How could Protestantism exist without the printing press?

I'm wondering this because so many people say that Protestant Christianity is the Truth and Catholicism is wrong, but it really didn't exist until Guttenburg created the printing press and Luther stood up and made his views on who should interpret the Bible clear. That was about 350sh years ago.

This is not an attack on Christianity, but a question on how Christianity would have evolved from Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy without that single piece of necessary technology. Is it possible for the masses to become literate enough to develop real Protestantism rather than the tiny pockets Prue-Guttenburg? How?

I guess had the printing press not been invented, the monks would still hand copy the bible in Latin and chain them to the tables of their libraries so no one could steal them. What do you mean by protestant Christianity? You are either a christian or you're not. Religion is what you mean, and that is not biblical, but man made. Luther was the man who translated the bible from Latin into German because He wanted the common man to be able to read it. He didn't exclude anyone from getting a copy of it.

Religions have traditions and rituals that interfere with the bible.There are many catholics who are true and saved Christians. And there are many who aren't. The same goes for any other christian denomination.

I expect it would have come about some how or another. We need to remember in Luther's time the Catholic church was as much about politics as it was about the spiritual side of man. In many cases politics was the main goal. People like Luther questioned the role of the church. The Catholic church has changed since then but the Protestant movement was the catalyst for that change. I'm thinking God would have orchestrated the awakening with our without the printing press.

try WNW.newadvent.org and WNW.catholiceducation.org it should cover your question.

The Catholic Church forbade the translating of the Bible into a language that people could read. Without the Gutenberg press, German Bibles would have been produced the same way as they had been for hundreds of years.

Just a side thought - Luther originally didn't WANT to start a new sect - he wanted the abuse of indulgences to stop, and rightly so. He would be absolutely horrified at the mess of 'sects' now.

Its probably more people thinking for themselves that was key. The intellectual developments like the printing press came due to a flowering of creativity.

People were used to being governed in a very authoritarian way. Their kings had much power. The established Roman catholic church (conformed partly to the world's thinking rather than the New Testament's) was thinking about itself to a degree in the same way, but was not as barbaric (well, the Eastern Mediterranean and Cathar crusades were barbaric).

All people were restricted in their thinking by the authorizing and 'might is right' notions of the time. As society got more developed, and people applied sound thinking to things such as law, government, philosophy and trade, this controlled thinking looked outmoded. It was clear that applying thinking to things made improvements.

So you started getting small protestant pockets where people following the same desire to examine things investigated the Bible's teachings and found the established church had badly sidetracked from the Bible's teaching in many areas.

The printing press was just a key element of the process of the ending of authoritarianism, making for the rapid spread of ideas. The real change was a wholesome desire to
investigate things that was influencing European society.

Gutenberg's invention was in 1451. Luther nailed his theses on the church door on October 31, 1517. So the printing press was 56 years old when Luther did what he did.

The question, however, is would protestantism exist without the press. Probably it would have come about as one of the massive abusers of the poor was the Catholic church.

There were "Reformations" books written way prior to the press. Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso certainly were. Prior to Martin Luther there were an abundance of writers who fell under the cognomen of "Christian Humanists." Probably the greatest was Erasmus whose books got wide publicity. It is said that Martin Luther hatched the egg that Erasmus laid.