Whence Comes “Book of Life” in Rev. 22:19 ? - Glenn Conjurske
Whence Comes “Book of Life” in Rev. 22:19?
by Glenn Conjurske
When Erasmus first published his Greek New Testament in 1516, he had only one manuscript of the Apocalypse, and that one defective at the end—-nothing uncommon in manuscripts, and even in printed books, the first or last leaves often being worn out or torn away. In this predicament, and pressured by the printers to hasten the work, Erasmus did the best he could: he translated the last six verses of Revelation into Greek from the Latin Vulgate. At least, so men of sense and learning have believed for some centuries. The proof of the fact is simple enough. The text of his first edition does not follow the Greek mss., but the text of the Vulgate. Later editions of the Textus Receptus conformed these verses to the Greek mss., but for some reason the reading “book of life” was retained, though almost all the Greek evidence is for “tree of life.”
But certain of the King James Only folks are as proficient in denying some facts as they are in inventing others, and a recent book does just that in the present instance. I refer to Why Not the King James Bible! by Dr. Kirk D. DiVietro, which professes to be an answer to The King James Only Controversy, by James R. White. DiVietro asserts as fact just whatever his doctrine requires, and we find on pages 27-28, “Did Erasmus use `book of life’ in Revelation 22:19 because he translated back from the Vulgate? What does the Vulgate say in Revelation 22:19. The Latin text of the verse reads ligno vitae `tree of life.’ The Latin for `book of life’ is libro vitae… One thing is sure. Erasmus did not get `book of life’ from the Latin.”
But this statement is either ignorance or deception. We honestly suppose it to be ignorance, but if so it is hardly excusable ignorance, for DiVietro displays learning enough, quoting Greek, Hebrew, and Latin on the very page. That he saw ligno in some edition of the Vulgate we need not doubt, but he obviously refused to check any other editions, or refused to look at the variant readings at the foot of the page.
At any rate, his statement is certainly false. Understand, the issue is not what the reading of the Vulgate was (assuming that we can determine it) when Jerome translated it, nor yet what the reading of the Vulgate was in the old manuscripts of the sixth or seventh centuries. Neither does the issue have anything to do with what the reading of the Vulgate is in the modern critical editions, which are based upon those old manuscripts. The whole question is, What was the common reading of the Vulgate, in the printed editions of it, at the time of the Reformation, when Erasmus published his Greek New Testament? What, in other words, was the Vulgate reading most likely to be in Erasmus’s hand? We might surely expect a Doctor of Divinity to understand that this is the issue, and surely have a right to expect him to learn the truth of the matter, before he publishes assertions concerning it.
We suppose DiVietro found the reading ligno in a modern critical edition of the Vulgate. I have three such critical editions, and it is true that all three of them read ligno for libro, that is, “tree” for “book,” but it is also true that all three of them give libro as a variant reading, in the notes at the bottom of the page. To trouble my readers with one only of these editions, the Editio Minor of Wordsworth and White’s Vulgate reads ligno uitae in the text, but says in the note at the foot of the page, “ligno ACG: libro FVSC.” A, C, G, F, and V are ancient individual manuscripts. S and C are the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate, published in 1590 and 1592. These, we see, read libro vitae, “book of life.”
And the fact is, this was the common reading of the published editions of the Vulgate at the time of the first edition of Erasmus, as it was also long before and long after that date. It was the common reading also of the later manuscripts of the Vulgate. Mark, I do not pretend to say that libro vitae, “book of life,” was the reading of all published editions of the Vulgate of that era. There are very many such editions, and I certainly have not examined all of them. Suffice it to say that it was the reading common to many of those editions, as it was to many of the later manuscripts of the Vulgate. And let us understand the issue here. If it could be shown that libro vitae was the reading of one manuscript or one edition of the Vulgate, which was likely to have been in the hands of Erasmus, this would be sufficient to disprove DiVietro’s assertion that Erasmus could not have gotten it from the Vulgate.
But let us examine a little of the evidence. I have mentioned already that both the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate, put forth by papal authority in 1590 and 1592 read “book of life.”
