away") of the Catholic Church, one only has to look into the many books and
writings about the original Martin Luther and his 99 treatises that he
nailed to the cathedral doors in the 1700's. He and others, who were
finally reading the Bibles that had been distributed after the invention of
the printing press, were discovering that many things that were practiced
and preached in the Catholic Church were not according to scripture. Sadly
though, even we Protestants have "fallen away" from our faith.
>
A good, and very easy to approach book on Luther is _Here I Stand: A Life of
Martin Luther_ by Roland H. Bainton.
The interesting thing about the "finally reading the bibles" point is that
while it was facilitated by the printing press, what most people don't know
is that it is also an early basis for modern copyright law. The church and
the rich would horde the precious illustrated manuscripts, denying the
unwashed masses access to them. IIRC, there was a case where some people
snuck in and stole one of these bibles and printed it for the masses. After
much hubbub and such, the concept of authors retaining credit but passing
into the public domain was developed which was made rule in the Statute of
Anne in the early 1700s. That, along with printers unions, led to the
creation of the first copyright and public domain law by the late 1700s.
-Kevin
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