There is this really cool invention called the internet that allows you to actually do research before psoting errors such as the above.
Luthers was not the first, nor the second, what is was was one of the worst.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Bible+before+Martin+Luther.-a0277600839
By digging into history, these grandiloquent "experts" would be surprised to learn that the first printed Bible was produced by Johann Gutenberg, a Catholic,--with Church approval--in 1455. Luther was born in 1483! To go further on the number of printings, there were 18 German editions of the Bible before Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517.
For a full view of translation history it is important to acknowledge that no books of the Bible were originally written in Latin. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew with some parts in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Septuagint is a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek for the Jews in Alexandria who spoke mainly Greek at that time. This made it possible for the whole Bible to be available in Greek by about 100 A.D.
Other early translations of the Bibles appeared in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic, in the Ge'ez language in Ethiopia and in Latin in Western Europe.
The earliest Latin translations were used as the Vetus Latina until the 5th century. St. Jerome re-translated the Hebrew and Greek texts into the vernacular, the Latin of his day, known as the Vulgate (Biblia vulgata), meaning "common version" or "popular version." So by the end of late antiquity, the Bible was available in all major written languages then spoken by Christians.
In the early medieval period anyone who could read at all could most likely read Latin, even in (Anglo-Saxon) England, where writing in the vernacular (Old English) was most common. After the Greek and Latin translations, the Bible or some passages thereof were translated into vernacular European languages. The Gothic Bible was translated from Greek by Ulfilas, an Arian. The Gospel of John was translated into Old English by Saint Bede the Venerable before his death in 735. The Gospel of Matthew was translated into Old High German in 748. Alfred the Great circulated a number of passages of the Bible in the vernacular around the turn of 900. The four Gospels were translated into Old English in the West Saxon dialect (the Wessex Gospels) in 990. There was a Gospel translation into the Old Slavonic language in the late 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius.
After the 8th century German translation of the Bible into the language of the common people, other European nations followed suit; these were France and Hungary in the 12th century and Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland and Bohemia in the 13th century. The Spanish Inquisition gave full approval to publish the Bible translation in 1478. The first printed Flemish translation came out in 1477. Two Italian versions were printed in 1516, a year before Luther posted his Theses. The earliest English edition was printed in 1525.
It is worth noticing that there were 198 editions of the Bible in the vernacular, the language of the laity; 626 editions altogether, all before the Protestant version, with the full approval of the Catholic Church.
You are wrong. There were vernacular translation into some languages early on, when few could read them. By around 1200-1300 AD, the Catholic Church began its policy of banning vernacular translations.
In German, Luther was the first vernacular translation worth a darn, which is why it sold copies by the tens of thousands - unlike any of the High German translation made before it.
There were a few partial translations into English prior to Wycliffe, but they were both few in number and very partial. The translation of the four gospels was popular enough, but there is a huge distinction between translating the Gospels alone, and the entire NT or entire Bible.
When vernacular translations such as Wycliffe’s, Luther’s and Tyndale’s hit the streets, the opposition became formal:
“With the appearance, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of the Albigenses and Waldenses, who appealed to the Bible in all their disputes with the Church, the hierarchy was furnished with a reason for shutting up the Word of God. The Synod of Toulouse in 1229 forbade the laity to have in their possession any copy of the books of the Old and the New Testament except the Psalter and such other portions as are contained in the Breviary or the Hours of the Blessed Mary. “We most strictly forbid these works in the vulgar tongue” (Harduin, Concilia, xii, 178; Mansi, Concilia, xxiii, 194).
The Synod of Tarragona (1234) ordered all vernacular versions to be brought to the bishop to be burned. James I renewed thin decision of the Tarragona synod in 1276. The synod held there in 1317 under Archbishop Ximenes prohibited to Beghards, Beguines, and tertiaries of the Franciscans the possession of theological books in the vernacular (Mansi, Concilia, xxv, 627). The order of James I was renewed by later kings and confirmed by Paul II (1464-71). Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1516) prohibited the translation of the Bible into the vernacular or the possession of such translations (F. H. Reusch, Index der verbotenen i, Bonn, 1883, 44).
In England Wyclif’s Bible-translation caused the resolution passed by the third Synod of Oxford (1408): “No one shall henceforth of his own authority translate any text of Scripture into English; and no part of any such book or treatise composed in the time of John Wycliffe or later shall be read in public or private, under pain of excommunication” (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vi, 984). But Sir Thomas More states that he had himself seen old Bibles which were examined by the bishop and left in the hands of good Catholic laymen (Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, 4th ed., London, 1878, i, 505).”
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.lxi.htm
However, the ONLY copies of English translations of the Bible ever found were Wycliffe’s. The copies More saw were copies of Wycliffe’s translation, authorized on a one by one basis by individual priests for individual people.
There is no record of the Bible translated into English by anyone other than Wycliffe prior to Tyndale. Individual passages, or a book (or the four gospels)? Yes. The New Testament as a whole? No.
Thanks for this information on the publication history of the Bible before Luther. I expect to refer to this from time to time!