Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives – The Waldenses – Their Bible.

Thomas E Kresal Admin · 3 hrs April 3, 2020

Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives – The Waldenses – Their Bible.

John Tyler Christian said, “The Bible was a living book, and there were those among them who could quote the entire book from memory.”

It is often stated that modern Baptist are a people of the Book, and yet it is a rarity to see the type of love for the Holy Bible which the Waldenses commonly demonstrated.

The question is often posed: “What Bible did the Waldenses use?

1. The Itala Bible

The Itala Bible is derived from the Syrian Bible translated into the Greek Vulgate (aka Received Text) which became the Italian “Italic” Bible (AD 157). The Italic Bible preceded Jerome’s Vulgate Latin, which was corrupted to fit the views of the church at that time.

This Itala Bible was a translation of the pure and true, ecclesiastical, Syrian text. The product was a Bible the common man could understand, being that it was in the low Latin language of the second century. Many historians of high repute such as Allix, Leger, and Comba attest to the Waldenses’ consistent use of pure Biblical texts throughout their history.

Kenyon recognized that the Itala Latin Bible was translated from the Received Greek text and states that ther Latin Vulgate of Jerome is the Itala with the readings of the Received Text removed. Jerome did not write his Latin Vulgate until AD 382.

Calvin’s learned successor, Theodore Beza who in 1565 completed an edition of his own New Testament in Greek, dates the Waldensians from AD 120. He further dates their Italic Bible, or Itala Biblia, back to AD 157.

2. The Bible in the romance and Teutonic languages.

J.T. Christian wrote,

“The Waldenses translated the Bible into the Romance language (a language family in the Indo-European languages Their source is the old, Vulgar Latin. Among these are Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, and Portuguese. Their names, Romance, is derived from the fact that they originate from a manic; to include English, Dutch, German, Flemish, Frisian, etc.) languages early in the thirteenth century. The Baptist retained these versions of the Bible 200 years before Luther’s version. The oldest German Bible is of Baptist origin.

According to Cathcart, Peter Waldo enlisted Stephen de Ansa and Bernard Ydros to prepare the Romance version.

Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: The WALDENSES OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY by Ted Alexander

http://evangelisttedalexander.com/category/bookstore/