Pausing to Recall Lancelot Andrewes and His Amazing Bible

Pausing to Recall Lancelot Andrewes and His Amazing Bible September 25, 2017

King James Bible

The Anglican communion marks today as a feast in honor of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, who guided the translation and editing of what we call the King James Bible.

Adam Nicolson described the bishop, “as broad as the great Bible itself, scholarly, political, passionate, agonized, in love with the English language, endlessly investigating its possibilities, worldly, saintly, serene, sensuous, courages, crave, if not corrupt hen at least compromised, deeply engaged in pastoral care, generous, loving, in public bewitched by ceremony, in private troubled by persistent guilt and self-abasement…”

The English speaking world owes him honor as the lead translator among the forty-seven scholars who proved a committee, and a committee a contentious as one could hope for, nonetheless could in fact produce a literary masterpiece, what we now call the King James Bible.

Some suggest only he could have herded that gang to what they managed to pull off. I have friends who cast about earnestly looking for evidences of God’s hand. Something, I fear, not often in evidence. However, thinking of forty-seven scholars producing something for the ages comes darn close…

Me, I learned to read at my grandmother’s knee from a large illustrated version of the King James. And there is no doubt anyone who reads my writings know I owe at the very least as much to that Bible as I do to the wondrous writings of the Chan masters and their commentators.

Endless gratitude…


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