The first printed and published Greek text of the Christian Greek Scriptures, made available in 1516. It was the work of Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1469-1536).

Erasmus recognized that the Latin Vulgate was filled with errors. (See VULGATE.) He wanted to make the original-language Bible text as well as his new Latin translation available to scholars so that they could produce accurate translations in the languages spoken by most people. Erasmus carefully compared the available manuscripts in order to make a scholarly edition of the Greek text that was as close as possible to the original-language Bible text. The first edition was prepared in haste and contained many errors, but Erasmus continued to improve his Greek text, publishing four revisions between 1519 and 1535.

The publication of Erasmus’ Greek text was a significant milestone. While the text that Erasmus produced was imperfect partly because he was able to consult only a limited number of manuscripts, his work proved highly influential for centuries to come. It was later used as the basis for other scholarly editions of the Greek text. And a number of Bible translators, including Luther and Tyndale, used later editions of Erasmus’ Greek text to produce Bible translations in the common languages of Western Europe.