BOOK REVIEW (June 2008)
Title : God’s Secretaries : the making of
the King James Bible
Author : Adam Nicolson
Year of Publication : 2003
Call Number : 220.5203 NIC
The King
James Version of our English Bible is familiar to most, if not all of us. It was
commissioned in 1604 by James Stuart when he became King of England a year
earlier. Adam Nicolson’s intriguing book describes the making of King James Bible (KJB) from the time it was
commissioned to its publication in 1611 and gives its reader a fascinating
glimpse of the early seventeenth century England. This was the period when the English language
had come into “maturity”. Indeed, it was the England of William Shakespeare,
Ben Jonson and
Francis Bacon.
Why was KJB
commissioned when, at least, four major English translations of the Bible were
in existence in the 16th century?
They were: the so-called Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Bishop’s
Bible, and the Tynsdale’s translation. Nicolson’s
answer to the question, by his skilled storytelling, points to the political
environment in
The
appointed Translators (yes, with a capital ‘T’) and their efforts make
interesting reading. In this section, the author gives examples of how they
agreed on the final English text. The key figures of the fifty or more
Translators are each given a short biography including the respective strengths
and weaknesses. The Translators were
divided into six “companies” as these groups were called. It was done so that
each group would be responsible for translating the assigned books of the Bible.
All in all,
Nicolson has managed to compact large amounts of research into a readable
narrative. Incidentally, the same book is published in
By Michael
Yap