Bible : The Gutenberg Bible

The Bible is a sacred book of scriptures that Christians and people of the Jewish faith believe is the written account of the word of God. Many different authors composed the works that make up the Bible. It is said that Jesus Christ is the son God who was sent to be the Lord and Savior of all people. Many Christians and Jewish people believe the Bible is the way of life. Those who believe and follow the beliefs of the Bible and God’s word will have eternal life if they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The Bible has been in print and given to others for hundreds of years. The first King James Bible was published back in the year 1611. Within the King James Version, it used to contain what are now known as the canons. A biblical canon is a set or series of related books. The canons, within the King James Version, these were called the books of the apocrypha. Apocrypha means ‘hide away’ in Greek. The apocrypha is a collection of books that were located in between the Old Testament and the New Testament. For over 270 years, the books of the apocrypha were published in the King James Version of the Bible.

13) The Creation of the World; the Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve; Original Sin; the Fall

Everyday people read newspapers and books, but where did printing begin? The movable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg made this all possible. Johannes first conceived of this idea of the printing press in the 15th century in order to speed up the slow process of producing books (Bantwal). The movable type printing press, the first real technology of its kind, helped to solve problems, but in turn also caused problems. This technology did influence many areas of life in its lifespan. This includes challenging the church and poisoning people with the increased toxins from mass products of materials. Depending on one’s point of view, this invention could be the best or worst thing to happen during the 15th century. Regardless of

The exploration of the printing press originally came from the Chinese. The Chinese were the ones to first invent the woodblock printing process and even tried to experiment with movable wood types. According to the (Background Essay) it claims “with 50,000 characters, carving each character was impossible.” The English language only had 26 letters, but that still did not make the written communication easy. A small book would take months to complete and a book the size of the Bible took years. In 1455 Gutenberg was

Before the printing press was established, persons known as “copyists” made a living of drawing or writing different types of manuscript books.

According to research found via WWW.GREATSITE.COM, The Bibles of Colonial America, America’s Earliest Bibles. In the early 1600’s, the Geneva Bible became the first Bible to be taken across the Atlantic to America. It was, however, never printed in America. The first Bible printed in America was John Eliot’s Algonquin Indian language Bible, which came off the press in 1663, and again in 1685. The Eliot Bible was in fact, the first Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere. American presses saw no other Bibles printed until well into the next century, when German emigrant Christopher Saur began production of the first European language Bibles printed in America: the German language Saur Bibles. The first edition of Saur’s German Bible came off

The earliest printing in China was the block printing method in the first Century B.C., where the individual sheets of paper were pressed against wooden blocks that had text and illustrations carved into them. This process could print hundreds and even thousands of copies, this technology played a significant role in promoting the spread of culture. A block carver named Bi Sheng made movable types with clay during the period from1004 to 1048. This method each type was carved with one character and the types could be set independently according to contents of different articles. After printing, the movable types could be reused and this improved technology is called movable-type printing. (LAN, 2008)

As a result of this need, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, along with Johannes Fust and Peter Schöffer, however Gutenberg is better known for the invention of the printing press, or the Gutenberg Press. Gutenberg’s first printing press had replaceable moveable wooden letters, which was later replaced by metal letters. The first printing press, was completed in 1440, four years after it was first invented. By 1482, there were a total of 100 printing presses in Western Europe: fifty in Italy, thirty in Germany, nine in France, eight in Spain and Holland, and four in England. The Gutenberg Press remained the standard method for printing until the 20th century. The Gutenberg Press is known for creating a revolution in the production of books, and for also for initiating rapid development in science, art and religion through the communication of text.

The scribes used a kind of paper called papyrus, which was made from reeds otherwise known as the papyrus plant.

Gutenberg built upon the success of others. China and Japan printed with engraved wooden blocks as early as the eighth and ninth centuries, with movable type invented in the eleventh century. By the fourteenth century, Europe used the same techniques. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains his merging of ideas: “Johannes Gutenberg is generally credited with… the invention of modern printing: the use of dies to make individual pieces of type that could be assembled as required and then reused, and the use of a press by which sharp impressions could be made many times over, on both sides of a sheet of paper

Johann Gutenberg was a German man, who’s parents owned a mint shop when he was a child. He most likely learned how to work with metal here. Books at the time were very rare. Because there was no such thing as printing, monks had to copy books by hand which often took longer than a year and included mistakes made by the monks. Most of the books were only available to monks and scholars. In Gutenberg’s spare time, he began working on the printing press. He made sure to keep the idea a secret too, he didn’t want anyone to steal it from him. To make the printer, Gutenberg had made metal pieces shaped into letters. Several of those letters were then pressed into a frame to spell out words, sentences and paragraphs. The letters, covered in ink would

The King James version of the Bible affected many things and had a major impact on society and the English language. It was created by King James to benefit and fill a request given by the puritans to King James. It took seven years to write and it became the English standard version of the Bible. The King James version includes a lot of formal and poetic language to describe stories and events in the other versions of the Bible. It taught the Bible in a different way making it easier for some people to understand and believe in the stories and truths of the Bible. This version is the most influential version of the Bible. It is also the most referred too and the most popular for many groups of people. Overall it is a descriptive and creative translation that combines truth with poetic art and beautiful language appealing to many different groups of people.

Created by Johannes Gutenberg, The Gutenberg Bible was the first mass produced book through the use of a moveable printer. Known for its artistic Latin writing, the Bible only has forty-nine copies remaining, one residing at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The Gutenberg Bible exhibits religious qualities from the message, directly from God, and the original purpose of the creation of the Bible.

Ever since I was born I have been attending church. At this young age they teach you everything about the main stories or the main points of the Bible. At my church I learned stories from Noah’s ark to the story of Adam and Eve eating the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I learned about who was the narrator of the Bible and who created our earth. I never knew who were the people that printed out the pages or chose a specific font for the Bible. I didn’t have the background knowledge of what country or if it were the Romans that actually created the Bible. In this world there has been several theories that the Romans were the ones that wrote it or it was the English that wrote it and printed it out. After reading the book “How we got the Bible” by Neil R. Lightfoot, it gave me the right knowledge and understanding of who wrote the wonderful collection of books. Understanding how we got the Bible means that we have to know how it was written, on what it was written and who wrote it.

While he was printing books in Mainz, word was getting out all over Europe about how great this invention was. The letters were clearly legible from the metal types he used. Before he died, printing presses like the one’s he invented were being used all over Europe to spread the ideas of many other happy people.