When God Spoke English The Making of the King James Bible Adam Nicolson 9780007431007 Books
Download As PDF : When God Spoke English The Making of the King James Bible Adam Nicolson 9780007431007 Books
A fascinating, lively account of the making of the King James Bible. James VI of Scotland -- now James I of England -- came into his new kingdom in 1603. Trained almost from birth to manage rival political factions, he was determined not only to hold his throne, but to avoid the strife caused by religious groups that was bedevilling most European countries. He would hold his God-appointed position and unify his kingdom. Out of these circumstances, and involving the very people who were engaged in the bitterest controversies, a book of extraordinary grace and lasting literary appeal was created the King James Bible. 47 scholars from Cambridge, Oxford and London translated the Bible, drawing from many previous versions, and created what many believe to be the greatest prose work ever written in English -- the product of a culture in a peculiarly conflicted era. This was the England of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and Bacon; but also of extremist Puritans, the Gunpowder plot, the Plague, of slum dwellings and crushing religious confines. Quite how this astonishing translation emerges is the central question of this book. Far more than Shakespeare, this Bible helped to create and shape the language. It is the origin of many of our most familiar phrases, and the foundations of the English-speaking world. It was a generous and deliberate decision to make the Bible available to the common man not an immediate commercial success, but which later became a bestseller, and has remained one ever since. Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the early years of the first Stewart ruler, and the scholars who laboured for seven years to create the world's greatest book; immersing us in a world of ingratiating bishops, a fascinating monarch and London at a time unlike any other.
When God Spoke English The Making of the King James Bible Adam Nicolson 9780007431007 Books
This book goes into the politics of the translation of the old and new testaments into the King James Version of the bible. For English history fanatics, this book paints a portrait of the religious turmoil of the early seventeenth century. For people who take the the King James version of the bible literally, it will be a lesson in how the words they quote were selected.Product details
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Tags : When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible [Adam Nicolson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A fascinating, lively account of the making of the King James Bible. James VI of Scotland -- now James I of England -- came into his new kingdom in 1603. Trained almost from birth to manage rival political factions,Adam Nicolson,When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible,Harper Press,0007431007,Biblical Studies - General,Religion - Biblical Studies
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When God Spoke English The Making of the King James Bible Adam Nicolson 9780007431007 Books Reviews
Received order in a timely fashion-thanks. I appreciate having this another book on the KJB.
A so-so book
Previously entitled 'Power and Glory', this is a beautifully told and dazzlingly interpreted story of what went into the writing of King James' Bible. It begins with a a superb account of James' succession and of the England to which he succeeded; and we have a really rounded portrayal of the King himself, bringing out his considerable virtues as well as his failings. Nicolson gives a spirited description of the proceedings of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, out of which the idea of a new translation of the Bible emerged. The Puritans were unhappy with the Bishops' Bible of 1568 and asked for a new translation which should be `the one only translation of ye byble to be authenticall and read in ye churche.' James apparently also found the Bishops' Bible poorly translated (in what respect is not made clear by James; Nicolson calls it `cloth-eared', `pompous' and `obscure'), but he liked the idea that only one translation should be allowed once it had been approved by the Privy Council and by the King himself, because that would exclude the use made by Puritans in their churches of the Geneva Bible which had been produced by the exiled Calvinists in the 1550s. This had frequently translated `king' as `tyrant' and included marginal notations that were clearly anti-royalist. The new Authorized Version should be purged of all such subversion. Bishop Bancroft was put in overall charge, and fulfilled the wishes of the King when he issued the sixteen rules he gave to the six groups or `companies' of Translators, two based in Westminster, two in Oxford and two in Cambridge, each made up of nine scholars there were to be no tendentious marginalia (yet explanatory annotations there were, as to the apparently erotic passages of Song of Songs); `ecclesia' was to be translated as `church' and not as `congregation', `presbyteros' as `priest' and not as `elder', etc.
