From: creps@lateran.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen A. Creps)
Subject: Re: Does it matter which church?
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 22

In article <May.2.09.51.04.1993.11807@geneva.rutgers.edu> gideon@otago.ac.nz (Gideon King) writes:
>When the Protestant reformers opposed and subsequently separated from the  
>Church of Rome, the battle cry of the new protesting religion was "The  
>Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible". Underlying that cry  
>was a theory that if people could read the Bible for themselves in their  
>native tongue they would discover the truth about God and His purpose.  
>They would shed their old errors and be united by a common faith.

   This idea, that the Reformers somehow were the first to bring the
Bible to the people in their own language, is a myth.  Many vernacular
translations of the Bible existed long before the Reformation.  The
Vulgate Bible, which is still the official version of the Bible for the
Catholic Church, was itself a translation in the common (i.e. vulgar ==
vulgate) tongue of its day, Latin, and had existed for about a millenium
before the Reformation.

   It might also be noted that the printing press was not even invented
until the same century as that in which the Reformation occurred.

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Steve Creps, Indiana University
creps@lateran.ucs.indiana.edu
