God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible ― A Narrative History of a Famous Bible Translation

Information on the version I bought and read follows: Version: Kindle ASIN: B000FC11ZG Page Numbers: No English Style: Contemporary with numerous excerpts from 16th century Jacobean English presented in its original form. Table of Contents. Yes and linked for use in Kindle Length: 336 pages in book form X-Ray: No Review begins here: An excellent overview of the remarkable sequence of events in both the church and the state that came together to produce the beloved King James Bible. This is history at its finest – fervently written, efficiently edited, remarkably moving. A finely balanced work. Despite what follows in my review, this book as indicated above is first and foremost history, a point not to be lost. The story is told both through narrative history that introduces the extraordinary (yet quirky and flawed) men and events who brought this work together (not the least of which was King James himself), and Nicolson’s own insightful analysis sprinkled throughout the book which explains why this bible has reigned for over four centuries as the centerpiece of literary achievement in the English speaking world. This second part, the analysis, for me at least was the centerpiece of the book. While not overtly polemic in nature, Nicolson nonetheless makes a convincing case that this bible forever has a place in the English speaking church despite recent trends to more modern (or worse PC) tones because it makes no excuses about the fact that the language of majesty is neither common nor natural. To the contrary, in Nicolson’s own words: “This is about more than mere sonority or the beeswaxed heritage-appeal of antique vocabulary and grammar. The flattening of language is a flattening of meaning. Language which is not taut with a sense of its own significance, which is apologetic in its desire to be acceptable to a modern consciousness, language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires. It has, in short, lost all authority. “ Nicolson, Adam (2009-10-13). God's Secretaries (P.S.) (Kindle Locations 2382-2387). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. I especially appreciate the author’s insinuation that to those who are willing to acquaint themselves with the rhythms of the King James Bible, a rich poetry awaits that can stir a soul to passionate response in a way that is difficult to imagine in the more recent, “common language”, translations. This rang especially true for me as I set aside my NKJV this year and bought an English Standard Version for my annual reading through the bible. I am now nearly two months into my reading and while feeling adequately “informed”, something of the magnificence, the deep splendor, has been likewise set aside (apologies to the ESV loyalists). I will finish my reading in the ESV this year, mostly out of curiosity, but judging from what I have seen so far as I close the last pages of Malachi and Revelation at year’s end I won’t be going back, except for an occasional cross reference. Do I hear the mental gears of the critics whirring ? Did I happen to notice the “N” in front of the KJV above? Yes…, I did. I don’t require (but also don’t mind) the “thee’s” or “thou’s” of forgotten Jacobean English, but even after a short two month absence I very much miss the gracefully expressive rhythm and sense of majesty by which it connects at the deepest levels and which seem to be absent from the other “modern” translations I have tried (NIV, ESV, RSV (better), and worst of all – the wooden NASB). I think Nicolson’s book has captured why (and I am paraphrasing as I truly believe the authors intent here was to write good history and then provide some insightful analysis into it rather than convert the English speaking world to the KJV): Do you want to read an informative “memo from God” or be ushered into his throne room,….. where the rich grandeur of his voice fills to overflowing the chambers of a heart,…. stirring it’s soul to single-minded passionate response ? If it is the latter, then I highly recommend Nicolson's book for some additional perspective. Needless to say, the book is a 5 star for me as is the King James Bible and its modern follow-up the NKJV.

A brisk, engrossing look at the circumstances surrounding the birth of the King James Bible. Readers expecting the inside story on the translation may be disappointed; "God's Secretaries" is more of a general overview of the period, with deft character sketches of the principal translators. This is unavoidable, since most of the documents relating to the day-to-day work of the translators have been lost. What the book lacks in detail, it compensates for with strong storytelling and a fine sense of history. Even though I enjoyed the book, Nicolson did not convince me that the translators added very much to the work of William Tyndale, the martyred 16th-century translator; nor did he convince me that the King James Bible remains the best available translation. At the end of the book, Nicolson quotes a few beautiful verses from Psalm 77 to demonstrate the superiority of the KJV. But other lines from the same psalm are either mistranslated or obscure. Here they are, with comparisons from more recent translations: KJV - my sore ran in the night and ceased not NEW KING JAMES VERSION - my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing KJV - thou holdest mine eyes waking NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION - you keep my eyelids from closing KJV - I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High NEW AMERICAN BIBLE - my sorrow is this, the right hand of the Most High has left us The King James Bible was great in its day, but newer translations are more accurate and more intelligible. Nevertheless, "God's Secretaries" shines a vivid light on a passionate, contradictory age.

