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Originally Posted by crich70
Actually the Koran and Book of Mormon were both written long after the Bible. They are separate books entirely. One says that Jesus was just a prophet and the other says he went to the new world after leaving his followers. So one denies his divinity and the other adds on things that are contradictory to what the Bible says. Not that I want to get into a debate on that in this forum.
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Yes, no debates on that please ...
Although I think your summary is pretty spot on.
Yes, the Koran and the Book of Mormon are entirely different books. The "bibles" if you will, of Islam and Mormonism. They came later; Mohammed lived in the 7th century and the Book of Mormon was first published in 1830.
And the Old and New Testaments are a single book as far as Christians are concerned, even though the OT has its origins in Judaism. And there is still debate on what actually constitutes the Bible. I am thinking of the Apocryphal books in particular ....
Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
Gutenberg printed his Bible around 1450-1455 and Martin Luther had translated it into German even before then. And the most well known (I think) is the King James Version of 1610. There were English translations before KJV but it was the first to receive official sanction by an English monarch. Before that time if you translated it into English you were in danger of a death sentence.
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Luther translated the Bible in first half of 16th century. The advent of the printing press made it possible to mass produce books and I guess kind of coincided with an interest in publishing books in the vernacular as well as an increase in literacy (in vernacular languages). By then most of the population in Europe neither read nor spoke Latin. Before then, people in Europe largely relied on hearing bits read by priests or "narrative" art (think of the paintings, stained glass, and sculptures in churches that depicted Biblical scenes) for their "Bible knowledge."
As others have pointed out, Bible reading seems to have largely been done on the part of Protestants. If my Catholic BF is anyone to go by, Catholics do not seem to read the Bible all that much.
There have been numerous translations of the Bible, both to correct perceived inaccuracies in translation and bring it more up to date, language-wise, but for my money, the KJV still rocks. I think it can be read simply as a great work of literature.
Yes the list largely seems to be of works originally published in English. Hmmm ...