In the late fourth century, Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus to revise the Gospels in order to correct errors of the old Latin translation. Jerome continued to revise and translate the Latin Bible, and it became his life’s work. Known as the Latin Vulgate, it was the basis for a standard text used by the Western church for 1,000 years. But it wasn’t until the 13th century that, as a standard, all the books of the Bible were bound in one volume or that Bibles were mass produced. A copy of a 13th-century Latin Vulgate is on display at Museum of the Bible. The Latin Vulgate became the primary Bible of the medieval era, used in the liturgy of the church at a time when few people could actually read the Bible.
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