receptus in the...	Gospel Gospel A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John... s	12th century

Minuscule 2^ap Minuscule 2815 Minuscule 2815 , α 253 . Formerly was labelled as 2ap in all catalogues, but it was renumbered by Aland.It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 12th century....	Acts and Epistles	12th century

Minuscule 4^ap Minuscule 2816 Minuscule 2816 , α597 . Formerly was labelled as 4ap in all catalogs, but it was renumbered by Aland...	Pauline epistles	15th century

Minuscule 7^p Minuscule 2817 Minuscule 2817 , α 287 . Formerly it was labeled as 7pK in all catalogs, but it was renumbered by Gregory, because two manuscripts had number 7...	Pauline epistles	12th century

Minuscule 817 Minuscule 817 (Gregory-Aland) Minuscule 817 , Θε52 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament written on paper, with a commentary. It was used by Erasmus...	Gospels	15th century

Manuscripts 1^eap and 1^rK Erasmus borrowed from Johannes Reuchlin. The rest of the manuscripts he borrowed from Dominicans

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

.Most of the manuscripts came from the collection that had been bequethed in 1443 to the Dominican monastery at Basle by John of Ragusa

John of Ragusa

John of Ragusa was a Croatian Dominican theologian. He died at Lausanne, Switzerland in 1443.He was president of the Council of Basle, and a legate to Constantinople...

; see Bo Reicke, Erasmus und die neutestamentliche Textgeschichte, Theologische Zeitschrift, XXII (1966), pp. 254-265. It is significant that he did not use the Codex Basilensis, which was held at the Basel University Library

Basel University Library

The University Library of Basle is one of the biggest libraries in Switzerland. It is located at the University of Basel, at 18 – 20 Schönbeinstrasse. It is also Kantonsbibliothek of Basel-City....

, and was available for him. Erasmus had three manuscripts of the Gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

s and Acts, four manuscripts of the Pauline epistles

Pauline epistles

The Pauline epistles, Epistles of Paul, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen New Testament books which have the name Paul as the first word, hence claiming authorship by Paul the Apostle. Among these letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents...

, but only one manuscript with the Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

. In every book of the New Testament he compared three or four manuscripts, except the last book, Book of Revelation. Unfortunately, this manuscript was not complete, it lacked the final leaf, which contained the last six verses of the book. Instead of delaying the publication, on account of the search for another manuscript, he decided to translate the missing verses from the Latin Vulgate

Vulgate

into Greek. He used a corrupted manuscript of Vulgate with textual variant libro vitae (book of life) instead ligno vitae (tree of life) in Rev 22:14. Even in other parts of the Book of Revelation and other books of the New Testament Erasmus occasionally introduced self-created Greek text material taken from the Vulgate. F. H. A. Scrivener

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

The Reverend Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, LL.D. was an important text critic of the New Testament and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible...

remarked, that in Rev 17:4 he created new a Greek word: ακαθαρτητος (instead τα ακαθαρτα). There is no such word in Greek language as ακαθαρτητος. In Rev 17:8 he used καιπερ εστιν (and yet is) instead of και παρεσται (and shall come). In Acts 9:6 the question that Paul asks at the time of his conversion on the Damascus road, Τρέμων τε καὶ θαμβὣν εἲπεν κύριε τί μέ θέλεις ποιῆσαι ("And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will you have me to do?") was incorporated from the Vulgate.Hills

Edward F. Hills

Edward Freer Hills was an American Presbyterian scholar, perhaps the greatest 20th Century Traditional Text, and Received Text defender. Dr. Hills integrates his theological perspective alongside New Testament criticism....

concluded that Erasmus was divinely guided when he introduced Latin Vulgate readings into his Greek text. See Edward F. Hills, King James Version Defended!, pp. 199-200.

