1.
Textual criticism
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Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants in either manuscripts or printed books. Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand, given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic might seek to reconstruct the original text as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, the ultimate objective of the textual critics work is the production of a critical edition containing a scholarly curated text. There are three approaches to textual criticism, eclecticism, stemmatics, and copy-text editing. Techniques from the discipline of cladistics are currently also being used to determine the relationships between manuscripts. Textual criticism has been practiced for two thousand years. Early textual critics were concerned with preserving the works of antiquity, many ancient works, such as the Bible and the Greek tragedies, survive in hundreds of copies, and the relationship of each copy to the original may be unclear. Textual scholars have debated for centuries which sources are most closely derived from the original, hence which readings in those sources are correct. Although biblical books that are letters, like Greek plays, presumably had one original, interest in applying textual criticism to the Quran has also developed after the discovery of the Sanaa manuscripts in 1972, which possibly date back to the 7–8th centuries. However, the application of textual criticism to non-religious works does not antedate the invention of printing, while Christianity has been relatively receptive to textual criticism, application of it to the Jewish Torah and the Quran is, to the devout, taboo. The business of textual criticism is to produce a text as close as possible to the original, Maas comments further that A dictation revised by the author must be regarded as equivalent to an autograph manuscript. The lack of autograph manuscripts applies to many cultures other than Greek, in such a situation, a key objective becomes the identification of the first exemplar before any split in the tradition. That exemplar is known as the archetype, if we succeed in establishing the text of, the constitutio is considerably advanced. The textual critics ultimate objective is the production of a critical edition and this contains the text that the author has determined most closely approximates the original, and is accompanied by an apparatus criticus or critical apparatus. Before mechanical printing, literature was copied by hand, and many variations were introduced by copyists, the age of printing made the scribal profession effectively redundant. Printed editions, while less susceptible to the proliferation of variations likely to arise during manual transmission, are not immune to introducing variations from an authors autograph. Instead of a scribe miscopying his source, a compositor or a shop may read or typeset a work in a way that differs from the autograph. Since each scribe or printer commits different errors, reconstruction of the lost original is often aided by a selection of readings taken from many sources, an edited text that draws from multiple sources is said to be eclectic
2.
New Testament
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The New Testament is the second major part of the Christian biblical canon, the first part being the Old Testament, based on the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity, Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture. The New Testament has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world and it reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology and morality. Both extended readings and phrases directly from the New Testament are also incorporated into the various Christian liturgies, the New Testament has influenced religious, philosophical, and political movements in Christendom and left an indelible mark on literature, art, and music. In almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books, John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Others give a date of 80 AD, or at 96 AD. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation, other works earlier held to be Scripture, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. However, the canon of the New Testament, at least since Late Antiquity, has been almost universally recognized within Christianity. The term new testament, or new covenant first occurs in Jeremiah 31,31, the same Greek phrase for new covenant is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Modern English, like Latin, distinguishes testament and covenant as alternative translations, John Wycliffes 1395 version is a translation of the Latin Vulgate and so follows different terms in Jeremiah and Hebrews, Lo. Days shall come, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel, for he reproving him saith, Lo. Days come, saith the Lord, when I shall establish a new testament on the house of Israel, use of the term New Testament to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek Scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian. In Against Marcion, written circa 208 AD, he writes of the Divine Word, by the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae and that which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old, but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books that most Christians regard as divinely inspired, several of these writings sought to extend, interpret, and apply apostolic teaching to meet the needs of Christians in a given locality. The book order is the same in the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Slavonic, Armenian and Ethiopian traditions have different New Testament book orders. Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, the word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings. The gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, Gospel is a calque of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion
3.
