In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture

by Alister E. McGrath

Book Overview

This fascinating history of a literary and religious masterpiece explores the forces that obstructed and ultimately led to the decision to create an authorized translation, the method of translation... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038549890X
• ISBN13: 9780385498906
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 339 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

And we fetched a compass...

As a latecomer to Christianity, I always hated the KJV. I would get enormously frustrated with people who said it was the "only acceptable translation" (Why the English 1611 translation? Why not the Italian 1730 translation, or the Ugandan 1978 translation?) Those who say the language in the King James is special and more respectful seem to be ignorant of the fact that "thou" is the familiar form of the pronoun "you". In other words, if you call God "thou" you can't call your dog "you". Passages such as "we fetched a compass" (Acts 28:13), which has nothing to do with finding a navigational tool but means the subjects walked from place to place in a circle, throw everyone off.So as you can imagine, I was surprised to be educated and entertained by "In the Beginning". McGrath doesn't write a humdrum chronology of how the book came to be. He engages us in an enlivened discussion of the times in which King James and the Tudors reigned. His book does a great job of mining some of the natural irony inherent in not only government and religion, but religion and religion, butting heads. James VI/I (he became I of England while VI of Scotland) was handed a rough job. He knew that avoiding a vernacular text was impossible. But if he sided with the Anglican church and endorsed the currently used Bishop's Bible, the Puritans, who were gaining strength and who preferred Jean Calvin's Geneva Bible, would refuse it, putting James in a precarious position. What would be the punishment for someone who read the "wrong" Bible, unapproved by the King's church? Should they be hanged, as translaters who failed to abide by the monarch's wishes had in the past? On the other hand, how could he allow a translation (the Geneva) whose footnotes were highly politicized, advocating revolution and abolishment of the monarchy?Thus James' decision to establish a new committee to produce a new English version from available Hebrew and Greek texts was a shrewd political move. Although it apparently was not good enough to satisfy the Puritans, who packed up all their Geneva Bibles and took them to America a few years later, the new Bible soon became known as the preferrable contemporary version."In the Beginning" highlights much more. How the invention of the printing press impacted Bible translation. Luther's mass produced German bible. How Calvin came to write the Geneva Bible in the first place. James' personality, including his ambiguous sexuality.I came away with a definite appreciation for the KJV, as well as for the man who authorized it, who turned the embers of civil war into an opportunity for the making of a masterpiece.

Far More Than King James

This is an engrossing history of the King James Bible (Authorized Version) and its impact on the English language and culture. The author details the movement towards an English Bible and connects it to the wider story of the Protestant Reformation. It turns out that the King James Bible was authorized out of political necessity. The King was new on the throne and in the country and wanted to do something to solidify his support. He also wanted to weaken the growing power of the Puritans, whose preferred translation, called the Geneva Bible, contained notes which were too anti-monarchy for the King's comfort.There's a lot of fascinating information about the way the King James Bible reflected its own times (it was deliberately produced in language which was slightly old fashioned even in the 1600s) and the varying ways in which it has been received over the centuries. Its an excellent book whether you are interested in theology, language, or both.

Quite a fascinating book!

This book is the story of the King James Version of the Bible. Beginning with the origin of printing in the Fifteenth Century with Johannes Gutenberg, the author then launches into an in-depth history of English-language translations of the Bible, from Wycliffe through to the Geneva Bible of 1560. Along the way, the reader is given a thorough understanding of the politics of translations, along with the technical problems of translating and printing a Bible. Then, the KJV is dealt with, including information on the translation and problems encountered. (Did you know that the 1631 edition included a typographic error that resulted in the commandment, "Thou shalt commit adultery"?)Finally, there are extensive notes on the problems with acceptance of the new Bible, and its eventual triumph and effects on the English Language. As an added bonus, one appendix includes a fascinating comparison of nine different versions of the Bible, in the form of reproducing their translation of the 23rd Psalm. I found this addition quite enlightening to read, and am glad that it is included.This is quite a fascinating book! Somehow, the author succeeds in being both thorough, and yet not the least boring. (Quite the opposite!) The chapters are broken down into small sections, which are nice for readers who need convenient places to put the book down for the night. Overall, I thought that this is a great read, and quite worth the money. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Great review of the history & impact of the Bible in English

"In the Beginning" starts out slowly, giving a potted history of the beginnings of the Reformation. It picks up quickly however once the author gains his familiar territory of the Bible in English. The narrative then clips along at an interesting rate as it describes the history of the Bible both before the King James Version, the great work on the KJV translation itself, and the global impact of the KJV to this day.Fascinating bits of detail are scattered throughout the text. Eight sheets of Tyndale's original 1525 Cologne printing were discovered in 1834 and show Tyndale's heavy dependence on Luther's German Bible in his first translation attempts. "In the Beginning" does an outstanding job of exploring the creation and influence of the Geneva Bible - the market leader that the King James Version had to overtake. Ever wonder why the Apocrypha was dropped from most Protestant English Bibles? "In the Beginning" explains this post-KJV phenomenon in terms both religious and economic.A minor annoyance in the book is its tendency to repeat turns of phrase. A statement or quote in one paragraph can be immediately followed by the same statement or quote in a following paragraph. The text could stand a good scrubbing to rationalize these redundant references. Also missing were any biographies on the lesser known contributors to the KJV translation teams. The paucity of our historic knowledge about these translators may explain this omission.The best part of "In the Beginning" is its exploration of the KJV's impact on our language. Tyndale & the KJV translators did much to preserve the Hebrew phraseology and linguistic cadence of the Old Testament. The work delves into how English took both translated Hebrew phrases but also methods of sentence structure as its own. It explains why the KJV translators adhered to forms of English which were already archaic to them in 1611. The subsequent history of the King James Version's elevation to its consideration as one of the defining works of all English literature is told with both awe and humor. Much is made of the receiving generations' assumption that the KJV was THE Bible rather than a mere translation.This is an outstanding and very readable work of popular history. You will never hear or read the English language the same way after reading "In the Beginning".