However, it was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that a Greek “New Testament” was produced for general circulation. The printer of it was a man named Froben, of Basel, Switzerland. He commissioned Erasmus, a leading scholar of the time, to rush through a Greek “New Testament.” This Erasmus did in ten months, and it appeared in 1516. Because of the haste with which he worked, its text was filled with errors. Many of these were gradually eliminated in further editions that appeared in 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535.

In the preface of his text Erasmus wrote: “I vehemently dissent from those [the Church of Rome] who would not have private persons read the Holy Scriptures, nor have them translated into the vulgar tongue,” that is, into the language of the common people. While in his editions he also made critical remarks about the Roman Catholic clergy, Erasmus never summoned up sufficient zeal or courage to give the common people of Europe the benefit of God’s Word by translating it into one of their own tongues.

THE “RECEIVED TEXT”

The text of Erasmus was a literary sensation. This, together with its reasonable price, resulted in its becoming the first Bible “best seller.” In fact, it might be said that his editions really started something, for then one publisher after another brought out his own editions. Among these were the Parisian Stephanus, the Swiss Beza and the Dutch Elzevir; none of whose editions, however, differed greatly from Froben’s Erasmus text. Luther used the 1519 edition of Erasmus for his own translation into German. Among the editions based on Erasmus’ text was one that became the Textus Receptus or the Received Text for Great Britain and the basis for many English versions including the Christian Greek Scripture portion of the King James Version.

How good was this Received Text? There was no question about its being the Word of God. However, it did leave much to be desired as far as accuracy was concerned, and that for more than one good reason. First of all, Erasmus was able to consult only a handful of Greek manuscripts.a Even more serious was the fact that all of these were of late origin. As a rule, the older a handwritten manuscript is, the fewer copying errors it is likely to have. Then there was also the matter of the haste with which Erasmus did his work. He himself admitted that his edition was “rushed through rather than edited.”

In spite of these unfavorable aspects of the editions by Erasmus, which applied with almost equal force to the Received Text, this text remained the standard for more than two hundred years.