Gods Secretaries, Adam Nicolson
Gods Secretaries, Adam Nicolson
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Gods Secretaries
The Making of the King James Bible

Author: Adam Nicolson

Narrator: Clive Chafer

Unabridged: 8 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/16/2012


Synopsis

A net of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the Gunpowder Plot; the worst outbreak of the plague England had ever seen; arcadian landscapes; murderous, toxic slums; and, above all, sometimes overwhelming religious passion. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than it had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between the 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 and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.The sponsor and guide of the whole Bible project was the king himself, the brilliant, ugly, and profoundly peace-loving James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England. Trained almost from birth to manage the rivalries of political factions at home, James saw in England the chance for a sort of irenic Eden over which the new translation of the Bible was to preside. It was to be a Bible for everyone, and as Gods lieutenant on earth, he would use it to unify his kingdom. The dream of Jacobean peace, guaranteed by an elision of royal power and divine glory, lies behind a Bible of extraordinary grace and everlasting literary power.

About Adam Nicolson

Adam Nicolson is the author of Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides; Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar; and the bestselling New York Times Notable Book God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. He has won the Somerset Maugham Award and the William Heinemann Award, and he lives with his family at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England.


Reviews

Goodreads review by William

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 Kin......more

Goodreads review by Jane

This was a surprisingly exhilarating read and one that has changed significantly my perceptions of the period (and hence how I'll teach it in future). The original title was Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the making of the King James Bible, but it was souped up for this edition to accompany t......more

Goodreads review by Erik

We weren't allowed to use the KJV of the bible as a primary resource in college as well as in seminary. Too many words had changed, or even reversed, meanings since its publication in the 17th century. Koine Greek, the primary language of its 'new' testament, was not well understood by its teams of......more

Goodreads review by Alisa

I found this book fascinating. I have always loved the Bible and have read it since I was young. I also love language and often feel disappointed when I read newer translations that render the Bible into modern speech. So, the KJV is important to me and I liked learning about the men who helped crea......more