Reformation’s Published New Testament from Original Greek.
(*Marked editions were the six Reformation New Testaments.)
1. 1400 Islam invades Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) forcing Greek scholars to flee into Europe with their invaluable Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.
2. 1439 Gutenberg invents the printing press.
3. 1450 The printing of Europe’s first book: the Latin Bible of Rome in polyglot format.
4. 1516 The Renaissance Dutch scholar Erasmus prints the Greek New Testament.
5. 1517 Martin Luther begins the Reformation at the University of Wittenberg.
6. 1522: Luther publishes the New Testament in German from Erasmus Greek NT
7. *1526: William Tyndale publishes the first English edition using Erasmus Greek NT
8. 1527: The pope burns and bans Tyndale’s English New Testament (NT)
9. *1535: The Crown (UK) unwittingly publishes Miles Coverdale Bible, (Tyndale NT).
10. *1537: The Crown (UK) unwittingly again prints the tabooed Tyndale N.T. of John Rogers under the pseudonym: Thomas Matthew’s Bible, (includes nine OT books).
11. *1539, The Crown (UK) prints The Great Bible, a Miles Coverdale revised edition of the Thomas Matthew Bible (Tyndale NT reprinted).
12. Changed English monarch (RC) forces Puritan scholars, translators, & publishers to flee to Geneva (Switzerland) as a refuge and safe harbour.
13. *1560, Geneva Bible published. Widely used by Shakespeare & American colonies.
14. *1611: King James Bible, the sixth and last Bible of the Reformation using the Greek New Testament of Erasmus.
The English Inquisition saw arrests, torture, imprisonment, and execution of those who dared defy the conflicting powers of Canterbury (Roman), the monarchy, the Holy Roman Empire’s pontiff in Germany, and the pontiff in Rome itself. Even Henry 8th at first pro-Protestant, later banned reading or possessing the Tyndale NT of 1526 and 1534.
As Tyndale was burning on the stake in 1536 he was also strangled to stifle his stentorian prayer’s voice: “That the eyes of the king (UK) be opened.” Within the year came the miraculous Crown publications of the very same contraband New Testament of Tyndale in various formats, under Puritans like Coverdale and Rogers. His prayer had been speedily answered and its impact changed the English speaking world’s culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
The humanist 18th C Age of Enlightenment led to the 19th C replacement of the Erasmus Greek New Testament by Westcott & Hort, the basis for all the so-called new and better translations of the Bible unleashing the covert denigration of the Scriptures’ final authority present today.
Originating in German rationalism it hatched liberal modernism and Higher Bible Criticism. Each of these unholy branches of academia conveniently rejected Reformation scholars, translators, and publishers. In so doing it invented its own hermeneutic of private interpretation, condemned by the New Testament.
This ejection of the Byzantine tradition included the Elzevir Brothers’ Received Text published by Stephanus, (Robert Etienne) the well known French publisher. He also versified the English New Testament of Tyndale to make its twenty-seven books more readable. All of such work was due to the monolithic translating work of Erasmus in 1516, rendering the New Testament for the first time in its original language.
One main influence in the vacuum created by the false scholarship of the 18th C was the re-elevation of the ancient Vatican manuscript: Codex Vaticanus. The second significant portentous change under Roman and pro-Roman liberal scholars of the 19th C was the highlighting of another non-Byzantine manuscript: the Codex Sinaiticus.
It was discovered at Mt. Sinai monastery by Count von Tischendorf in the 1840s. He opined that both Codices were scribed by the same hand around the same period as Emperor Constantine, who founded the Church of Rome. The new emperor with the recruited team of Bishop Eusebius re-translated the 3rd C Old Latin NT and ordered his team to scribe fifty new Latin Bibles from it. Reformed and Puritan scholars later purged five of the added seven sacraments of Constantine in deference to the Greek New Testament’s originality.
Rome’s Counter-Reformation continued denigration of Reformation scholarship against the Erasmus Greek New Testament was the undercurrent, not always visible to the naked eye of the politically correct wings of Christendom today.
THE CONTINUING COUNTER-REFORMATION OF 16th & 17th C VIA ACADEMIA.
• 1568, Bishops Bible more for Roman Catholics, not liked by Queen Elizabeth.
• 1582: Douai-Reims New Testament for Catholics: against Protestants
• 1609-10: Douai-Reims Old Testament for Catholics: against Protestants
