From whom did John Calvin borrow the base of his Latin and French Bible translations?

---Was the Scripture in Latin used by Calvin written by himself or was it borrowed?

---So a scholar went to investigate the situation. He spent time in the Library of the British Museum.

---Several Latin versions of the Bible existed before Calvin.

---One was made by Sebastian Munster at Basle with a Hebrew text in 1534.

---But, Calvin’s text differed with it in many ways. No, he did not use Munster’s Latin text.

---Another one was by Leo Juda or Leo Keller or Löw Juda as he was also known in Zurich in 1543. This was reprinted by Robert Stephens in 1545 and 1557.

---Juda was quite somebody. He later became an Anabaptist, at least for a few years because the description says he came back to the Reformers.

---It is still a mystery why the Reformers resisted the truth about Baptism started in 1525?

---Juda was helping Zwingli and when Zwingli was killed in a civil rights battle in 1531, Juda fell into a strong depression.

---Comparing Juda and Calvin, the researcher in the British Museum find differences but only slightly.

---He came to the conclusion that Calvin took Juda as his pretext and basis and only altered here and there as he saw fit.

---This is for the book of Genesis.

Comparing Leo Juda and John Calvin’s Latin of Genesis 1:

THE  VERSION  OF  LEO  JUDA.  THE  VERSION  OF  CALVIN.

1. In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram        1. In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram

2. Terra autem erat desolat et inanis,                      2.Terra autem erat informis et inanis,

tenebraeque erant in superficie voraginis:              tenbraeque erant in superficie voraginis:

et Spiritus Dei agitabat sese in superficie                et Spiritus Dei agitabat se in superficie

aquarum.                                                                                        aquarum.

3. Dixitque Deus, Sit Lux, et fuit lux.                       3. Et dixit Deus, Sit Lux, et fuit lux

4. Viditque Deus lucem quod esset bona                 4. Viditque Deus lucem quod bona esset

et divisit Deus lucem à tenebris                                 et divisit Deus lucem à tenebris

5. Vocavitque Deus lucem Diem, et tenebras         5. Et vocavit Deus lucem Diem, et tenebras

vocavit Noctem; fuitque vespera, et fuit               vocavit Noctem; fuitque vespera, et fuit

mane dies unus.                                                          mane dies primus.

6. Dixt quoque Deus, Sit expansio, &c.                   6. Dixt quoque Deus, Sit extensio, &c.

---What about the French translation of John Calvin? It was found that he relied on the translation of the Bible in French by Jacques Le Fevre d’Estaples or as he was commonly known: Jacobus Faber Stapulensis.

---The French Bible was printed in Antwerp by Martin L-Empereur.

---The author was a catholic. It became the basis of all French Bibles.

---It was not the first French Bible. The First French Bible was that of Robert Peter Olivetan and he got help from his relative, John Calvin who corrected the Antwerp edition where it differed with from the Hebrew.

---One should expect that Calvin would put his own version, the Leo Juda Calvin corrected version, at the head of his Commentaries. But, he did not do so. The researcher found.

---William Whittingham married the sister of John Calvin and he was the chief translator of the Geneva Bible into English after Mary’s persecution.

---He then went on a trip with the Earl to France and then was made Dean of Durham.

---Experts in the Geneva Bible complained that it was filled with Calvinisms. This is the observation of Bishop Horsley.

---The subject here is the Bibles which existed before the King James Version.

---Whittingham’s translation and the other editions of the Geneva Bible was based on the Tyndale Bible text. Tyndale became later a martyr.

---Conclusion: It is common for all translators to look at a very good literal translation as a basis text and then to adjust, omit, add, transform choosing better synonyms, upgrade the translation. This is what Calvin did. Calvin is not Juda but Juda can be found in Calvin’s translation.

---In many ways I found Calvin’s method of translation to have similarities in my own approach.

Source:

https://archive.org/stream/commentariesonfi01calv/commentariesonfi01calv_djvu.txt