- Banned
- #21
Before that time they were painfully produced manuscripts that the monks in monasteries produced by hand. Really quite beautiful. The scarcity of bibles was probably one of the reasons the public wasn't allowed to read them, plus most people were illiterate back then. That gave the church centuries to come up with a more consistent story lineThe first published Bible was the Gutenberg Bible printed in 1455. 180 copies were printed, most on paper, some on a writing surface made of calfskin. I think there are something like 48 of these Bibles still in existence and some of those are fragments of the original.
Gutenberg also invented the printing press with the first operational one put to use in 1440. This was the catalyst of the Renaissance as for the first time most people were able to read classical literature like the Bible for themselves without having to go through an intermediary who too often 'edited' the contents.
The Renaissance freed minds making the Reformation possible in the 16th Century changing the traditions of Christianity, even in the Roman Catholic Church, forever.
Trivia: It is estimated that a Gutenberg Bible would sell for more than $5 million today.