The printing began on 2 October 1515, and in very short time was finished (1 March 1516). It was produced in great hurry, with typographical errors, and was unusually titled:

Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum, non solum ad Graecam veritatem verum etiam ad multorum utiusq; linguae codicum eorumq; veterum simul et emendatorum fidem, postremo ad probatissimorum autorum citationem, emendationem et interpretationem, praecipue, Origenis, Chrysostomi, Cyrilli, Vulgarij, Hieronymi, Cypriani, Ambrosij, Hilaryj, Augustini, una cum annotatines, quae lectorem doceant, quid qua ratione mutatum sit.

This title, especially words: Novum Instrumentum ... Recognitum et Emendatum, means New Testament... Revised and Improved. This title must refer to the Latin text of Vulgate, not to any Greek text, because at that time there was not a printed edition of the Greek New Testament in circulation. In his dedication to Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...

, Erasmus says:

I perceived that that teaching which is our salvation was to be had in a much purer and more lively form if sought at the fountain-head and drawn from the actual sources than from pools and runnels. And so I have revised the whole New Testament (as they call it) against the standard of the Greek original... I have added annotations of my own, in order in the first place to show the reader what changes I have made, and why; second, to disentangle and explain anything that may be complicated, ambiguous, or obscure.

It was a bilingual edition, the Greek text was in a left column, Latin in a right column, and it is clear, the Greek text was not the first target of this edition, it was the Latin text of Vulgate.

Second edition

The reception of the first edition was mixed, but within three years a second was made. The second edition used the more familiar term Testamentum instead of Instrumentum. In the second edition (1519) Erasmus also used Minuscule 3

Minuscule 3

Minuscule 3 , δ 253 . It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on a parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century...

(entire NT except Revelation; 12th century). The text was changed in about 400 places, with most—though not all—of the typographical errors corrected. Some new error readings were added to the text. In this edition the text of Jerome's Vulgate Erasmus replaced by his own more elegant translation. The Latin translation had a good reception. After this edition, Erasmus was involved in many polemics and controversies. Particularly objectionable were the annotations from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

López de Zúñiga, known as Stunica, one of the editors of Ximenes Complutensian Polyglot, reproached to Erasmus, that his text lacked part of the 1 John 5:7-8 (Comma Johanneum

Comma Johanneum

). Erasmus replied that he had not found it in any Greek manuscript. Stunica answered that Latin manuscripts are more reliable than Greek. In 1520 Edward Lee accused Erasmus of encouraging Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

. Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscript that contained these words, he answered that this was a case not of omission, but simply of non-addition. He showed that even some Latin manuscripts did not contain these words.

Another attack was made in 1521 by Paulus Bombasius, the prefect of the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

, because in Greek text Erasmus departed from the common readings of the Vulgate. He informed Erasmus that in the Vatican Library is held an extremely ancient copy of the Scriptures (i.e. Codex Vaticanus). He sent two extracts from this manuscript containing 1 John 4:1-3 and 1 John 5:7-11 (it did not include Comma).

The second edition became the basis for Luther's

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

translation.

Third edition

With the third edition of Erasmus's Greek text (1522) the Comma Johanneum

Comma Johanneum

was included. An often repeated story is that Erasmus included it, because he felt bound by a promise to include it if a manuscript was found that contained it. When a single 16th-century Greek manuscript subsequently had been found to contain it (Codex Montfortianus

Minuscule 61

Codex Montfortianus designated by 61 , and known as minuscule 61, Erasmus named it Codex Britannicus, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament on paper. It is dated to the early 16th century, though a 15th century date is possible on palaeographic grounds.The manuscript is famous for...

), Erasmus included it, though he expressed doubt as to the authenticity of the passage in his Annotations. Henk Jan de Jonge, a specialist in Erasmian studies, stated that there are no explicit evidence that supports this frequently made assertion concering a specific promise made by Erasmus. The real reason to include the Comma by Erasmus, was his care for his good name and for the success of his Novum Testamentum.

In this edition Erasmus, after using Codex Montfortianus, misprinted εμαις for εν αις in Apocalypse 2:13.

The third edition differed in 118 places from the second.

