A net of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was
the England of Shakespeare, Jonson and Bacon; of the Gunpowder
Plot; the worst outbreak of the plague England had ever seen;
Arcadian landscapes; murderous, toxic slums; and, above all, of
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 God's 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 fifty scholars from Cambridge, Oxford andLondon did the
work, drawing on many previous versions, and created a text which,
for all its failings, has never been equaled. That is the central
question of this book: How did this group of near-anonymous
divines, muddled, drunk, self-serving, ambitious, ruthless,
obsequious, pedantic and flawed as they were, manage to bring off
this astonishing translation? How did such ordinary men make such
extraordinary prose? In God's Secretaries, Adam Nicolson gives a
fascinating and dramatic account of the accession and ambition of
the first Stuart king; of the scholars who labored for seven years
to create his Bible; of the influences that shaped their work and
of the beliefs that colored their world, immersing us in an age
whose greatest monument is not a painting or a building, but a
book.
General
Imprint: |
Zondervan
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
August 2005 |
First published: |
2005 |
Authors: |
Adam Nicolson
|
Dimensions: |
202 x 134 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
281 |
Edition: |
New edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-06-083873-7 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-06-083873-6 |
Barcode: |
9780060838737 |
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