Ge'ez script
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Geez is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad and was first used to write Geez, now the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called fidäl, the Geez script has been adapted to write other, mostly Semitic, languages, particularly Amharic in Ethiopia, and Tigrinya in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is also used for Sebatbeit, Meen, and most other languages of Ethiopia, in Eritrea it is used for Tigre, and it has traditionally been used for Blin, a Cushitic language. Tigre, spoken in western and northern Eritrea, is considered to resemble Geez more than do the other derivative languages, some other languages in the Horn of Africa, such as Oromo, used to be written using Geez, but have migrated to Latin-based orthographies. For the representation of sounds, this uses a system that is common among linguists who work on Ethiopian Semitic languages. This differs somewhat from the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet, see the articles on the individual languages for information on the pronunciation. The earliest inscriptions of Semitic languages in Eritrea and Ethiopia date to the 9th century BC in Epigraphic South Arabian, after the 7th and 6th centuries BC, however, variants of the script arose, evolving in the direction of the Geez abugida. This evolution can be seen most clearly in evidence from inscriptions in Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, at least one of Wazebas coins from the late 3rd or early 4th century contains a vocalized letter, some 30 or so years before Ezana. It has been argued that the marking pattern of the script reflects a South Asian system. On the other hand, emphatic P̣ait ጰ, a Geez innovation, is a modification of Ṣädai ጸ, while Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ. Thus, there are 24 correspondences of Geez and the South Arabian alphabet, Many of the names are cognate with those of Phoenician. Two alphabets were used to write the Geez language, an abjad and later an abugida. The abjad, used until c.330 AD, had 26 consonantal letters, h, l, ḥ, m, ś, r, s, ḳ, b, t, ḫ, n, ʾ, k, w, ʿ, z, y, d, g, ṭ, p̣, ṣ, ṣ́, f, p Vowels were not indicated. Modern Geez is written left to right. The Geez abugida developed under the influence of Christian scripture by adding obligatory vocalic diacritics to the consonantal letters. The diacritics for the vowels, u, i, a, e, ə, o, were fused with the consonants in a recognizable but slightly irregular way, the original form of the consonant was used when the vowel was ä, the so-called inherent vowel. The resulting forms are shown below in their traditional order, for some consonants, there is an eighth form for the diphthong -wa or -oa, and a ninth for -yä
4.
Codex Vaticanus
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The Codex Vaticanus is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library and it is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century. The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library, portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The Codexs relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were initially unaware of the Codexs value and this changed in the 19th century when transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at point that scholars realised the text differed significantly from the Textus Receptus. Most current scholars consider the Codex Vaticanus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaiticus text, the Codex was unrivaled. It was extensively used by Westcott and Hort in their edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881, the most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus. Codex Vaticanus originally contained a complete copy of the Septuagint, lacking only 1-4 Maccabees. The original 20 leaves containing Genesis 1, 1–46, 28a and Psalm 105, 27–137,2 Kings 2, 5–7, 10-13 are also lost because of a tear to one of the pages. This order differs from that followed in Codex Alexandrinus and these missing leaves were supplemented by a 15th-century minuscule hand and are catalogued separately as the minuscule Codex 1957. Possibly some apocryphal books from the New Testament were included at the end, as it is also possible that Revelation was not included. Luke 17,36,22, 43–44, John 5,4, Pericope Adulterae, Acts 8,37,15,34,24,7,28,29, Romans 16,24. Mark 10,7 – καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, as in codices Sinaiticus, Codex Athous Lavrensis,892, ℓ48, Sinaitic Palimpsest, Mark 10,19 – μη αποστερησης omitted but added by a later corrector. Omission is supported by the manuscripts, P75, Sinaiticus, L, f1700 vg syrs copsa, bo, Luke 23,34 – And Jesus said, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. This omission is supported by the manuscripts P75, Sinaiticusa, D*, W, Θ,0124,1241,27,49 the Codex contains added text, ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἒνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευράν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὖδορ καὶ αἳμα. This reading was derived from John 19,34 and occurs in other manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type, the number of the quires is often found in the margin. Originally it must have composed of 830 parchment leaves. Currently, the Old Testament consists of 617 sheets and the New Testament of 142 sheets, the parchment is fine and thin
5.
