God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James BibleHarper Collins, 2009 M10 13 - 336 pages NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-language work of all time, is entirely true to its subject: Adam Nicolson’s lapidary prose is masterly, his measured account both as readable as the curious demand and as dignified as the story deserves.” — Simon Winchester, author of Krakatoa In God's Secretaries, Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the era of the King James Bible and its translation, immersing us in an age whose greatest monument is not a painting or a building but a book. A network of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the era of the Gunpowder Plot and the worst outbreak of the plague. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than the country had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between these polarities. This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment "Englishness," specifically the English language itself, had come into its first passionate maturity. The English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own scope than any form of the language before or since. It drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more. |
From inside the book
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... authority and in that is one of the greatest of all monuments to the suppression of ego . It is often said that the King James Translators ( a word that was capitalised at the time ) , particularly in the New Testament , did little more ...
... authority and legitimacy and of the place of the state within that relationship . " The reformers ' , it has often been said , ' dethroned the Pope and enthroned the Bible . ' That might have been the case in parts of Protestant Europe ...
... authority . In Berwick - on - Tweed , all the guns of the border fortress town were fired at once . It was to be for the last time . The newly unified country needed no internal border fortresses and money could be saved if the garrison ...
... authority and wholeness was , in James's vision at least , to become reality . The new king would soon discover , however , that seven- teenth - century Englishmen had about as much love for union , whether fiscal or political , as ...
... authority ? Maybe , in a complex and troubled personality , it was simply a blip , an aberration ? He could cer- tainly behave very oddly at times . ( Later in his reign , travelling back to Scotland , he dismounted at the border ...
Contents
1 | |
2 | |
20 | |
He sate among graue learned and reuerend | 42 |
Faire and softly goeth | 62 |
am for the medium in all things xi I | 84 |
20 | 85 |
The danger never dreamt of that is the danger | 105 |
The grace of the fashion of | 198 |
Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut vp his tender mercies? | 216 |
APPENDICES | 228 |
A The Sixteenthcentury Bible | 247 |
Chronology | 261 |
62 | 274 |
105 | 276 |
ལུ༠ཚŞརྗེནི ཝིཛྫིཥྞཾ 117 137 147 | 277 |
O lett me bosome thee lett me preserve thee next to my heart | 117 |
We have twice and thrice so much scope for oure earthlie peregrination | 137 |
When we do luxuriate and grow riotous in the gallantnesse of this world | 147 |
True Religion is in no way a gargalisme only | 173 |
173 | 278 |
216 | 280 |