Was Erasmus qualified to edit a Greek Text? Wasn his Greek education substandard?
• There are also attacks upon Erasmus’ education and preparation. Without a doubt, Erasmus was the most brilliant of the Reformation-era scholars. Every king wanted him in his court for the intellectual prestige he would bring. Yet charges abound that Erasmus was not very proficient in the Greek. This is not true for Erasmus had the best Greek education that could be had in 16th century Europe. He spent most of 1506 improving his Greek with study in Bologna, Rome, Florence and Padua under the best Greek teacher of the day. (1) In 1505, he edited Valla’s Annotations on the New Testament. Some of his Greek learning may have been individual, but not all of it. It is difficult to imagine a man of Erasmus’ talents and scholarship, who was dedicated to a study of the Greek classics, being deficient in his knowledge of Greek! • Another attack against Erasmus was that he was not proficient in Hebrew. But this is an unimportant point. Why would he need to be when the was interested in Greek and
