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Sunday, June 14. 2015

Re-recommended

I feel sad to be reaching the end of this book, packed as it is with the history and culture of the rowdy Jacobean England which was the context for what is considered the finest work ever written in English. My ditto on that.


The translating committee members needed to know Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Their instructions from King James were to produce a book majestic and poetic in tone but simple enough for an illiterate plowman to comprehend. James' goal was to have one bible for one people, and he even included Separatists on the committees. (The two Bibles in English at the time were neither majestic nor poetic. Those Separatists who became the American Pilgrims used the Geneva Bible which was a dry tome.) The King James has a few notorious mistranslations (eg camel and needle), but that's niggling.


God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (2005) by Adam Nicolson

Posted by Bird Dog in History at 08:06 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

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Nicholson is (or seems?) a little cavalier with his generalizations, at least in the opening chapters. Would have appreciated more references.
#1 Luke Lea (Link) on 2015-06-14 10:51 (Reply)
Just got my copy the other day and am looking forward to reading it. As soon as I finish reading "The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily". Back when people really were interesting.
#2 Kathryn of Wyoming on 2015-06-14 11:30 (Reply)
and they razored out those books because?
#3 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-06-14 18:18 (Reply)
What?
#3.1 Bird Dog on 2015-06-14 22:23 (Reply)
after, say, 1,000 years of being there, the KJV editors removed several books from your OT.

because?
#3.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-06-15 20:25 (Reply)
You're referring, I think, to what is often called The Apocrypha. These were the books that were in dispute as to whether they were canonical throughout much of the first milleneum (St Jerome preferred the Hebrew canon which excluded them, and St Augustine preferred the Greek canon which included them), and were not officially canonized until the Council of Trent in 1546 AD, after the Protestant Reformation. Protestants went with the Hebrew canon (finalized somewhere around 100 - 200 AD), and so excluded them.
#3.1.1.1 Frances on 2015-06-16 18:15 (Reply)
Thanks for the recommendation. Any reader who feels sad because the book is ending makes me want to read the book.
#4 portlandmermaid on 2015-06-15 10:45 (Reply)

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