Alexandria
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Alexandria is the second largest city and a major economic centre in Egypt, extending about 32 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country. Its low elevation on the Nile delta makes it vulnerable to rising sea levels. Alexandria is Egypts largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypts imports and exports and it is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria is also an important tourist destination, Alexandria was founded around a small Ancient Egyptian town c.331 BC by Alexander the Great. Alexandria was the second most powerful city of the ancient world after Rome, Alexandria is believed to have been founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as Ἀλεξάνδρεια. Alexanders chief architect for the project was Dinocrates, Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley. The city and its museum attracted many of the greatest scholars, including Greeks, Jews, the city was later plundered and lost its significance. Just east of Alexandria, there was in ancient times marshland, as early as the 7th century BC, there existed important port cities of Canopus and Heracleion. The latter was rediscovered under water. An Egyptian city, Rhakotis, already existed on the shore also and it continued to exist as the Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to his city, after Alexanders departure, his viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the expansion. Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandrias continuous development, the Heptastadion, inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the center of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than Carthage. In a century, Alexandria had become the largest city in the world and and it became Egypts main Greek city, with Greek people from diverse backgrounds. Alexandria was not only a center of Hellenism, but was home to the largest urban Jewish community in the world. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Tanakh, was produced there, in AD115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the Kitos War, which gave Hadrian and his architect, Decriannus, an opportunity to rebuild it. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a tsunami, the Islamic prophet, Muhammads first interaction with the people of Egypt occurred in 628, during the Expedition of Zaid ibn Haritha. He sent Hatib bin Abi Baltaeh with a letter to the king of Egypt and Alexandria called Muqawqis In the letter Muhammad said, I invite you to accept Islam, Allah the sublime, shall reward you doubly. But if you refuse to do so, you bear the burden of the transgression of all the Copts
6.
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
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The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the largest Christian Church in Egypt, Northeast Africa and the Middle East. According to tradition, the Church was established by Saint Mark, the head of the Church and the See of Alexandria is the Patriarch of Alexandria on the Holy See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Coptic Pope. The See of Alexandria is titular, and today the Coptic Pope presides from Saint Marks Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The precise Christological differences that caused the split with the Coptic Christians are still disputed, highly technical, the foundational roots of the Coptic Church are based in Egypt, but it has a worldwide following. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, the first Christians in Egypt were common people who spoke Egyptian Coptic. There were also Alexandrian Jews such as Theophilus, whom Saint Luke the Evangelist addresses in the chapter of his gospel. When the church was founded by Saint Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, in the 2nd century, Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local languages, namely Coptic. The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world, St. Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by Saint Mark himself. Origen wrote over 6,000 commentaries of the Bible in addition to his famous Hexapla, many scholars such as Jerome visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars. The scope of this school was not limited to subjects, science, mathematics. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and 15 centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use there by blind scholars to read, the Theological college of the catechetical school was re-established in 1893. Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, by the end of the 5th century, there were hundreds of monasteries, and thousands of cells and caves scattered throughout the Egyptian desert. A great number of these monasteries are still flourishing and have new vocations to this day, countless pilgrims have visited the Desert Fathers to emulate their spiritual, disciplined lives. In the 4th century, an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius began a dispute about the nature of Christ that spread throughout the Christian world and is now known as Arianism. We confess one Baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead, as a consequence of this, he denied the title Mother of God to the Virgin Mary, declaring her instead to be Mother of Christ Christotokos. When reports of this reached the Apostolic Throne of Saint Mark, Pope Saint Cyril I of Alexandria acted quickly to correct this breach with orthodoxy, when he would not, the Synod of Alexandria met in an emergency session and a unanimous agreement was reached. Pope Cyril I of Alexandria, supported by the entire See and this epistle drew heavily on the established Patristic Constitutions and contained the most famous article of Alexandrian Orthodoxy, The Twelve Anathemas of Saint Cyril. In these anathemas, Cyril excommunicated anyone who followed the teachings of Nestorius, for example, Anyone who dares to deny the Holy Virgin the title Theotokos is Anathema
7.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
8.
