[pctech]

That's because the Latin Vulgate was the only "bible" the middle-century-dark-ages-catholic-church would allow the public to have, and most couldn't even afford or understand it. Or did we somehow forget about that nasty subject called "The Inquisitions?"

[A.A. Cunningham]

More revisionism and yes, you are wrong again. You need to quit swallowing everything Jack Chick writes. Even the English Douay-Rheims predates the abridged and heavily edited KJV.

[Aquinasfan]

That's because the Latin Vulgate was the only "bible" the middle-century-dark-ages-catholic-church would allow the public to have, and most couldn't even afford or understand it.

In the years prior to the invention of the printing press, monks toiled night and day to produce by hand as many Bibles as possible. Nevertheless, Bibles were scarce. A complete Bible cost the equivalent of three years' wages or around $100k today. Generally, people were illiterate. Why? Because there was nothing to read. At $100k a whack, books were being thrown around like manhole covers.

That's why churches were adorned with stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible. It was for the time a "high tech" solution to the problem of educating the illiterate.

There's an old canard about Bibles being chained to the pulpits of Catholic Churches, supposedly because the Church wanted to keep the Bible out of the hands of the masses. The truth is, churches couldn't afford to replace $100k Bibles very often.

The invention of the printing press made Luther's (previously unknown) doctrine of "The Bible Alone" practically possible. The printing press was invented in 1440, about eighty years before Luther invented his unbiblical doctrine of "the Bible alone."

Interestingly, the inventor of the printing press, Johan Gutenberg, was a Catholic. The first book that came off of his press? The Bible.