God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible

I figured I'd give a brief overview and my thoughts on this book. I'm on a 7 hour car ride to Philadelphia, punching this out on my phone, and I've already loaned the book out to a friend, so please excuse me for not doing a scholarly job.

I was in Raleigh with my wife, celebrating our 15th anniversary. We had finished our trip to the spa and were killing some time before dinner, and stopped at a used bookstore on Hillsborough St. NC State is more known for the engineering and veterinary schools, so the shelves were pretty light on (ortbodox) theology. But they had 3 copies of God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, for 4 bucks.

The book was not long, and flows very, like the narrative history genre normally does. It begins with the ascension of James to the English throne, and contrasts the more homogeneous nature of the English church under the bishops (even with Separatists and crypto-Catholics) with the vagaries of life in Scotland, where lords temporal and elders spiritual were unafraid to show defiance or open hostility.

The author shows how the Puritan faction saw great hope in a future under James, but the king who spent so much time in conflict with his native church had no desire to give up his control he had over the Church of England. We are given a glimpse inside the Hampton Court Conference, and the notes of the event that survive show a king who is firmly siding with his bishops.

The lay of the land is then more described in more depth. The reader is presented with anecdotes about some of the Anglican elite, and their Puritan and Separatist foes. The major English translations of the times are discussed, with a good survey of the impact of the Geneva bible. And of course we are given a glimpse of the scholarship of Oxford and Cambridge.

With the idea of a new translation, meant to unite a divided people, the author goes over the details: how the funding worked, how the companies were composed and which sections they were alloted to translate, and the entirety of the rules/instructions are went over (No Notes In The Margins!!!). A nice section then goes over the life of one of the more "minor" translators, showing the differences between them and the more powerful lords spiritual.

With the work of the six individual companies complete, their work and select representatives were brought together for the final round of editing. The author makes it a point to describe how this committee did their work by reading the passages out loud. For him, this was a major factor in the production of a bible meant to be read aloud, giving it a syntax distinct from the translations he deemed more apt for study, like the Geneva.

Altogether, this was an enjoyable book. I have tried no to go into too much detail, as the book was written in a narrative style and I didn't want to give away anything. But for those of you well versed on the subject of the KJV and church history of that period, there may be few surprises.

The author seems impassioned in his writing, but I occasionally wonder if he has more respect for the KJV as a work of the English language than as the Word of God. In describing his faith, he tells of being inwardly spiritual but purposefully unattached to a local church. That song and dance that I am sure many of us have heard before. And he gives about two sentences at the end where he opines that the greater number of manuscripts available now make newer versions an improvement.

But again, altogether an enjoyable read. If any of y'all are in my neck of the woods, I'll gladly loan it out. And there were still two copies left at the Readers Corner in Raleigh.

 

Oh, and I'm currently reading through The Theology of John Smyth: Puritan, Separatist, Baptist, Mennonite. Will post a review when I'm done, if anyone is interested.