In God's Secretaries: The
Making of the King James Bible, Adam Nicolson
tells to compelling story of the translation of the bible into English commissioned by King
James. This bible, of course, would
become the beloved version in the English speaking world.
Nicholson
tackles the subject from all sides. He
is interested in the details of translation. It was done by committees, and committees
reviewed the translations before the final product was approved. We know a great deal of some of the men who
translated the works; they were important members of the seventeenth century
church of England. But for many others,
we know only a man, or perhaps native city. Nicholson takes the scant evidence left of their working methods and clarifies it for his readers.
The King Jame Bible was truly the work of a culture, not the brand of a single person. And in that, Nicolson finds it genius. At the time, the Church of England was being
rocked by early stirrings of Puritanism. They wanted a bible close to the
source material that downplayed the roles of bishops and official
clergy. King James had no interest in
this, and commissioned the bible, in part, to trump other translations that
promoted radical Protestantism.
Yet
there were moderate Puritans on the translation committees. They made their mark on the work. And therein lays its great strength. The King James Bible, behind its apparent uniformity, expresses a range of opinions, reflected
in the translator’s choices. This gives
the work a depth it would not otherwise have.
The
translation also reflects a particularly rich period in English. When it was started, Shakespeare was writing
his last plays, and English was in a rapid period of expansion, adding new
works and modes of expression. Nicholson shows the place of the King James Bible at the time of its composition, and its influence over the subsequent development of the language.
Nicholson
does a thorough job of researching this topic.
For the layman in this subject, this is the go-to book.
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