When Erasmus, at Cambridge in 1512, began to mark up his copy of the Vulgate Bible with a few alternative Latin translations and a biting comment here and there in Latin, he could not have guessed that his work would grow over the next twenty-three years into the twenty volumes currently being produced as annotated translations in The Collected Works of Erasmus. His Paraphrases vastly expanded the text of the New Testament books, and brought dynamic and controversial interpretations to the traditional reading of the Latin texts. A new translation based on the Greek text, the first ever to be published by a printing firm, became the basis for ever-expanding notes that explained the Greek, measured the contemporary church against the truth revealed by the Greek, taunted critics and opponents, and revealed the mind of a humanist at work on the Scriptures. The sheer vastness of the work that finally accumulated is almost beyond the reach of a single individual. Through excerpts chosen over the entire extent of Erasmus’ New Testament work, this book hopes to reduce that immensity to manageable size, and bring the rich, virtually unlimited treasure of the Erasmian mind on the Scriptures within the comfortable reach of every interested individual.

In 1516, Erasmus of Rotterdam's version of the New Testament, featuring the editio princeps of the Greek text, a revised Latin translation and comprehensive annotations, was published by Johann Froben in Basel. The edition proved to be of great significance for the history of scholarship and books. This volume is based on a conference held in Basel in anticipation of the first edition's forthcoming 500th anniversary. Contributions by 15 internationally acknowledged specialists provide a comprehensive overview of the latest research results on this epochal edition. Contributors: Patrick Andrist, Marie Barral-Baron, Andrew J. Brown, Christine Christ-von Wedel, Ignacio Garcinilla, Kaspar von Greyerz, Sundar Henny, August den Hollander, Jan Krans, Greta Kroeker, Miekske van Poll-van de Lisdonk, Erika Rummel, Valentina Sebastiani, Silvana Seidel Menchi, Mark Vessey, Martin Wallraff

Beyond What is Written examines Erasmus' and Beza's multiple editions of the New Testament and the vast body of annotations which accompany these editions. This study provides a new understanding of the many conjectures on the New Testament text proposed by these two renowned scholars as part of their New Testament projects. As a consequence, it not only elucidates their different approaches to New Testament textual criticism, but also clarifies the nature and role of conjectural emendation in sixteenth-century scholarship. As a piece of historical research, this investigation into conjectures in the work of Erasmus and Beza also contributes to the ongoing debate on the nature and task of textual criticism today. The study is an important publication for textual critics and exegetes of the New Testament, as well as for historians of the Renaissance and the Reformation.

The “riveting” story of Erasmus, Martin Luther, and the rivalry between the reformer and the dissident: “An impressive, powerful intellectual history.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) At a time when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were revolutionizing Western art and culture, Erasmus of Rotterdam was helping to transform Europe’s intellectual and religious life, developing a new design for living for a continent rebelling against the hierarchical constraints of the Roman Church. When in 1516 he came out with a revised edition of the New Testament based on the original Greek, he was hailed as the prophet of a new enlightened age. Today, however, Erasmus is largely forgotten, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Martin Luther. As a young friar in remote Wittenberg, Luther was initially a great admirer of Erasmus and his critique of the Catholic Church, but while Erasmus sought to reform that institution from within, Luther wanted a more radical transformation. Eventually, the differences between them flared into a bitter rivalry, with each trying to win over Europe to his vision. In Fatal Discord, Michael Massing seeks to restore Erasmus to his proper place in the Western tradition. The conflict between him and Luther, he argues, forms a fault line in Western thinking—the moment when two enduring schools of thought, Christian humanism and evangelical Christianity, took shape. A seasoned journalist who has reported from many countries, Massing here travels back to the early sixteenth century to recover a long-neglected chapter of Western intellectual life, in which the introduction of new ways of reading the Bible set loose social and cultural forces that helped shatter the millennial unity of Christendom and whose echoes can still be heard today in the cultural differences between America and Europe. “A sprawling narrative around the rift between the two men, laying out the sociological, political and economic factors that shaped both them and Europe’s responses to them.” —The New York Times

Desiderius Eramsus (1466/9-1536) was the most renowned scholar of his age, a celebrated humanist and Classicist, and the first teacher of Greek at Cambridge. An influential figure in the Protestant Reformation, though without ever breaking from the Church himself, he satirised both human folly and the corruption of the Church. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was the founder of the German Reformation. His 95 Theses became a manifesto for reform of the Catholic Church and led to his being tried for heresy. He remained in Germany, Professor of Biblical Exegesis at the University of Wittenburg, until his death, publishing a large number of works, including three major treatises and a translation of the New Testament into German. Comprising Erasmus's "The Free Will" and Luther's "The Bondage of the Will", Discourse on Free Will is a landmark text in the history of Protestantism. Encapsulating the perspective on free will of two of the most important figures in the history of Christianity, it remains to this day a powerful, thought-provoking and timely work.