What You Need to Know about the Gutenberg Bible
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Why Is the Gutenberg Bible Famous?
The Gutenberg Bible is not famous because it was the first Bible (it wasn’t).
It is not famous because some important libraries worldwide own copies of it—or even just a single page of it. Nor is it famous because, nowadays, when a single page becomes available for sale, that one page would probably be auctioned for close to $16,000. Nor is it famous because—here’s a huge number—if an entire Gutenberg Bible suddenly became available (beyond the 48 copies, some incomplete, known to exist today)… it might legitimately be valued at $150,000,000.
No. The Gutenberg Bible is famous because it represents a moment in historical time when the act of reproducing what we call books changed forever.
How were Bibles “Printed” Before the Gutenberg Bible?
Before Gutenberg, Bibles were not “printed,” as we use the term today. Instead, they were illuminated. The process was slow, careful, and exacting. It was usually performed by monks, who had time enough to apply their own artistic and calligraphic efforts to glorify the Lord’s words.
Illuminating was done by an important monk or team of monks. The monks had to be literate (meaning they could read), and they had to have exhibited artistic mastery when copying the letters in words onto pages of vellum or parchment. Both parchment and vellum are animal skins that have been treated to accept the ink and the paint used during illumination. These materials were used for the monks’ work in the Middle Ages (paper was not commonly used in Europe until the 1450s).
Does “Gutenberg Bible” Refer to a Person, Place, Translation, or Theological Idea?
Johannes Gutenberg was born in Germany, in Mainz, which is near Frankfurt and Wiesbaden in southwest Germany, in about 1398 or 1399. He was born into a prosperous family, and he learned to read early. So, the Gutenberg Bible is named after the person Johannes Gutenberg.
However, Gutenberg himself did not become famous as a translator of the Bible or as a man who advanced any new biblically theological ideas. Gutenberg became famous because he invented moveable type, which made any printing project easier, quicker, less costly, and rapidly repeatable.
To the extent that Johannes Gutenberg advanced any new ideas about the Bible’s content, his contribution was that Bibles should be readily available to laypeople. His invention meant that Bibles were no longer the sole property of nobility (who could afford illuminated versions) or church masters (who could judge them on theological grounds).
So, Gutenberg invented no new ideas. He invented the printing press, a machine that used his new moveable type to quickly reproduce page after page (generally on paper) so that each page for a book was uniform with that same page in the next book. Gutenberg’s process was quick, slick, and inexpensive compared to illumination. So much so that Bibles could be made for buyers among the general public… and in their local language.
How Did the Roman Catholic Church React to the Existence of the New Gutenberg Bible?
Not well. But perhaps not for the reason sometimes claimed nowadays.
Today’s academic world is preoccupied with the notion that every powerful institution is motivated by excluding anyone from power and prestige who doesn’t belong to its own elite ranks. They assign this dynamic to the Roman Catholic Church, as they do to every other institution they can identify as having been villainous throughout western history. So, if they perceive that some element of the Renaissance-era church frowned on the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, they are not surprised and trumpet their point. “Ah hah! Caught you!”
Yet this is chronological snobbery.
What Language Did People Read in the Middle Ages?
In the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, people learned about the world around them in monasteries and churches. Churches and monasteries taught Latin. So if people learned to read and write, think about what they read, and discover their culture’s customs to pass along to their children, they had to learn Latin.
They didn’t learn the High Latin of the Lords of the Church but the Vulgate (for the common or “vulgar” population). Vulgate Latin was for ordinary men and women going about their ordinary lives, yet still needing to talk, read and write, and debate.
I spoke a few moments ago about illuminations, the painfully slow, exact, careful, and welcome creation of new copies of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church usually produced illuminations, and they didn’t lament the creation of additional Bibles in the world. Instead, the Roman Catholic Church went out of its way to produce more illuminations and make them beautiful. For one thing, more beautiful illuminations (each page with its elaborate capitals and its illustrative marginalia) further drew attention to them. The Roman Catholic Church’s actual response was the opposite of what some people attribute.
Did the Roman Catholic Church Ever Deplore What Gutenberg Made Possible?
Yes.
Gutenberg was an inventor. Like other inventors before and since his time, after he conceived his initial idea and constructed it, he tested it, improved it, and kept working on it, always making it function better and more efficiently.
He began in 1436. The height of his professional printing career came in 1454-55 when the first edition of his famous Bible came off the press. That Bible was, naturally, in Latin.
But what happened after his culture noticed that an invention had occurred that made Bible printing so easy? Some people speculated about printing the Bible in German, the primary language of the German people. Others speculated about even printing the Bible in English (of all things!). Now, from the point of view of Rome, that would be a bridge too far.
The Roman Catholic Church strongly deplored translating God’s glorious Bible, written in beautiful Latin, into such low and faulty languages as German and English.
The Roman Catholic Church did not kill Luther, who translated the New Testament into German in 1522, then the Pentateuch in 1523, and finally the whole Bible during the 1530s. But the Roman Catholic Church did execute William Tyndale, who translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into English and published it in 1526. In Antwerp, he was tied at the stake, strangled to death, and then burned to ashes.
However, despite the Roman Catholic Church’s most earnest efforts, Bible translation had become a rage across Europe. For example, the famous Geneva Bible (a favorite of Protestants, particularly Luther and Calvin) was made in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1557. The Geneva Bible was to educate English people forced to leave England when it returned to the Roman Catholic Church under Mary I (1553-1558).
Eventually, the Roman Catholic Church produced its own English translation, but this was so shoddy that it was disdained by the people it was produced to please. Instead, under the new Anglican Church and the sponsorship of King James, an entirely new English “Authorized Version” of the Bible, was issued in 1611. The King James Bible is the most widely published version of the Bible of all time, numbering 55% of the approximately 5 billion copies of the Bible that have been published.
Johannes Gutenberg Must Have Died Rich. Did He?
Gutenberg died in 1468, a poor man. He was just short of 70 years old. He was probably buried in the Franciscan monastery of Mainz. That place has disappeared, so his grave location is unknown.
Three years before his death, Archbishop von Nassau recognized Gutenberg for his life’s work and gave him a stipend. The stipend included an annual new outfit of court clothing, 2,180 liters of grain per year, and 2,000 liters of wine per year, all without tax.
Gutenberg published 180 Bibles, most on paper and a few on vellum. Aside from the Bibles, his most lucrative printed products were indulgences. As far as I have been able to determine, he died a pious Catholic believer. We may speculate that some people purchased indulgences printed by Gutenberg’s printing press to intervene for his soul.
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Dr. Dikkon Eberhart lives in the Blue Ridge area of SW Virginia. He and his wife have four grown children and five grandchildren. He has written all his life, both fiction and memoir, and his academic interest is the connection between religion and the arts. His most recent book is the popular memoir The Time Mom Met Hitler, Frost Came to Dinner, and I Heard the Greatest Story Ever Told (Tyndale House, 2015). He writes memoirs, and he assists those who wish to write memoirs, for the purpose of coming closer to God. Learn more about his interests at www.dikkoneberhart.com.
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