On the other hand, James wanted the Bible to an eirenic book which he hoped would be acceptable to all but the extreme Puritans or `separatists'. To that end, moderate Puritans like John Reynolds and Laurence Chaderton, from among those to whom he had listened, albeit with irritation, at the Hampton Court Conference, were to be included among the Translators, alongside intolerant Anglicans like Richard Bancroft and Launcelot Andrewes. The new Bible was not intended to be a revolutionary translation it drew on and paid tribute to the earlier translations which it aimed to improve. It was originally printed in heavy antique Gothic type instead of in modern Roman type.
One instruction was that the scholars in each company were each to make his own translations and then meet with his colleagues to work out the best of them; and at the end the work of each company was to be submitted to all the others (with the Privy Council and then the King giving the final approval.)
On pp.152 to 154 there is a superb example of how just one sentence (Luke 157) was proposed, shaped and reshaped into what we have today. This comes from the, alas, only working manuscript that has survived. But we have the analysis of other verses on pp.192 to 194 the first two verses of Genesis, for example. And each time Nicolson comments acidly and aptly on the philistinism of modern versions, which lack all resonance and majesty. He gives us a few other such gems of his sensitivities to sound, metaphor and meaning I could wish for a whole book of them!
The personalities of some of the Translators are richly described. Some of these men were unpleasant, some were corrupt pluralists, some ambitious courtiers; others sweet-natured or unworldly there is a gem of a description of one John Bois, whose notes on the final meetings of the heads of the companies have been preserved (and Nicolson notes that the various versions were READ OUT there here one final test was did they SOUND right?)
The subtitle of 'Power and Glory' was `Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible', so it deals with much material that is either marginally or actually not at all connected with the King James' Bible. We read of the heedless extravagance of the James' court; the orgiastic festivities at court when King Christian IV of Denmark was on a visit and both kings were revoltingly drunk; details of tortures inflicted on separatists and on Catholics who were innocent of the Gunpowder Plot; the story of the departure for the Low Countries, successful on the second attempt, of those who would be called the Pilgrim Fathers.
Nicolson takes the richly encrusted decoration of Cecil's Hatfield House, illuminated by the light from its huge windows as characteristic of the new Bible the light of truth, so stressed by Puritans, playing over the gorgeous texture of the text.
Nicolson's own text is worthy of its theme it too combines elegant simplicity with richness of meaning, and the last three pages are just wonderful.
This is not a blow-by-blow account of the creation of the King James Bible, but it is an excellent account of the period in which gave rise to it.
It does tell us about the main characters who were involved in the collation and translation of the Bible, but it also sets them in their time and place, explaining the proper meaning of the term ‘Puritan’, and how the extreme members of that branch of religion were unable to conform to the requirements of the state religion. It also, almost as an aside, points out how much obfuscation has grown up around the Gunpowder Plot, the discovery of which gave a major shock to what was on the way to becoming a tolerant regime under the new king, James 6th.
It also gives us a good look at the various English-language bibles that had been produced, officially and unofficially, during the 16th century, and why an ‘authorised’ edition was needed – mainly because the most popular translation was heavily biased to the Calvinist view of Christianity, and the government needed a more moderate version, though much of the content of earlier bibles was carried forward into the King James version, after thorough checking against the available Greek and Hebrew texts. One of the main differences was that the new edition was intended to be read aloud in the churches, rather than to be read by individuals in the privacy of their own homes, and the language chosen by the translators was actually not the day-to-day spoken language of the time, but a heightened version intended to carry the ‘spirit’ of the words.
This also happens to be an extremely readable and entertaining book, and I read it in three sittings (or loungings, as I recline on my couch when reading).
Great book read it now not tomorrow the main translator spoke twenty-one languages (fifteen modern and six ancient) amazing book
Adam Nicolson has obviously studied a lot of early biblical history. His command of the English language is masterful and I wish my early leaders and peers had somehow encouraged me to be more interested in same. No matter, because there is still time to make up some of the voids in my education. Adam gave me at least twelve new words to look up and digest. Here now is my mantra "Knowledge is power-wisdom is better than power."
This book goes into the politics of the translation of the old and new testaments into the King James Version of the bible. For English history fanatics, this book paints a portrait of the religious turmoil of the early seventeenth century. For people who take the the King James version of the bible literally, it will be a lesson in how the words they quote were selected.
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