The Biblical Humanists’ Rhetorical Theology
The exegetical approach at the heart of the biblical humanists’ rhetorical theology was the grammarian’s practice of textual criticism involving the “consistent application of the philological method used by the humanists in the study of texts from classical antiquity to biblical scholarship and the study of the Fathers of the church”(Erasmus, His Life, Works, and Influence 191). Erasmian biblical interpretation (exegesis}, as demonstrated in both the Novum Instrumentum and its accompanying Annotationes, sought a basic clarification of the language of the biblical text that would provide an adequate foundation for interpretative engagement at all levels—from the work of biblical scholars for limited circles of learned readers, to public sermons, to individual Christians’ personal and private readings.
In a private letter to Antoon Van Bergen, Erasmus wrote: I can see what utter madness it is even to put a finger on that part of theology which is specially concerned with the mysteries of the faith unless one is furnished with the equipment of Greek as well, since the translators of Scripture, in their scrupulous manner of construing the text, offer such literal versions of Greek idioms that no one ignorant of that language could grasp even the primary, or, as our own theologians call it, literal, meaning. (The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 142-297 25)
Erasmus’s extensive knowledge of Greek and Greek literature bore abundant fruit in his Novum Instrumentum and Annotationes. The Novum Instrumentum, in later editions renamed the Novum Testamentum or New Testament, comprised a new Latin translation of the Greek Bible in parallel with Erasmus’s edition of the Greek Biblical text. The Annotationes lay out the principles and considerations in accordance with which Erasmus effected his translation. As Robert Coogan notes, Erasmus’s New Testament “requires [and demonstrates] a mastery not only of the Greek and Latin codices and the exegesis of the Greek and Latin Fathers but also an expert knowledge of secular Greek and Latin classical literature.” (Erasmus, Lee and the Correction of the Vulgate 15) A triumph of the biblical humanist method, Erasmus’s New Testament was also key to enabling subsequent Protestant translations of the Bible into the European vernaculars.