Biblical Scholarship and the Church A Sixteenth-Century Crisis of Authority Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies Series

Conflicting claims to authority in relation to the translation and interpretation of the Bible have been a recurrent source of tension within the Christian church, and were a key issue in the Reformation debate. This book traces how the authority of the Septuagint and later that of the Vulgate was called into question by the return to the original languages of scripture, and how linguistic scholarship was seen to pose a challenge to the authority of the teaching and tradition of the church. It shows how issues that remained unresolved in the early church re-emerged in first half of the sixteenth century with the publication of Erasmus? Greek-Latin New Testament of 1516. After examining the differences between Erasmus and his critics, the authors contrast the situation in England, where Reformation issues were dominant, and Italy, where the authority of Rome was never in question. Focusing particularly on the dispute between Thomas More and William Tyndale in England, and between Ambrosius Catharinus and Cardinal Cajetan in Italy, this book brings together perspectives from biblical studies and church history and provides access to texts not previously translated into English.

Introduction; Part 1 The Debates; Chapter 1 The Roots of the Problem; Chapter 2 Erasmus and the Return to the Original Languages of Scripture; Chapter 3 Erasmus’ Debates with Traditionalists; Chapter 4 The Debate between Thomas More and William Tyndale Concerning Translation; Chapter 5 The Debate between Thomas More and William Tyndale Concerning Interpretation; Chapter 6 The Origin and Development of Catharinus’s Polemic Against Cajetan; Chapter 7 Reaction of the Dominicans to Cajetan’s Biblical Commentaries; conclu Conclusions; Part 2 Documents; Chapter 8 The Interpretation of Matthew 16:16–19; Chapter 9 Documents relating to and; Chapter 10 Documents relating to and;

The Revd Dr Allan K. Jenkins is Senior Lecturer in Old Testament, and Dr Patrick Preston is Visiting Fellow in Church History, both at the University of Chichester, UK.