CHAPTER 7 Defining Evangelizing - Evangelism Unlimited

318 Evangelizology
revision of the 1530 Lefèvre, as some purport. Lefèvre worked with the understanding that the
Latin Vulgate was authoritative460 —understandable as his colleague Briçonnet, Bishop of
Meaux, was executed for the Lutheran heresy in 1529, and Louis de Berquin was strangled and
burned at the stake as a Lutheran heretic that same year in Paris. 461 Olivétan, however, worked
from an authoritative Greek, quite different from the Vulgate at key theological points. For
example, in Romans 9:1-16 there are 54 translation variants between Lefèvre and Olivétan, some
of which can only be understood in light of a different original manuscript.
f. Later, by 1669, the French Geneva Bible included 24 uses of the word “evangelize,” meaning
that someone had added 11 more uses than Olivétan (possibly Jean Calvin, Théodore de Bèze, or
Clément Marot). The 1707 David Martin’s French Geneva revision kept the 24 uses of the word
“evangelize,” with the exception of Romans 1:15, while adding a parenthetical use of
“evangelize” in Gal 1:8.
g. A chart below shows all the NT uses of the word euvaggeli,zw, shows when it was translated as
“evangelize”, and provides an overview of its translation since the Reformation.
2. The following chart uses the Byzantine Textform (Majority Text) of the Greek for several reasons:
a. It was the foundational Greek to the pre-Tischendorf translations of the Bible (~1869). Therefore
early translations noted below emanate from the Vulgate or the Greek, they are translated from
the Byzantine Textform, rather than from the Tischendorf-Westcott-Hort-Nestle-Aland-Black-
Metzger-Martini-Karavidopoulos tradition.
b. In fact, it seems to be more accurate to use the Byzantine Textform (cf. Majority Text, Textus
Receptus, etc.), rather than the constantly changing Minority “Textpuzzle”, which likely
increases the input of the reasonings of men in determining the original text. 462
qu’initier Calvin à la Réforme, il mériterait un souvenir et une reconnaissance impérissables” [Doumergue, Calvin, I,
119]).
460 The title of the 1530 Lefevre Bible reads, “La Saincte Bible en Francois translatee selon la pure et entiere
traduction de Saint Hierome conferer et entierement revisitee selon les plus anciens et plus correctz exemplaires” [The
Holy Bible in French translated according to the pur and entire translation of Saint Jerome confered and entirely revised
according to the most ancient and most correct examples] (beginning of the title on the cover page of the 1530 Lefevre
Authorized Bible; available at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54287d/ f2.pagination; accessed 16 Sept 2006);
translation mine. Also note that the Roman Catholic Council of Trent affirmed the absolute authority of the Jerome’s
Latin translation, probably, among other things, because of the 29 times it reads “do penance” instead of “repent.”
Hence reads the “19 th Ecumenical Council,” the Council of Trent: “Moreover, the same holy council considering that
not a little advantage will accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which of all the Latin editions of the sacred
books now in circulation is to be regarded as authentic, ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which,
in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputations, sermons and
expositions held as authentic, and that no one dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it” (from
http://www.forerunner.com/chalcedon/X0020_ 15._Council_of_Trent.html; accessed 8 Jan 2005)
461 Jean Crespin, History of the True Martyrs of the True Gospel… (Geneva, 1570), 70b-71b.
462 Note the cautionary comment of Matthew Henry in this regard, considering that the freethinkers and
manipulators of the text in his day are likely similar to those in our day: “And now I appeal to him who knows the
thoughts and intents of the heart that in all this I think freely (if it be possible for a man to know that he does so), and
not under the power of any bias. Whether we have reason to think that those who, without any colour of reason, not only
usurp, but monopolize, the character of free-thinkers, do so, let those judge who easily observe that they do not speak
sincerely, but industriously dissemble their notions; and one instance I cannot but notice of their unfair dealing with
their readers—that when, for the diminishing of the authority of the New Testament, they urge the various readings of
the original, and quote an acknowledgment of Mr. Gregory of Christ-church, in his preface to his Works, That no
profane author whatsoever, &c., and yet suppress what immediately follows, as the sense of that learned man upon it,
That this is an invincible reason for the scriptures’ part, &c.” (Matthew Henry, Preface to Volume V [1721, From
Bibleworks]).