Knowra Erasmus Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian whose biblical scholarship and criticism of church abuses influenced religious reform.
Christian humanism : A Renaissance movement that applied classical learning and textual scholarship to Christian life and reform. It supplied the intellectual approach Erasmus used to renew Christian learning.
Novum Instrumentum omne : Erasmus’s 1516 edition of the Greek New Testament, printed alongside his Latin translation and annotations. This landmark publication brought his textual scholarship into print.
Martin Luther : A German theologian whose challenges to church authority helped initiate the Protestant Reformation. Erasmus supported reform but rejected Luther’s account of human freedom and religious rupture.
Protestant Reformation : A sixteenth-century movement that broke Western Christianity’s religious unity and formed Protestant churches. Erasmus’s scholarship helped shape its setting, though he did not join the break with Rome.
Textus Receptus : A printed Greek New Testament tradition based on early editions, including Erasmus’s, that influenced later Bible translations. Erasmus’s editions helped establish the textual tradition behind this influential printed form.
Renaissance humanism : A movement emphasizing classical literature, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy in European intellectual life. Its recovery of classical texts shaped Erasmus’s education and scholarly methods.
Annotationes in Novum Testamentum : Erasmus’s annotations on the New Testament, discussing Greek readings, Latin translation, and interpretation. These notes show how he used philology to challenge inherited biblical readings.
Thomas More : An English humanist, statesman, and author of Utopia who was a close friend of Erasmus. Their friendship connected Erasmus to English humanist circles and shared literary projects.
Catholic Reformation : The renewal of Catholic institutions, doctrine, and religious life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Erasmus sought reform within the church whose later renewal this movement encompassed.
Tyndale Bible : William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament, produced in the sixteenth century. Tyndale drew on Erasmus’s Greek New Testament when translating scripture into English.
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