This is a splendid book on a subject of vast religious, aesthetic and cultural importance. Nicolson has produced a lovely study, particularly in light of the fact that there are few materials at hand. We know that there were approximately 50 translators divided into six companies. While some remain relatively shadowy figures, a number are very well known, particularly Lancelot Andrewes, the great sermon writer and one of T.S. Eliot’s favorite writers. We know a bit about the review process in which individual translations were subject to a hierarchical form of peer review, with one ultimate committee holding responsibility for final decisions. We know that the text from which the companies worked was the Bishops’ Bible and we know that William Tyndale’s words had a particularly strong influence on the translators. What we lack is documentary evidence. Only a few pieces survive, in part because of a great fire in Whitehall shortly after the publication of the KJB. What we have, however, is Adam Nicolson, who is able to look at the sparse collection of extant documents and draw conclusions based on trenchant analysis. The translators were very, very conscientious, debating over the structures of sentences and the appropriateness of each word therein. They were attuned to the sounds of those sentences, reading them aloud (as they would be read aloud in churches) and paying close attention to the rhythm, clarity and gravity of each. Hence (lacking a vast amount of documentary evidence), Nicolson comes at this from a different direction. He looks, in depth, at the individual experience of individual translators and demonstrates the manner in which those experiences participated in the contemporary zeitgeist and formed the basis for the final results, in English biblical prose. For example, he will talk about gardens and men who loved them, of plants, flowers, vegetables and all that Shakespeare described as ‘great creating Nature’. He will then take the individual experiences, form them into a Jacobean perspective and then demonstrate how that perspective played out in individual passages of the KJB. He then reinforces the point by contrasting the dramatic, magic, nearly mystic power of the Jacobean voice with the flat, uninspired banalities of modern translations. Ben Jonson once said that Spenser ‘writ no language’, that the language of the Faerie Queene was a Spenserian construct, studiedly archaic but aesthetically appropriate. Nicolson sees the language of the KJB as, in some ways, similar; it is like the language of the mid-16th century, not the language of 1611, and it is designed to be both clear and also commensurate with the grandeur and importance of its subject. It is poetic, lapidary, unforgettable and the result, in its totality, is the greatest monument of English prose. It should also be noted that the KJB was printed in incredibly sloppy fashion and that one cannot really talk about ‘editions’, ‘issues’, etc. in the manner of standard bibliographical analysis; each volume is ‘unique’ (in a bad sense); hence another layer of difficulty for modern students to penetrate. Adam Nicolson is a very special writer—a learned and erudite individual who has also immersed himself in the realities of the material world. He is a farmer; he is a sailor, e.g. This helps equip him for the challenges of writing this book. In writing it he has also demonstrated that he is an exceptional literary critic, one who is capable of analyzing prose (for which we have the most limited academic vocabulary) and finding unexpected but apt words to describe the aesthetic phenomena that have had a profound effect on all KJB readers (and listeners). Bottom line: a most impressive book, fascinating in its details and strategies. Highly recommended.

God's Secretaries by Adam Nicolson is a narrative in praise of one of the most gorgeous literary achievements of the English language. It was a product of Jacobean England, an era that also gave us Shakespeare. I was seduced by Nicolson's own delectable writing from the outset as he set forth with exquisite detail a portrait of England in transition from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean era. He gives us a book worthy of its subject, written sumptuously and narrated by the mellifluous voice of Clive Chafer. When, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth, King James VI of Scotland ascended to the throne of England, the time seemed ripe to attempt reconciliation between Catholics and Anglicans. (The Protestant separatists were doomed to almost unabated persecution). The eccentric King James, perhaps by default, made some progress towards promoting religious harmony, more because of intellectual curiosity than through any political adroitness involving religious tolerance. An odd and sometimes clueless monarch, once called "the wisest fool in Christiandom", he gathered together a group of some of the greatest theological scholars of his day to undertake a new and ultimate translation of the Bible true to its original texts. The King, to his credit, was not heavy-handed in this undertaking. The resulting Authorized Version and new translation of the Bible that today is known as the King James Bible was one of the crowning achievements of his long reign. Nicolson devotes little time to the theological debate underlying work of the various Committees, focusing instead on the odd personalities of a number of the translators and on fascinating anecdotes about how the character and experiences of these individuals found expression in the rich tapestry of the King James' Bible. For example, John Layfield, one of the translators assigned to the book of Genesis and who was known in his own right for his literary talents, had travelled at one point to the exotic New World of the Caribbean. As Nicolson notes, "The seventeenth-century English idea of Paradise, a vision of enveloping lushness, was formed by the seduction of an almost untouched Caribbean". He concludes that Layfield's voyage to the Caribbean most probably influenced the King James Bible's sumptuous description of the Garden of Eden. There are other such examples of how passion, emotion and scholarship were intimately intertwined to produce the Bible's timeless final version. Some of the hypotheses in God's Secretaries may rest on thin evidence, but Nicolson himself admits as much in acknowledging up front the dearth of sources from which he had to draw. But he convincingly weaves together a rich tapestry that seems authentically Jacobean. I was not in the least bit disappointed to learn that certain impressions drawn might to some degree be supposition. The book is scholarly and written with a degree of probability entirely within an acceptable margin of error.

because it gets used about 600 times in this 250 page book. 6 or 7 times a page, sometimes. In spite of his obvious love of that word, or maybe because of it, the author never offers any kind of definition for it. I hope you like the word "richness" too, because you'll get that one 3 or 4 times a page throughout. "Marvelous" is also a big favorite This whole book reads like a term paper that's being padded to make a minimum word count. The author has a little bit of very good material to work with; enough for 50 pages maybe, and that part of the book is great. Then basically he talks about anything he can think of that has anything to do with anything near the Bible, just to run the page count up to something appropriate for a full length book instead of the novella this could have been. There's 30 pages on the Pilgrims going to America, for some reason. There's about 20 pages in the middle that are just a re-statement of 20 pages near the beginning. 15 pages or so of pictures of the tranlators. 10 or 15 pages on Shakespeare, including a section on how King Lear is the "opposite" of the King James Bible, whatever that could mean I was left disappointed. I expected this to be either in depth biographical sketches of the Translators themselves, or a blow by blow account of the actual translation process of the King James Bible. Instead what you get is a little bit of both, totalling maybe 30 pages, and then about 190 pages on the architecture of the time, long exerpts in archaic dialogue from books and letters of the time, basic history lessons on King James, and like I said earlier, anything else Nicolson can think of to run the page count up As one other reviewer stated, there doesn't seem to be any clear method to the presentation of the information either. It isn't Chronological or translator by translator or topic by topic or any kind of system that I can tell, and because of that there is ALOT of restatement of the exact same information 2 and 3 times, adding to the feeling that either the author was just running the page count up or at the very least published a draft of the book that hadn't been run by an editor yet. I would say google this topic instead. you could read all the pertinent information in maybe 20 minutes and save the time and money associated with reading "God's Secretaries".

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.

It turned out a little different than I expected, so in some ways I'm disappointed and in some ways I'm pleased. Overall good book with tons of cultural and historical insight that I was clueless about. So I loved that! I was hoping for a little more analysis into why certain (or lots of certains) passages were translated the way they were. It wasn't terribly long so I do recommend it.

Adam Nicolson knows more words than I do. This does not often happen to me. Adam Nicolson knows more words than the Kindle dictionary does. This happens even more rarely. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC11ZG/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title Most important, Adam Nicolson knows as much as can be known now about how the King James Bible was produced. In a scholarly book made to seem easy, Nicolson tells us where the bodies are buried. I have rarely enjoyed any book as much as I enjoy this one. My husband, who does not like ebooks, lent me his paperback to read. Frustrated by occasional diction that I couldn't understand, I downloaded it in hopes that the Kindle dictionary would end the problem. It didn't. I went on reading it anyway. I say again: this is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in how scriptures and/or committees and/or literature work. There is an old joke that a moose is a horse created by a committee. But if you study the moose, you discover that it is perfectly adapted to its life style. The King James Bible was a work created by a committee and based on earlier translations as well as new translations. What emerged from the often rocky discussions among the Translators (they capitalized their title) is probably the most beautifully worded translation of the Bible that will ever be made. Like the moose, it was made for its own time and place, and it functioned perfectly in its own context. I sometimes find it necessary to go to other translations to be certain what something means, but the beauty of the KJV makes it essential reading for anybody who expects to understand literature created in the English-speaking universe. If it is useful to understand how the KJV was created, this is the book to read. Even if you don't care how the KJV was created, and you find scripture boring, this is still the book to read. I am, of course, assuming that you have a functional brain. If you don't, then you won't be able to read GOD'S SECRETARIES. That would be a very sad situation. So buy the book right now, and sit back for one of the most interesting trips you will ever take.

This is the second time I've read this book. I'd forgotten how good it was. Nicholson uses great effort to pull together fragmented and disparate sources to reveal to us the natur of the men and the times that brought forth the King James Bible. A truly remarkable achievement, attempting unity where there was division of religious persuasion, divisions that would lead to seemingly never ending war in Europe and England. James attempted to pull together the Puritan and more high church minded strands within the church. The men were contradictory characters, but truly remarkable in their understanding of language in a way that is almost unheard of now. Nicolson puts them on the page, and does so masterfully. This book will make you appreciate the King James Version for what it is, while doing away with any modern myths of divine inspiration. I don't think reading this book will make you love the KJV less for all that.

Um relato fantástico da história por trás da mais respeitada tradução da Bíblia para o inglês.

Utterly fascinating walk through the Jacobean (King James) period and the Protestant/Puritan divide at the times. I had no idea that there was a fine imposed on people during Elizabethan times for not attending church! And so interesting to learn that it was during this period (1600's) that Puritans endured severe persecution that it drove them to move to the "New World" (America) - after which they were referred to as the Pilgrims. Also it was so interesting that the "Translators" of the KJV Bible were not Puritans for the most part, but it didn't make much difference as nevertheless 70% of Tyndale's translation was retained.

Interesting background. A bit scary how the translators were motivated partly by politics. But fascinating.

This is a extraordinary book about the work that made the King James Bible. Its prose is elegant and rich, conveying the texture of Jacobean England in ways both subtle and surprising.