TICKTOCK

 In 1516, a man named Erasmus, a Dutch theologian and widely revered scholar,  went back to the original Greek of the New Testament and published it in its original language. He put parallel to it, not the official Latin translation but his own Latin version. He did this because he was naively hoping that it would prompt a healthy reform in the Roman Catholic Church. But he didn't realize that he had produced a ticking time bomb that would change the world and fracture the religious system of his day in such a way that it could never be put together as it was. 

In the irony of historical ironies, he dedicated his work to the pope, who then sent him a letter expressing  his gratitude and thanks along with his commendation for the work. His gratitude was premature. The book that was a bomb had now begun ticking. What Erasmus had done would have ramifications he had never dreamed of.

In Matthew 4:17, for example, he found that the Latin Vulgate which had held sway for over a thousand years had Jesus say, "Do penance." Erasmus translated the Greek word, "be penitent." Then he started the bomb ticking when he translated the word properly as, "change your mind." This meant that Jesus was not instigating the external sacrament of penance, as Rome had taught for eons, but was speaking of the internal need for sinners to change their minds. That one word would be the bomb.

The problem didn't stop there. If Rome was wrong on Matthew 4:17, where else might they have erred? That would raise the question of what kind of a spiritual authority were the popes and the entire system they represented and proclaimed? It was the Bible in its original language that was the time bomb at the feet of the pope who now had the truth in his hands. Ticktock. Ticktock. Ticktock.

Not even Erasmus realized the significance of his accomplishment, His work became the basis for Martin Luther’s German translation of the New Testament, William Tyndale’s English translation, and the Hungarian and Spanish translations.

From this we have the famous statement, "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched."