Wednesday, May 12, 2021

From Byzantium to Luther. The Majority Text and the Printing Press - Rough Draft.
The Bible Book: The KJV Reborn for Those Who Love the Word of God

The wine press became the printing press.

The Ottoman Empire

            After the prophet Mohammed died, in 632 AD, his enemies rose up to remove his influence from Arabia. Instead, his followers countered and wiped out all active opposition.

The Byzantine Empire was protected against invasion until the growth of the Ottoman Empire in the 1300s. Byzantium did not have a warlike culture, but the Muslims were active in conquest. By 1453, the Byzantine Empire had been whittled down to Constantinople alone, and it fell on May 29th. The last emperor of Constantinople, who died fighting, was named Constantine, just as the last emperor of Rome was named Romulus and died fighting in 476, which was considered the end of the Roman Empire.

Constantinople became Istanbul by combining the Greek words for “into the city.”[1] The great and golden metropolis was simply called “The City,” just as New York City is today. A lawyer who worked in New York said to us, “I can do my work in the suburbs, so I seldom have to go into the City.” He added, “That is how we tell newcomers from old hands. New York is simply The City.”

The fall of Constantinople was accompanied by Greek scholars and artists fleeing to Europe with their treasures, which initiated the Renaissance. Ancient Greek culture was admired and copied in many ways, and the Greek New Testament came to replace the Vulgate. Thus the end of the two empires, Rome and Byzantine, mark the beginning and end of the Middle Ages.

The fall of Rome facilitated the Church in governing Europe, with its common language – Latin – and its network of bishops and priests. The struggle began, not the first, but the most effective, the Gospel versus the Antichrist.

 

 Was Jerome's the first Latin Bible - no.
The first was based on the Majority Text.


The Old Latin Version and Jerome’s Vulgate - Apocrypha

 

 The Latin version of the New Testament seems to come to life in the fifth century after Christ, with Jerome creating the Vulgate. However, that is far off, because the Old Latin version was actually translated around 150 AD. The difference is that the Old Latin and the Vulgate have different sources. The Old Latin uses the Traditional Text, the other is the Vaticanus, the opposing minority version Tischendorf and Hort adored and exalted. This fact introduces the concept that there are two basic traditions for the New Testament. One was copied voluminously and left behind thousands of examples – the Majority Text. The other  is the corrupted Vatican and Sinaiticus, deviously promoted by Tischendorf, who “discovered” both, then fashioned the Standard Text by Westcott, Hort, Nestle, and Aland.

The Traditional Text in its many variations and translations became important for the independent Waldenses, who in turn influenced Luther’s translation. The story of these people is one of extreme persecution and hardship.

 

The Waldensians – Key to Luther’s Bible

            Most of us think of New Testament development as Greek – Latin – Erasmus - Luther – KJV, omitting the Waldenses and many others. The path is not so simple, as the Old Latin and Vulgate show. The Waldenses persecution is taught in church history classes, but the story does not get the lasting recognition it deserves. Wylie argues that the original idea came from a poem, Nobla Leycon.[2] An opponent of the movement, Rorenco, declared the movement was ancient.[3] The name of the group comes from Peter Waldo, a merchant who sold his business and gave the money to the poor toward the end of the 1100s. Others followed him, which contributed to a tradition of voluntary poverty, lay preaching, and evangelism. They did not agree with the Roman pope and already had a tradition of independence from Rome. The Waldenses were discussed at the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils. They were prevented from preaching without permission from Rome. Persecution arose and they escaped to the mountains of Northern Italy.

            John Milton penned the sonnet, which touches upon the violence against the Waldenses

Sonnet 18

On the Late Massacre in Piedmont (1655)

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow

O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[4]

 

Waldenses Bible

            The Waldenses endured horrific persecution from the Church of Rome, which made them the forerunner of the Reformation.[5] Studying one book on the long history of the Waldensians will show that the Vatican did not control all of Europe, and people stood up to the false claims and teachings of the pope. They had Bibles translated into their languages, and these Bibles influenced Luther and the King James editors in the language and Greek manuscripts used. They followed the Majority Text tradition and not minority Vaticanus.

 

Erasmus – The Reformer Who Stayed in the Church

            Roman Catholic priests and nuns remember Erasmus, and not always with fondness. One priest visited Notre Dame University, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, to promote the social activism goals of his group. A nun confronted him. “There you go, just like Erasmus, turning Protestant and going secular.” Erasmus received a dispensation to wear secular clothes, and he enjoyed the friendship of many powerful people. That remains the paradox of Erasmus, because he starting the wagon going downhill to start the Reformation – then he jumped off. Or – he laid the egg that Luther hatched.

            Those analogies overlook the slow and bloody build-up of the Reformation, a seeming series of defeats by papal armies and allies. By accident, or God’s design, one man decided to make a lot of money by producing fake hand-made Bibles, extremely valuable. To do so they had to use a new invention and design the fonts and fancy-work. When expensive volumes looked identical, impossible with hand-drawn work, the scheme blew up. The outcome made printed Bibles and religious books far less expensive, because Gutenberg turned a wine press into a printing press. This was so simple that everyone copied the design and created their own publishing companies. Thus the budding reform movements against the Vatican - which had been impeded by exile, execution, slavery, torture, and warfare – were given protection and speed by the printed Word of God.


[1] εις την Πόλιν

[2] The Nobla Leycon though a poem, is in reality a confession of faith, and could have been composed only after some considerable study of the system of Christianity, in contradistinction to the errors of Rome. Wylie, J.A. . The History of the Waldenses (p. 8). Kindle Edition.

[3] Yet he states that "they were not a new sect in the ninth and tenth centuries, and that Claude of Turin must have detached them from the Church in the ninth century." Wylie, J.A. . The History of the Waldenses (p. 8). Kindle Edition.

[4] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44747/sonnet-18-avenge-o-lord-thy-slaughterd-saints-whose-bones. The actual slaughters are too horrible to print. They are haunting, focused on the innocent, and impossible to forget.

[5] Jack Moorman, Forever Settled, pp. 227ff.