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Title: In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language,and a Culture by Alister McGrath ISBN: 0-385-72216-8 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (36 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Quite a fascinating book!
Comment: This book is the story of the King James Version of the Bible. Beginning with the origin of printing in the Fifteenth Century with Johannes Gutenberg, the author then launches into an in-depth history of English-language translations of the Bible, from Wycliffe through to the Geneva Bible of 1560. Along the way, the reader is given a thorough understanding of the politics of translations, along with the technical problems of translating and printing a Bible. Then, the KJV is dealt with, including information on the translation and problems encountered. (Did you know that the 1631 edition included a typographic error that resulted in the commandment, "Thou shalt commit adultery"?)
Finally, there are extensive notes on the problems with acceptance of the new Bible, and its eventual triumph and effects on the English Language. As an added bonus, one appendix includes a fascinating comparison of nine different versions of the Bible, in the form of reproducing their translation of the 23rd Psalm. I found this addition quite enlightening to read, and am glad that it is included.
This is quite a fascinating book! Somehow, the author succeeds in being both thorough, and yet not the least boring. (Quite the opposite!) The chapters are broken down into small sections, which are nice for readers who need convenient places to put the book down for the night. Overall, I thought that this is a great read, and quite worth the money. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
Rating: 5
Summary: No Christian Should Be Without This Book
Comment: At a time when Protestant Christians are engaged in a battle over the Bible, specifically which version is the "real one", a good, conscise history of the one translation that many feel is the only one is an invaluable asset to all Christians. Without marginalizing the King James Version at all, and in fact praising it rather highly in his conclusion, McGrath shows the struggles that resulted in the publication of this great translation made from several good ones.
While telling this story, though, McGrath does more. He tells the story of William Tyndale and his ground-breaking Bible. He tells the story of James I's betrayal of the Puritans, who thought they had a friend in this new King. He tells the story of the rise of English as an actual language. He connects the Reformation taking place in Europe. And then he shows how all these events impacted the development of the KJV.
This book is a great read, either in search of information or just as a casual, free-reading book. I also recommend Bobrick's Wide As the Waters. Both books cover the same ground, but from different perspectives.
Rating: 5
Summary: And we fetched a compass...
Comment: As a latecomer to Christianity, I always hated the KJV. I would get enormously frustrated with people who said it was the "only acceptable translation" (Why the English 1611 translation? Why not the Italian 1730 translation, or the Ugandan 1978 translation?) Those who say the language in the King James is special and more respectful seem to be ignorant of the fact that "thou" is the familiar form of the pronoun "you". In other words, if you call God "thou" you can't call your dog "you". Passages such as "we fetched a compass" (Acts 28:13), which has nothing to do with finding a navigational tool but means the subjects walked from place to place in a circle, throw everyone off.
So as you can imagine, I was surprised to be educated and entertained by "In the Beginning". McGrath doesn't write a humdrum chronology of how the book came to be. He engages us in an enlivened discussion of the times in which King James and the Tudors reigned. His book does a great job of mining some of the natural irony inherent in not only government and religion, but religion and religion, butting heads.
James VI/I (he became I of England while VI of Scotland) was handed a rough job. He knew that avoiding a vernacular text was impossible. But if he sided with the Anglican church and endorsed the currently used Bishop's Bible, the Puritans, who were gaining strength and who preferred Jean Calvin's Geneva Bible, would refuse it, putting James in a precarious position. What would be the punishment for someone who read the "wrong" Bible, unapproved by the King's church? Should they be hanged, as translaters who failed to abide by the monarch's wishes had in the past? On the other hand, how could he allow a translation (the Geneva) whose footnotes were highly politicized, advocating revolution and abolishment of the monarchy?
Thus James' decision to establish a new committee to produce a new English version from available Hebrew and Greek texts was a shrewd political move. Although it apparently was not good enough to satisfy the Puritans, who packed up all their Geneva Bibles and took them to America a few years later, the new Bible soon became known as the preferrable contemporary version.
"In the Beginning" highlights much more. How the invention of the printing press impacted Bible translation. Luther's mass produced German bible. How Calvin came to write the Geneva Bible in the first place. James' personality, including his ambiguous sexuality.
I came away with a definite appreciation for the KJV, as well as for the man who authorized it, who turned the embers of civil war into an opportunity for the making of a masterpiece.
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Title: God's Secretaries : The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson ISBN: 0060185163 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Wide As the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick ISBN: 0142000590 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Then Sings My Soul: 150 Of the World's Greatest Hymn Stories by Robert Morgan ISBN: 0785249397 Publisher: Nelson Reference & Electronic Publishing Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: William Tyndale: A Biography by David Daniell ISBN: 0300068808 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Coined By God: Words and Phrases That First Appear in English Translations of the Bible by Stanley Malless, Jeffrey McQuain ISBN: 0393020452 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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