{"id":3735,"date":"2008-01-18T00:20:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-18T05:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/"},"modified":"2008-01-18T00:20:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T05:20:14","slug":"gods-secretaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Secretaries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There are better books on the King James Version, there are better books on the rise of English Bibles, and there are better books on the technique of translation, but there is no better book that tells the behind-the-scenes story of the King James Bible than that of God\u2019s Secretaries<\/a>\"\"<\/em> by Adam Nicolson. I took this book on vacation to browse through and couldn\u2019t put it down.
\nWhat are your stories about the KJV? I grew up on a Scofield morocco leather Bible; its onion skin pages made its use for \u201csword drills\u201d well-nigh useless. It was the Bible I memorized as a kid. I still enjoy its cadences. I\u2019ve spent too much time in the original languages and in translation theory to think the KJV is for us today. Still, what do you think?
\nNicolson\u2019s prose sings like a siren and his knack for opening up the story within the facts unsurpassed. In brief, this is a book worth your time for a good read. It has led me to go back and read some of my KJV \u2014 which of course is not the original one but close enough.
\nWhile Alister McGrath\u2019s book will be a more academic approach to the story of the King James Version (In the Beginning<\/a>\"\"<\/em>), Nicolson\u2019s gets a good sampling of the facts as it explores the translators \u2014 54 of them \u2014 and the committee work involved and the role King James himself played in the process. They were a motley bunch; some politics; some carping about money; some chance discoveries of notes taken during a final session (notes taken in Latin!); the dependencies of the translators on Tyndale, Coverdale, and the Bishop\u2019s Bible; the continuing attraction of Puritans for the Geneva Bible; and Nicolson is nothing if not a huge fan of the KJV. He doesn\u2019t fail to show how majestic the language is, which for me was his aesthetics and not an argument for a translation. But the story comes through and it is a good one.
\nAn oddity of the KJV revolves around the tensions involved in the translation: the recent establishment of the Anglican Church as a Protestant Church over which now King James was the head, the lingering tension with the Roman Catholics \u2014 coming to a head in Guy Fawkes\u2019 famous attempt to burn the place down where the translators were meeting \u2014 and the disgust the Established Church had with the radical Puritans who not only wanted the Reformation to become complete in England but who were also beginning to agitate for an entirely separate church. Many of the more radicals ended up on these shores and gave rise to a radical low church and locally autonomous form of church life. Those sorts had no use in England for King James\u2019 attempt to construct a Bible that would express a mediating as well as a majestic translation.
\nThe irony, of course, is that successors of the radical Puritans, who were scorned in the introduction to the original King James Bible, are the ones still intent on preserving the KJV as the best Bible for all time now and forever.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are better books on the King James Version, there are better books on the rise of English Bibles, and there are better books on the technique of translation, but there is no better book that tells the behind-the-scenes story of the King James Bible than that of God\u2019s Secretaries by Adam Nicolson. I took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translations"],"yoast_head":"\nGod's Secretaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are better books on the King James Version, there are better books on the rise of English Bibles, and there are better books on the technique of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God's Secretaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are better books on the King James Version, there are better books on the rise of English Bibles, and there are better books on the technique of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-18T05:20:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/\",\"name\":\"God's Secretaries\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-01-18T05:20:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-01-18T05:20:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"There are better books on the King James Version, there are better books on the rise of English Bibles, and there are better books on the technique of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/01\/18\/gods-secretaries\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"God’s Secretaries\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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