So also did Myles Coverdale’s edition of the Vulgate, published with an English translation in 1538—-that is, twenty-two years after the first edition of Erasmus. It should be understood that Coverdale published this work for the express purpose of appeasing those who professed dissatisfaction with the Protestant versions which were based upon the Greek. He therefore published the common Latin text, with an English translation, content that they should have the word of God in English, whether based upon the Greek or the Latin Vulgate. The Southwark edition, published during Coverdale’s absence on the continent, reads libro uitæ. The Paris edition, also published in 1538, and under Coverdale’s personal inspection, reads just the same, libro vitæ. As for the difference in spelling between these two editions, permit me to point out “u” and “v” were originally only different forms of the same letter, as observant folks might discover from the fact that our printed W, which is a double V in form, is yet called a “double U.” The V form eventually came to be used as a consonant, and the U as a vowel, but the case was just reversed in the English of a few centuries ago. In the Latin, they are one letter, and there is no distinction between them in many ancient mss.
The edition of the Vulgate which Martin Luther produced in 1529 reads just the same: libro vitæ.1
The most compelling evidence comes from the Complutensian Polyglott, which was printed only two years before Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, though it was not published till a few years afterwards. Observe that, contrary to Erasmus’s editions, the Greek column of the Complutensian reads “tree ( v ) of life,” not “book of life,” while the adjacent column which contains the Latin Vulgate reads libro vite, that is “book of life.” We could hardly seek a stronger proof of what was the ACTUAL READING OF THE LATIN VULGATE but two years before the publication of Erasmus’s first edition. It should be understood also that the editor of the Complutensian edition regarded the Greek text as corrupt, and the Latin as the true standard. In some places (as I John 5:7) he actually altered the Greek text to conform it to the Latin, with no support from Greek manuscripts. In other places, such as this one, he let the Greek stand as he found it in the Greek manuscripts, though it stood in contradiction of the Latin.
While at Robert Van Kampen’s Scriptorium, in Grand Haven, Michigan, on Nov. 14, 1996, I examined several editions of the Vulgate printed before Erasmus’s first edition, and found “book of life” the reading of all of them.
The first printed edition of the Vulgate, the famous Gutenberg Bible, reads libro vite, “book of life.” Later editions read the same:
Van Kampen No. 405. (This book is described on pages 3-5 of The Bible as Book, published by the Scriptorium.) The colophon, appearing on the same page as Rev. 22:19, reads in part, “Nicolai Jenson Gallici .M.cccc.lxxix.”—-informing us that the book was printed by Nicolas Jenson in 1479. The book reads in Rev. 22:19, auferet deus parteá eius de libro vite, “God will take away his part from the book of life.”
Van Kampen No. 431, described on pages 19-20 of The Bible as Book, and therein dated 1476/7 (though I did not find this date in the book itself), also reads libro vite, “book of life.”
Another, printed in 1477, also reads libro vite, “book of life.”
This may suffice to show how much confidence may be placed in the assertion of DiVietro that Erasmus could not have gotten “book of life” from the Vulgate. The real fact is, he could have gotten it from any one of numerous printed editions of the Vulgate which were available to him, as well as from thousands of Latin manuscripts, from which the printed editions copied it.
If we look at the fourteenth-century versions which were translated from the Vulgate, we find just the same testimony. The earlier Wycliffe Bible reads, “êe book of lijf.” The later Wycliffe Bible reads just the same.
The German Codex Teplensis, translated from the Vulgate somewhere about the same time as the Wycliffe Bible, reads puch dez lebenz, “book of life,” puch being an old spelling of the modern German Buch, that is, “book.”
The Mentel Bible, the first printed Bible in German, which appeared in 1466, reads, gott nympt ab seinen teyl von dem bu`che des lebens—-that is, “from the book of life.” I hardly need point out that this version is derived from the Vulgate, as all the medieval versions were.
The medieval Waldensian version in the old Romance language, translated also from the Vulgate, reads just the same: Dio ostare la partia de lui del libre de vita—-libre de vita being “book of life.”
These medieval versions indicate that “book of life” was the common reading of the Vulgate at that period in France, England, and Germany. I am quite well aware that the same sort of folks who will assert that libro is not the reading of the Vulgate, will contend that none of these versions were translated from the Vulgate—-many of them have done so—-but they were translated from the Vulgate for all that. The assertions to the contrary are made by people who have never examined the evidence—-or examined it with such prejudiced eyes that they could not see it. Doctrinal prejudice is the only foundation for such assertions, as it is for Dr. DiVietro’s assertion that libro is not the reading of the Vulgate. The same man, in the same book, asserts that the Septuagint does not exist. Does not a doctrine which requires such continual falsification of the facts prove itself de facto false? If it were a matter of an occasional mistake, we might all bear with it. We all make mistakes, but it is another matter to frequently or habitually support our own position by reckless and empty assertions, which have not the shadow of truth in them, when we might very easily know better—-indeed, when we hold the evidence to the contrary in our very hands. This is a serious wrong.
Glenn Conjurske