Erasmus as humanist was a proponent of scientific bible study, retranslating the bible from original sources, which lands him opposite to those who kept a dogmatic view. Erasmus' opponents implied that Luther's heresy was thanks to Erasmus' work even though Luther was not scientifically interested.
You have Luther trying to become a martyr and Erasmus seeing that if this man ends up burned at the stake that it will be free hunting season for any dogmatic person, and they will come for serious bible study next, even though associated in reality. So Erasmus is incredibly annoyed at this.
Its really interesting how you get different perspectives on the bible in this era, with Erasmus' "translations by fallible humans of a divine untranslatable language" view, dogmatic "the bible is what it is" views, and extreme "the bible is a vibe that I can rewrite in German however I want" view.
I rewrote it so many times. The book I'm reading (Erasmus by Sandra Langereis) of course spends hundreds of pages trying to finally get to this type of thing and make it feel natural. I was really lost for a very, very long time on what the whole Deal was with bible translations.
Comments