Calvin and Beza were sophisticated practitioners of textual criticism

The Reformers—particularly Calvin and Beza—were sophisticated practitioners of textual criticism who actively compared manuscripts and acknowledged textual difficulties rather than defending a single perfect tradition.

Calvin made his own translation from the original languages and consulted the Vulgate and Erasmus’s editions alongside earlier manuscripts whenever necessary[1]. Following humanist methodology, Calvin paid close attention to history, language, context, nuance, and hermeneutics[2]—an approach fundamentally incompatible with the notion that one textual tradition was perfectly preserved. While Calvin respected other Protestant commentators, he remained critical of their exegetical defects, finding Melanchthon too brief and Bucer too verbose[2], demonstrating his willingness to evaluate textual work critically rather than defer to established authorities.

Beza’s work was even more explicitly textual-critical. In 1565, Beza produced an edition of the Greek New Testament with two Latin translations in parallel columns and copious annotations[3]. Significantly, when he possessed the Codex Bezae, he was deterred from using it in his textual work by the singularity of some of its readings[3]—meaning he made deliberate textual decisions based on comparing manuscripts rather than accepting every variant uncritically.

More broadly, the era of orthodoxy was a time when the critical establishment of the Bible’s text through collation and comparison of manuscripts was understood as fundamental to the task of the orthodox exegete and theologian[4]. The Reformers set the Hebrew and Greek texts at the heart of their interpretative work, striving through textual criticism to reconstruct the best versions of those early texts[5].

This historical reality directly contradicts VPP’s claim that one textual tradition was perfectly preserved. The Reformers themselves practiced the very textual criticism that acknowledges manuscript variation and scribal error.

[1] Manuel Alexandre Júnior, “Prefácio À Edição Em Português,” in Epístolas Gerais, ed. Tiago J. Santos Filho and Franklin Ferreira, trans. Valter Graciano Martins, Série Comentários Bíblicos (São José dos Campos, SP: Editora FIEL, 2015), 13.

[2] Timothy George, “Introduction,” in John Calvin: Commentary on Romans, ed. Timothy George, Theological Foundations (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), 2.
[3] Beza, Beza’s “Icones”: Contemporary Portraits of Reformers of Religion and Letters, ed. C. G. McCrie (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1906), 13–14.
[4] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; Volume 2: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 398.
[5] Iain Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 228.