Oecolampadius

Johannes Oecolampadius

Johannes Œcolampadius was a German religious reformer. His real name was Hussgen or Heussgen .-Life:He was born in Weinsberg, then part of the Electoral Palatinate...

and Gerbelius, Erasmus' subeditors, insisted that he introduce more readings from the minuscule 1 in the third edition. But according to Erasmus the text of this codex was altered from the Latin manuscripts, and had a secondary value.

This edition was used by William Tyndale

William Tyndale

William Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...

for the first English New Testament (1526), by Robert Estienne

Robert Estienne

Robert I Estienne , known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and also referred to as Robert Stephens by 18th and 19th-century English writers, was a 16th century printer and classical scholar in Paris...

as a base for his editions of the Greek New Testament from 1546 and 1549, and by the translators of Geneva Bible

Geneva Bible

and King James Version.

Fourth edition

Shortly after the publication of his third edition, Erasmus had seen the Complutensian Polyglot, and used its text for improvement of his own text. In the Book of Revelation he altered his fourth edition (1527) in about 90 passages on the basis of the Complutensian text. Unfortunately Erasmus had forgotten what places of the Apocalypse he translated from Latin and he did not correct all of them. Except in the Revelation, the fourth edition differed only in about 20 places from his third (according to Mill about 10 places). The fourth edition was printed in three parallel columns, they contain the Greek, Erasmus' own Latin version, and the Vulgate.

In November 1533, before the appearance of the fifth edition, Sepúlveda

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda was a Spanish humanist, philosopher and theologian. In 1533 and 1534 he wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Erasmus's Greek New Testament , and the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209...

sent Erasmus a description of the ancient Vatican manuscript, informing him that it differed from the text which he had edited in favour of the Vulgate in 365 places. We do not know anything about these 365 readings except for one. Erasmus in Adnotationes to Acts 27:16 wrote that according to the Codex from the Library Pontifici (i.e. Codex Vaticanus

Codex Vaticanus

The Codex Vaticanus , is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible , one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, where it has been stored since at least the 15th century...

) name of the island is καυδα (Cauda), not κλαυδα (Clauda) as in his Novum Testamentum.Andrew Birch

Andrew Birch

Andrew Birch was a professor from Copenhagen. Birch was sent in 1781–1783 by the king of Denmark, Christian VII, to examine manuscripts in Italy, Germany, and other European countries.- Life :...

was the first, who identified this note with 365 readings of Sepulveda. In another letter sent to Erasmus in 1534 Sepúlveda informed him, that Greek manuscripts were altered from the Vulgate.

Final edition

The fifth edition of Erasmus, published in 1535, the year before his death, discarded the Vulgate. According to Mill the fifth edition differed only in four places from the fourth.

Editions four and five were not so important as the third edition in the history of the Text of the New Testament.

Popular demand for Greek New Testaments led to a flurry of further authorized and unauthorized editions in the early sixteenth century; almost all of which were based on Erasmus's work and incorporated his particular readings, although typically also making a number of minor changes of their own. Tregelles gives Acts 13:33 as an example of the places in which commonly received text did not follow Erasmian text (εν τω ψαλμω τω πρωτω → εν τω ψαλμω τω δευτερω).

External links

W. L. Adye, The History of the Printed Greek Text of the New Testament, Southampton 1865
The Textus Receptus at the Encyclopedia of Textual Criticism
M. Arhelger, Die Textgrundlage des Neues Testaments, 2006
Johann Jakob Griesbach
Johann Jakob Griesbach
Johann Jakob Griesbach , German biblical textual critic, was born at Butzbach, a small town in the state of Hesse, where his father, Konrad Kaspar , was pastor...

, Novum Testamentum Graece (London, 1809), Prolegomena, p. XVII ff
Henk Jan de Jonge, Novum Testamentum a nobis versum
Henk Jan de Jonge, Erasmus und die Glossa Ordinaria zum Neuen Testament
Henk Jan de Jonge, Erasmus and the Comma Johanneum, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses LXVI (1980), pp. 381–389

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

First edition

Second edition

Third edition

Fourth edition

Final edition

Further reading

External links