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ARE Bible collectors are offering for sale,
Erasmus’ Paraphrases
on the New Testament[English translation], bound with an edition of the GreatBible. It is the only copy on the market today in the world.The price for this second edition is $26,000.
00
. God
gave
methe
first
edition (1548-49), which is now nestled away in a bank vault, following my eye straining analysis of it. Needless to say, I can now tell modern Christians exactlywhat Erasmus (1466?-1536)
believed about most Biblesubjects.
(My rare two-volume set of
Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament
,accompanied by the Great Bible’s New Testament, 1548-49 edition, is being madeavailable on CD-ROM by A.V. Publications.)
Who is this man, whose writings still generate suchinterest? He taught Tyndale, influenced Luther, and
printed
a Greek New Testament that was consulted by the KJVtranslators. His many admirers, who circle the globe, will pay huge sums for his writings; his detractors, whocircumvent the truth, lay wait to tumble his righteous Greek New Testament. J.A. Froude, one of Erasmus
biographersand a Professor of History at Oxford writes,
[T]here had gathered about his name thehate which mean men feel for an enemy whohas proven too strong for them...Thevengeance which the monks could not inflictupon him in life, they proposed to wreak upon his bones
(Froude, J.A.,
Short Studies on Great Subjects
, London: Longmans, 1901, vol. 1, p. 113).
Examining each sparkling facet of his spiritual writings willshed light upon the kind of man God would use to print the
pure
Greek New Testament, which the KJV parallels. Hestands in sharp contrast to doctrinally tainted men, such asB.F. Westcott and Catholic Cardinal Carlo Martini, whoedited Greek New Testaments, which underlie newversions such as the TNIV, NIV, NASB, ESV, and HCSB.Through Erasmus’ eyes we will look at Bibles whose rootsstem from the Apostles and whose branches spread around the globe, bearing the fruit of Reformation Bibles, such asthe German Luther, French Olivetan, Italian Diodati,Spanish Valera, and the King James Bible.
R
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