Erasmus yearned to make the Bible an effective instrument in the
reform of society, church, and everyday life. He therefore composed
paraphrases in which the words of Holy Scripture provided the core
of a text, vastly expanded to embrace the reforming philosophy of
Christ.' The Paraphrases were successful beyond all expectations,
and were quickly translated into French, German, English, and other
languages.
This is the fourth volume of Paraphrases to be published in the
New Testament Scholarship Series in the CWE. The volume includes
the Paraphrases on the Pastoral Epistles and the Catholic, or
General, Epistles, as well as the Paraphrase on Hebrews. These
books, in the biblical text, address the central issues of the
Christian life within the context of family, church, and community.
The Paraphrases sharpen the accent of the biblical message,
speaking in an idiom appropriate to the sixteenth century but also
surprisingly relevant to our own age: they condemn, for example,
every form of tyrannizing in the home and self-aggrandisement in
the church; perhaps above all, the Paraphrases expose the social
injustice (inevitable, Erasmus would have us believe) of those who
have acquired great personal wealth.
Erasmus also reformulates, and sometimes develops, some of the
great theological themes already defined in earlier volumes of this
series. Is sin congenital, or do we sin simply in imitation' of
Adam? How do the Hebrew Scriptures attest to the presence of divine
grace in the world before the birth of Christ? What is faith if not
a vision of eternal realities so sure that we can clearly recognize
the things of this passing world as the shadows they are?
These Paraphrases address the modern reader with the relevance
of the moral issues they define and the perennial importance of the
theological questions they raise. Erasmus clarified and interpreted
biblical text with immense rhetorical skill. Professor Bateman's
bold and accurate translation brings both the pleasure and the
force of Erasmus' rhetoric to the English-speaker of today.
General
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