Translations of the Bible

As of 1950 there were 626 Catholic editions of the Bible printed in all languages.

17 editions in German before Luther’s translation.

9 German editions before Luther was born.

English Douay-Rheims official Catholic Edition 1582

King James edition Authorised Protestant edition appeared in 1611 - nearly 16 centuries after Christ.

(From Fr O'Brien's famous book, 'The Faith of Millions')

Notice also that the famous Vulgate translation by S. Jerome, which is recognised as the definitive version of the Bible for the Catholic Church, was itself a Vernacular translation from the Greek and Hebrew (and some Old Testament books in Aramaic). The word 'Vulgate' in Latin means 'the speech of the common folk' and it is in a version of Latin more chatty and less stilted than the rather 'show-off' Classical Latin developed by the great pagan authors. It is the way Latin was spoken by literate members of the Roman Empire in the 4th century – not slang, but the equivalent of what we nowadays would call 'Good English'.