Gutenberg Bible- tech levels the field

One of the most important breakthroughs in history? If, like me, you value the spread and growth of knowledge, then yes.


That is one of the two volumes that make the Gutenberg. I saw it at the JP Morgan Library. He collected three of them, out of the six known to exist. When you look at it, it at first has the appearance of any old, hand scriven text of the era. But after looking at it for a while, the eveness begins to separate it from others. And the paucity of the beautiful laminations. Oh it has them, and in fact each Gutenberg is unique as a result, but it is clear, the text is the main feature. In fact, most of the hand written texts of the time were parts of the bible, so it took a section of a rich person's library to house a complete bible. And of course, the texts varied in each iteration.

If you recall the social impact of the Gutenberg, it helped, as we like to say now, "democratize" the Word of God, helping break the knowledge monopoly of the Church. Nothing was the same in the west after this technology was introduced. Reading became more important. Knowledge became portable.



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