Reformation
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The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
9.
Geneva Bible
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The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne and it was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower. The Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it was respected by Oliver Cromwells soldiers at the time of the English Civil War. Because the language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous, in the words of Cleland Boyd McAfee, it drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of excellence. The Geneva Bible followed the Great Bible of 1539, the first authorized Bible in English, whittingham was directly responsible for the New Testament, which was complete and published in 1557, while Gilby oversaw the Old Testament. The first full edition of this Bible, with a further revised New Testament, appeared in 1560, over 150 editions were issued, the last probably in 1644. The very first Bible printed in Scotland was a Geneva Bible, some editions from 1576 onwards included Laurence Tomsons revisions of the New Testament. Some editions from 1599 onwards used a new Junius version of the Book of Revelation, the Geneva Bible had also motivated the earlier production of the Bishops Bible under Elizabeth I, for the same reason, and the later Rheims-Douai edition by the Catholic community. The Geneva Bible remained popular among Puritans and remained in use until after the English Civil War. The Geneva notes were included in a few editions of the King James version. Like most English translations of the time, the Geneva Bible was translated from editions of the Greek New Testament. The English rendering was substantially based on the translations by William Tyndale. However, the Geneva Bible was the first English version in all of the Old Testament was translated directly from the Hebrew. The Geneva Bible was the first English Bible to use verse numbers based on the work of Stephanus and it also had an elaborate system of commentary in marginal glosses. This annotation was done by Laurence Tomson, who translated LOiseleurs notes on the Gospels, in 1576 Tomson added LOiseleurs notes for the Epistles, which came from Bezas Greek and Latin edition of the Bible. Beginning in 1599 Franciscus Junius notes on Revelation were added, replacing the original notes deriving from John Bale, bales The Image of both churches had a great effect on these notes as well as Foxes Book of Martyrs. Both the Junius and Bullinger-Bale annotations are explicitly anti-Roman Catholic and representative of much popular Protestant apocalypticism during the Reformation, the 1560 Geneva Bible was printed in Roman type—the style of type regularly used today—but many editions used the older black-letter type. Of the various later English Bible translations, the next to use Roman type was the Douay-Rheims Bible of 1582, the Geneva Bible was also issued in more convenient and affordable sizes than earlier versions
10.
Erasmus
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Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch/Netherlandish Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus was a scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet Prince of the Humanists, and has called the crowning glory of the Christian humanists. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia, Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and he also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps, Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, Desiderius Erasmus is reported to have been born in Rotterdam on 28 October in the late 1460s. He was named after Saint Erasmus of Formiae, whom Erasmuss father Gerard personally favored, a 17th-century legend has it that Erasmus was first named Geert Geerts, but this is unfounded. He was born in Rotterdam, but there are insufficient records to confirm that, a well-known wooden picture indicates, Goudæ conceptus, Roterodami natus. According to an article by historian Renier Snooy, Erasmus was born in Gouda, the exact year of his birth is debated, with most biographers citing the year as 1466. Some evidence confirming 1466 can be found in Erasmuss own words, of twenty-three statements Erasmus made about his age, all and he was christened Erasmus after the saint of that name. Although associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for four years. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings and his parents were not legally married. His father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest and curate in Gouda, little is known of his mother other than that her name was Margaretha Rogerius and she was the daughter of a physician from Zevenbergen, she may have been Gerards housekeeper. Erasmus was given the highest education available to a man of his day. During his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the principal of the school, for the first time ever Greek was taught at a lower level than a university in Europe, and this is where he began learning it. He also gleaned there the importance of a relationship with God but eschewed the harsh rules. His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, in 1492, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life
11.
Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 2
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It is written on 297 parchment leaves and contains the entire New Testament except the Book of Revelation. The codex was prepared for use with marginalia, and has almost completely survived. The codex is housed at the Basel University Library, with shelf number A. N. IV,2, the codex contains the entire New Testament in the following order, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the General and Pauline epistles. The text is written in one column per page,38 lines per page and it was originally accompanied by miniatures, which were stolen before 1860–1862. The dimensions of the text are 13.6 cm by 6.8 cm and it was written on parchment continuously and without separation in elegant minuscule, furnished with breathings and accents, in Iota adscript. The initial letters are gilt, and on the first page of each Gospel the full stop is a gilt ball. The text is divided according to chapters whose numbers are given at the margin, the text of the Gospels is divided according to the smaller Ammonian Sections, but references to the Eusebian Canons are absent. The Book of Acts and the epistles have the Euthalian Apparatus and it contains prolegomena, synaxaria, two types of lectionary markings at the margin and pictures. The later type of notes, so called αναγνωσεις were added by a later hand. The Gospel of Matthew has 116 αναγνωσεις, the Gospel of Mark –70, the Gospel of Luke –114, in the 15th century, the later hand added Prolegomena. The codex contains a scholion questioning the authenticity of Mark 16, the Pericope Adulterae is placed after John 21,25. In Alands Profile, Kurt and Barbara Aland placed the codexs Gospels in Category III, meaning it has importance, with the profile of 1191,802, 601/2. This means the text of the codex agrees with the Byzantine standard text 119 times, with the text against the Byzantine 80 times. There are 69 independent or distinctive readings in the Gospels and it belongs to the textual Family 1 with manuscripts 118,131 and 209. Classification in this family was supported by the Claremont Profile Method. Johann Jakob Griesbach was the first who noted its similarities to the text of Origens commentary to the Gospel of Matthew, according to Hort, its text preceded the byzantine text-type. In Matthew 27,16, it has the textual variant Ιησουν τον Βαραββαν. This variant also appears in the Codex Koridethi, Minuscule 700, Textual critics and palaeographers like Johann Jakob Wettstein, Constantin von Tischendorf, Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener and Caspar René Gregory dated the manuscript to the 10th century
12.
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
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The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is a translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Though it is not the first Bible to be published by the group, it is their first original translation of ancient Classical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Old Aramaic biblical texts. As of January 2017, the Watch Tower Society has published 217 million copies of the New World Translation in whole or in part in more than 140 languages, until the release of the NWT, Jehovahs Witnesses in English-speaking countries primarily used the King James Version. According to the publishers, one of the reasons for producing a new translation was that most Bible versions in common use, including the Authorized Version. The stated intention was to produce a translation, free of archaisms. Additionally, over the centuries since the King James Version was produced, more copies of manuscripts of the original texts in the Hebrew. According to the publishers, better manuscript evidence had made it possible to determine with greater accuracy what the writers intended. They said linguists better understood certain aspects of the original Hebrew, work began on December 2,1947 when the New World Bible Translation Committee was formed, composed of Jehovahs Witnesses who professed to be anointed. The Watch Tower Society is said to have become aware of the existence a year later. Several chapters of the translation were read to the directors, who voted to accept it as a gift. The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was released at a convention of Jehovahs Witnesses at Yankee Stadium, New York, on August 2,1950. The translation of the Old Testament, which Jehovahs Witnesses refer to as the Hebrew Scriptures, was released in five volumes in 1953,1955,1957,1958, and 1960. The complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was released as a volume in 1961. Cross references which had appeared in the six volumes were updated and included in the complete volume in the 1984 revision. By 1989 the New World Translation was translated into eleven languages, the New World Translation was produced by the New World Bible Translation Committee, formed in 1947. This committee is said to have comprised unnamed members of multinational background, the publishers believe that the particulars of university or other educational training are not the important thing and that the translation testifies to their qualification. Former high ranking Watch Tower staff have claimed knowledge of the translators identities, evangelical minister Walter Ralston Martin identified Nathan H. Knorr, Fredrick W. Franz, Albert D. None of these men had any university education except Franz, who left school two years, never completing even an undergraduate degree
