About book God's Secretaries: The Making Of The King James Bible (2005)
Take a society riven by social and political conflict, where religious toleration is an alien concept. Then suggest that a committee drawn from that society – not an individual – produce one of the greatest and most enduring documents in the English language. This, of course, is the unlikely tale of the King James Bible, as related in this compelling and well-researched book by Adam Nicolson.Committees can’t perform such literary feats – except when they do, and the King James Bible is perhaps the best example. It was edited and compiled by designated “Translators” who represented both the established English church and its Puritan wing, two groups otherwise deeply opposed to each other.Nicolson, grandson of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, begins with a vivid description of Jacobin society in the early 17th century, following the death of Elizabeth I and the ascension of the first Stuart king, James I. Tensions were already rising between the established Protestant church and the Puritan movement that wished to rid it of such “Popeish” accoutrements as surplices, kneeling, Latin ceremony, and even its bishops. Puritanism had many meanings in this era, but the common denominator was the desire to worship God directly, without intermediaries, through His holy word, the Bible. To call the Puritans “word-crazed” is no understatement; the same might be said for Jacobean society as a whole. Whatever their differences over Biblical interpretation, they all agreed on its supreme importance.James I, something of a Biblical scholar himself, rejected the Puritan call for radical reform of the church, siding definitely with the bishops. He did so in large part because of his preoccupation with maintaining absolute authority as head of both church and state. (James feuded with Parliament over the same issue, one that would lead to the execution of his son Charles I and civil war four decades later.)But James also saw himself as a reconciler who earnestly wished to proceed over a kingdom of peace, and a fresh revision of the Bible in English seemed one way to achieve such a goal. In his instructions to the Translators, James ensured tight political control over the process – no talk of “tyrants” or disobeying the authority of kings, for example – but the Translators, divided into different committees, were a remarkable cross-section of 17th century English society, with strong Puritan representation. (No extreme “separatists,” of course, such as those who eventually sailed to the Netherlands and on to America.)Nicolson coped with a remarkable lack of documentation about the translation process itself, but enough remains – not to mention the King James Bible itself – to recognize what the Translators achieved. It was precisely the tensions and divisions of Jacobean society, Nicolson argues, that allowed them to balance the clarity and light that the Puritans sought with the majesty and mystery we associate with High Church ritual. Many of the Translators were formidable linguists as well, although their ancient Greek was stronger than their Hebrew. They didn’t work in isolation, either. The Translators had the great achievement of William Tyndale’s English translation, the Calvinist Geneva Bible (liked by Puritans but disliked by James for its annotations), and the Bishop’s Bible, which no one particularly liked but was the official church-sanctioned version of the time. The King James Bible was the product of a unique place and time, Nicolson writes, but its word choices and prose rhythms have proved timeless. It carried a conviction, authority, and a joyful devotion that later times and translations could not replicate. Although no longer in regular use, its language has deeply influenced English literature since its publication in 1611, echoing in examples from Wordsworth to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Analyzing a passage in the New Testament, Nicolson writes:The Jacobean version has the great imperturbability, the air of irreproachable authority, which is the essence of sacred ritual. The Translators made a ceremony of the word. But the passage is also astonishingly vivid, turning those words into a tangible experience. They never lose sight of the physical and the bodily dimensions of existence – service, departure, eyes, sight, face, light, illumination – and adopt them as markers of and symbols for the divine.
I was raised in the KJV-only tradition, and can remember my dad in the late 1960s looking askance at teenagers and young adults in our congregation burying their noses in Good News for Modern Man. I made a number of attempts to read the KJV in my youth, and might have made it all the way through once. As beautiful as the language is, I couldn't really make heads or tails of it.It was many, many years later that my husband finally lured me into tasting the forbidden fruit of the NIV. And, hallelujah! The heavens opened and the angels sang! Finally, instead of laboring over what was to my mind a florid, overwrought text, it was all laid out clearly and simply before me. A pure pleasure to read, although, yes, my suspicious little mind insisted on laying out the KJV and NIV side by side on my first read-through. Now my most often-used Bible is an NASB wide-margin edition heavily annotated from my studies with FF Bruce, Alfred Edersheim, and Eusebius.I tell you all this because I thought I had left the KJV far behind me, but after reading this book I'm tempted to give it another go.God's Secretaries contains very little information on the actual work of creating the KJV, as so few in-process records have survived. What it does instead is to paint a picture of the environment in which the KJV was conceived and executed. England has passed through the violent paroxysms of the Reformation, old Queen Elizabeth has finally died, James of Presbyterian Scotland has taken the throne, and the Puritans have begun splitting off from the Church of England. Nicolson gives insight into the tenor of the times and the personalities and motivations of many of the men brought together to create this new, definitive English translation. Also, he does a very good job of explaining the lasting success of the KJV and selling it as far superior to any modern translation:The Jacobean translation process was richly and densely social. Endless conversation and consultation flowed across the final judging committee, testing the translation not by sight but by ear. This Bible was appointed to be read in churches... and so its meaning had to be carried on a heard rhythm, it had to appeal to what T. S. Eliot later called 'the auditory imagination,' that 'feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.'
