The Bible-Why So Many? - THE LATIN VULGATE

About 300 years after the Bible was completed, religious scholar Jerome produced a Latin translation of the Bible, which eventually came to be the Latin Vulgate.  Latin translations in various forms already existed, so why was a new one needed?  Jerome wanted to correct "wrong renderings, obvious errors, and unwarranted additions and omissions," says the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 

Jerome corrected many of those errors.  But in time, church authorities committed the greatest disservice of all!  They declared the Latin Vulgate  to be the only approved translation of the Bible and continued to do so for centuries!  Instead of helping  ordinary people to understand the Bible, the Vulgate made it a closed book because eventually most people knew no Latin at all. 

Next time: The Bible -Why So Many? - NEW TRANSLATIONS MULTIPLY 

From the jw.org publications