I ran across this a while back and thought it would be good food for thought as a reminder to the broader Christian community to always “worry” over continuously improving their translations and versions of Scripture. As a supply preacher frequently invited to preach across the spectrum of Reformed denominations, I am often asked what the “best” version or translation of Scripture is. (Should we use the NIV, the KJV, the NASB, the ESV, the RSV, the TNIV, the NKJV, etc?) This is the sort of question after a service in a narthex over a cup of coffee that draws a crowd rather quickly. More often than not it is a well-intentioned question by believers seeking to mine the scriptures further after they have just heard a sermon using the breadth of both the Old and New Testament to focus upon a passage. I always want to handle these sorts of questions with care so that one’s confidence in the word of God is augmented while at the same time such confidence is not identified with a sectarian allegiance to a particular translation. And in these cases it is a joy and pleasure to be of assistance. 

In some cases, however, it seems that (more…)

I had a little time today to read in and translate from Wollebius’ Compendium Christianae Theologiae. I found it encouraging and thought I would pass along the fruits of my daily translation warm-up. Wollebius (1586-1629) was a student of Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf, who in turn was a Lutheran and later came to Reformed persuasions under Beza. By the way, notice the scholastic method in full swing (causes, form, matter, effects, etc. as well as the typical “confirm, deny, or distinguish”). Notice also in Canon X the voluntarist shot (sorry, couldn’t help the pun!) at Thomas Aquinas’ intellectualist account of faith (interesting that he doesn’t acknowledge the RC medieval voluntarists or some of the Protestant intellectualists … ah well, it *is* a compendium after all). Canon X is a very brief glimpse at philosophy and theology interacting on the question of the relationship between the intellect, will, and appetites as well as how that relationship impinges on the understanding of regeneration, faith, salvation, and obedience. It is fair to say that there are a high number of voluntarists in the Reformed Protestant tradition by the mid-17th c. and also some intellectualists in the camp as well, but irregardless, all of the Reformed go after the implicit faith issue with Rome. Voetius (a Reformed, voluntarist contemporary of Wollebius, 1589-1676) is more even-handed in his treatments of voluntarism/intellectualism in his Select. Disputationum than this relatively shorter Compendium, but then again Voetius’ is 5 phonebook-size volumes.  A note on the translation, I kept the author’s polemical tone by translating Pontifici and Pontani as papists.

Google Books used to have the Compendium available here (but recently this link isn’t working so … hmm … Google did promise to have it up “soon” - perhaps in the Panenbergian sense of the eschaton? who knows … ) For a recent, but out of print translation, see John W. Beardslee, III. Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius, F. Turretin (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977) ISBN#: 080100540. There is also an older 1965 edition via Oxford University Press. So stay tuned to Google Books for the Latin or to purchase your own English copy surf your favorite online book dealer. By the way, for all those Yale grads who are curious about Wollebius’ theology and its impact on their college seal, see here for its origin and, of course, a closing riff on Harvard.

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No this is not a post about Hitchens, Dawkins, and others - although it could be, given that not much has changed by way of argumentation, and much has been lost of the more refined and philosophically sensitive arguments of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche in favor of mass-marketing “antitheism” or “anticlericalism” to the illiterati. The only thing really new is that it is “old” atheism mobilized with a budget, a PAC, an ad campaign, a persecutorial agenda, and a publisher … but I digress …

I was reading through a section from Voetius’  5 volume work Selectarum Disputationum , (more…)

Available now online via Google Books is this treasure of the Protestant church that was typically the standard Latin biblical text of the scholarly Reformed world from 1579 through 1764. An edition of the New Testament was published on its own as early as 1569. Thus this bible stands as a textual bookend for the period of Reformed orthodoxy and was quite influential in its own right. I do not have space to enumerate the multi-national usage of and esteem for this work. But perhaps I can give you a sense of its importance via its publishing history. The first  (more…)

Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588-1638) not only wrote an early-modern encyclopedia (containing over 500 authors and their topics), but also worked out a curriculum for teaching students Theology, Philosophy, and languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Latin as well as other topics (Law & Medicine for example). What’s more, he has a noteworthy structure and interlocking categories of theology that function rather harmoniously. He also  (more…)

Musculus who? Gratian’s what? Right, two sources probably not in your daily conversation. But if you are interested in connections between Reformed exegesis and ethical formulations and medieval precursors, this is a brief blurb on some prima facie evidence I ran across recently.  (more…)

What’s a Gloss? 

The “study bible” of the late medieval period was called a gloss. Basically it was a rolling commentary including pithy comments from (and sometimes only attributed to) a wide variety of Church Fathers, east and west. Due to its size I am not aware of any English translations of the whole thing. To give you a glimpse of its importance in Medieval theology (and later Protestantism), for example, Thomas Aquinas lectures on and interacts with the Glossa in his  (more…)

In the forthcoming, free, online, Fall edition (Vol. 11 no. 2 - available Oct/Nov) of the Journal of Markets & Morality from the Acton Institute there will be a 70+ page Scholia on usury and oath-taking from Wolfgang Musculus, one of the lesser well-known German reformers. There are two relevant sections which have been translated from the 1551 and 1578 Latin editions of his Psalms Commentary with an eye towards an even earlier German edition. One of the sections is from an appendix on usury and oath-taking (which first appeared in English attached to an 1561 English translation of Musculus’ Loci Communes and again in 1578), the other section is from his Psalms commentary which has not been translated into English. This is a relatively early statement of Protestant monetary theory. I won’t spill all of the beans but in some ways it is standard Reformed exegesis against the Anabaptists. In other ways, Musculus demonstrates his intellectual and theological independence from Calvin and others on issues such as interest and usury. Just another data point evidencing that there is frequently a high amount of general agreement among the Reformed on fundamental principles of exegesis and methodology,  and yet there can be diversity of opinion, even disagreement on the theological and exegetical results.  Another interesting aspect of the piece is Musculus’ exegetical method and his utter lack of reticence to engage in socio-economic, political commentary. I will tell you that it is a good piece to read and think about. It will stretch a 21st century Christian’s premises about money, oaths, charity, and piety - not necessarily a bad thing given the materialistic and decadent Zeitgeist of our times.   

We are currently in the final stages of editing, polishing, and formatting, and I look forward to having it out soon.

Other resources:

• On the cross-confessional Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic treatment of Anabaptists’ refusal to take an oath, see Craig Farmer’s “Reformation-era polemics against Anabaptist oath-refusal” in  the Mennonite Quarterly Review, 2007 vol 81 no. 2, pp. 207-226.
• For a helpful and brief listing of Reformed works on the Psalms see Charles Brigg’s A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of the Psalms (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1906), vol 1 page cvi-cvii sec. 52-53.

Needless to say I’ve been a little busy recently as we are working through the final stages of this project! Here is the most recent announcement from RHB.  This is in the new  Classic Reformed Theology series, which will tackle some primary sources from 16th & 17th century Reformed theology, with first and in some cases fresh translations of classic pieces of the era. Below is a cutsheet about this particular volume. My only addendum is that this piece was originally entitled  Catecheseos Christianae Sciagraphia and was published as an indendent piece in Latin in 1635 and again in 1658 in the Janson edition of the Ames Opera. It crossed into England in a 1659 translation  as “The Substance of the Christian Religion.”  (more…)