In 1516, after years of study, collation, and translation, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (a Dutch Catholic scholar who, though at odds with Protestants, also had an eye to church reform and return to New Testament purity) published the first Greek New Testament, entitled Novum Instrumentum omne. His scholarship, aided by the migration of Greeks to Europe after the fall of Constantinople 63 years prior, laid the groundwork for future translations into European languages. Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and the translators of the Geneva Bible and the King James Bible all consulted Erasmus’s Greek New Testament alongside the long-received Latin Vulgate as they worked to bring people God’s Word in their common tongues.
“On these pages you will find the living Christ, and you will see Him more fully and more clearly than if He stood before you, before your very eyes.” Erasmus’ preface to his Greek New Testament
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