Final answer:
St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin around 410, known as the Vulgate, which was the main edition in European Christianity until the sixteenth century. The canonical books were definitively established by the Western Church in 1442, before the Bible was made more accessible during the Renaissance through the use of Gutenberg's printing press.
Step-by-step explanation:
The individual who translated the Bible into Latin, which became the standard version in the Western Church for over a thousand years, was St. Jerome. He completed the translation in 410, which is known as the Vulgate. It remained the main edition used across Europe until the advent of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. This Latin translation served as a unifying factor among educated individuals across various European countries during the Middle Ages, even though Latin had faded as a spoken language by the eighth century.
During the Renaissance, specifically in 1442, the Western Church defined the canonical books of the Old Testament, effectively creating the definitive version of the Bible. This effort solidified the text used by the church before the eventual translation into the vernacular and the widespread distribution made possible by Gutenberg's printing press in the fifteenth century.