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Anyone who has anything to do at all with the Bible in English should read this book. It is a description of the exhaustive work that went into the making of the King James Version of the Bible, and the political and social factors that influenced the translation. Nicolson painstakingly researched this historical work, accessing papers that were well over 300 years old in order to get clearer picture of what the translation process was like- hundreds of contemporary scholars were involved, many of whom left fascinating diaries, journals, letters, and written sermons.It is also a fascinating look at the society that King James hoped to unify with his Bible, and how politics influenced the translation.Anyone who holds the opinion that the King James Bible is the WORD OF GOD should read this with an honest mind and consider whether or not these things be so.
—Daniel Engesetter
This book describes not only the history of translating the King James Bible, but also the historical time period in which it was written. In fact, Nicolson devotes much of his book describing the "Translators" (as they were then known in Jacobean England) themselves-who were quite fascinating individuals and as varied as the many English Bible translations that were produced in that century. Nicolson describes the many intricacies of English politics that had a strong hold on the Translators and the part which King James VI played in setting the "rules" that had to be met for this translation. Puritanism was quite strong in some areas of English academia in the Jacobean period; consequently, Nicolson describes the many Translators who were either strong Puritans, strict Calvinists, ceremonialist, conformists, etc.; they were "anti-popery" individuals, some of whom pursued the non-conformists with a passion.Nicolson's book does a great job of introducing the reader to the Jacobean period in which the KJV was translated and the many faces of the Translators, but only some material is written about the KJV itself. One thing I strongly agree with Nicolson is that many English Bible translations no longer capture the elegant language and easy flow of words that the KJV does. In Nicolson's words: "The social structures which gave rise to it-rigid hierarchies; a love of majesty; subservience; an association of power with glory-have all gone (pg. 238). The Translators of the KJV were not just scholars, but linguists in the sense that they were expected to be "masters" of the English language. The vast majority of translators today no longer have this sense of elegance; many are just that, scholars (or translators). Nicolson for example, compares a set of verses from the KJV to the New English Bible (published in the 60's/70's). In his somewhat witty English humor, he describes the non-elegant language of the NEB as "[...being] dead; there is no immediacy to it, nothing vibrant[...] The atmosphere is of a 1930's bathing party" (pg. 236).The KJV was not a popular English translation when it was published in the early 1610's. The Geneva Bible was still the "prime" English Bible translation favored by the English clergy, laity, and even the Translators themselves. One Puritan Hebrew scholar even describes his disdain for the KJV Bible rather humorously and seriously: "Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches" (pg. 228). The English used in the KJV Bible was not the "common" English spoken in Jacobean England, but a "unique" form of English that was perhaps decades older. Despite this, the form of English used was elegant but easy to hear and comprehend.While Mr. Nicolson describes himself as "[...]no atheist, but [...] no churchgoer [either]" (pg. 241), there is a deep appreciation, respect, and love of the King James Bible. This honesty alone makes the book well worth reading despite not being stellar in presentation.
—Orpiment99
Another case of a book where what I learned was not what the book was about. Oh, I learned about the translation of the King James Bible, but this book is about much more. The previous translations. The history of England in the late, late 1500's to 1611. The death of Elizabeth. The ascension of King James. The Jacobeans. Queen Mary. Shakespeare. Robert Cecil. The Pilgrims. The Puritans. The Gunpowder Plot. The English of the KJB was not the English spoken by the English at the time. Even then, it was archaic, affected, high-falutin' ... intentionally so, for it's "majesty." So, this was a history book pretending to be a book about a book. Bring it on!Very well written, easy to read, hard to put down, and not dry with facts, albeit full of facts. This book brings the events and people involved and the time period alive in a way that perhaps only a good documentary on the History Channel could ... but in words.
—William Blair
