Customer Reviews

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

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This book on the origin of the Authorised Version or "King James" Bible contrasts well with another recent book on the same subject, Benson Bobrick's -Wide as the Waters-.

The Bobrick book focuses on history and personalities, and since it must cover a lot of ground, covering virtually the whole period of the English Reformation from the standpoint of its effects on Bible translations, any given sketch must necessarily be superficial. Bobrick's brief chapter on the period of the English Civil War and its resonance through later English and American history is particularly sketchy, though it would be informative to the too many people who may be exposed to this bit of history for the first time.

McGrath, by contrast, is a professional theologian. His book focuses only slightly on personalities, but he digs into the texts. Particularly enlightening is his discussion of the text and annotations of the Geneva Bible; he explains exactly why some of these inoffensive seeming notes actually gave annoyance to high churchmen and royal absolutists. He also extensively discusses the conservatism of the King James Bible in both language and translation, and contrasts even its grammar with that used by contemporary writers like Shakespeare.

Those who are unfamiliar with the English Reformation may find the Bobrick book more enlightening. People who have some familiarity with the period, and are interested in the doctrines and language of these Bibles will find McGrath more interesting.

"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".

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.

Although it's the most widely-read and best-selling book in history, surprisingly little is known about the King James Version of the bible by most of those who read it on a daily basis. As it turns out, millions of people who consider it to be the very word of God don't even realize that it's a translation rather than an original.

Many of those who are familiar with its origins, and who heap praise on it as a peerless literary gem, are not aware that the original bible was written in the everyday language of the common working man, and that the elegance of the prose in the KJV was essentially a fortuitous accident rather than the intent of its translators. The translation was carried out at a crucial turning point in the English language, and the committees established by James I struggled continuously with which words they should use: those of the current day, even though they knew those words would soon be passé and possibly unintelligible to future generations, or the newer usages, which they couldn't be sure would last? As an example, the early 17th century word for the neuter possessive we know as "its" was "his." This has led not only to a number of puzzling passages but also to many that are tortured attempts to get around the problem: Rather than "Its height was twenty cubits," we get "The height was twenty cubits thereof," which we may think is elegant but not when that awkward construction appears three times in a single sentence describing the proper construction of an ark.

IN THE BEGINNING, a splendidly readable account of how the KJV came to be, is filled with such fascinating tidbits, as well as more substantive and disturbing ones. Church authorities were bound and determined that bibles only be available in Latin, feeling (correctly) that their power arose at least to some extent from the inability of their congregations to understand the Book without assistance from clergy. But the Reformation that was sweeping Europe at the time was based in part on the belief that the bible should be available to all the people, in their own language (hence the term "vernacular bible"), just as the original was. (The Old Testament was in the Hebrew and Aramaic of farmers and laborers; same for the Greek of the New Testament.) This was no scholarly debate, either; William Tyndale was publicly strangled for writing an English version of the bible.

One of the strengths of IN THE BEGINNING is how well it acquaints us with the power of the ruthless Middle Ages church and its inseparability from government. The role of politics in the structure of the KJV is explored, too, such as in the decision-making that led to the inclusion of the Gospel of John and the Apocrypha, neither of which was universally viewed as the word of God as were the other sections. Despite a good deal of maddening repetition that often makes the book sound like a committee report ("Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them"), it's a compelling and intriguing read, its scholarship exemplary and its conclusions well-grounded. Especially revealing are the comparisons among several translations of well-known passages, which demonstrate the extraordinary degree to which all-too-human, seemingly arbitrary decisions (the Greek word ekklesia was translated as "church" but was more closely akin to "congregation") crept into a work which, more than any other, shaped our language and culture. Because of that undeniable influence, IN THE BEGINNING is a must-read for anybody who thinks, even if they're non-Christians or non-believers altogether.

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.

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.

I found this book fascinating. I grew up at a church in Sellersville, Pennsylvania where the ignorant country pastor pounded the pulpit angrily proclaiming, "The King James Version of the Bible is the only translation inspired by God! I think all the other translations are attempts by Satan to confuse the issue" (He was often afraid of being confused). How surprised old Pastor H. would be to discover that the translators would work tirelessly today to translate the Bible into today's English.

This book is a great read. It lays all the necessary foundation for understanding the climate of the KJV translation, from events like Martin Luther's shockingly courageous translation of the Bible into laypeople's German, to the English royalty's early desire for religious autonomy, evolving into a desire for easing conflict between religious factions.

I expected to read of political taint, but was pleasantly surprised at the intellectual honesty and humility of the translators. (Rather than feeling that their generation held a monopoly on understanding, they often deferred to previous generations' interpretations from centuries past, giving equal weight to the opinions of those long dead. This is unheard of in today's egotistical intellectual and cultural climate.

What an illuminating history and how clearly penned is this book! McGrath demonstrates how the great social forces that changed the face of Europe and England set the stage upon which the Translation that produced the King James Version of the Bible would be played out. Beginning with the Renaissance, progressing through the Reformation, and showing the impact of even the defeat of the Spanish armada, McGrath paints for the reader a portrait of evolving societies that demanded a Bible that they themselves could read, be their language French, Spanish or English.

McGrath shows us how the changing fortunes of the English tongue itself played a preparatory role in the demand for an English language Bible, and how the rise of the English merchant classes brought what had been a second-class language into respectable usage. Ah, but there was great political danger in allowing a Bible to be written in the people's tongue. How could the church fathers maintain control and exert their accustomed influence if the people were no longer forced to depend upon them to read, interpret and explain the Latin scriptures to their flocks? (Their Latin Bibles were, of course, only translations themselves, but doubtless few clerics could have understood the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek originals!)

And that blasted Reformation! Now we had Puritans interpreting the Bible their way-which weakened the concept of the divine right of kings and threatened the future of the monarchy. That certainly had to be opposed! Such political considerations led to bans on publishing Bibles in the English tongue and to the execution of those who would dare do so abroad. Still, by the time that James VI of Scotland and I of England assumed the throne, English translations of the Bible did exist, several versions of them in fact, including one printed in Geneva by English expatriates. This was a particularly dangerous version inasmuch as it was favored by the Puritan movement and was growing in popularity despite opposition from the Anglican bishops. All of this religious rancor, of course, permeated the entire government, for religion and worldly politics were thoroughly intertwined and inseparable.

Perhaps, James thought, directing that a new translation be made would mollify the warring political/religious elements of his realm. Although his goal was not immediately realized, the consequences of his decision were more far-reaching and influential than he could have possibly foreseen. Privately published and sold by venture capitalists, largely ignored or rejected upon its publication in 1611, and fraught with printing errors, the King James Version was not precisely a best seller for quite a long while. It was a rather inauspicious start for what would become one of the most influential books in the English language.

I read McGrath's book after Adam Nicolson's "God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible." The two works are not repetitive, for they approach the same history from different perspectives. While McGrath generally focuses on the broader linguistic, economic and social movements that eventually created a demand for an English language Bible and explains the political necessity for yet another translation under King James, Nicolson focuses largely on the personalities of the king, his advisors, and on what is known of the individual Translators and their six companies. The two books complement each other nicely, and I would recommend reading both, though, if a reader absolutely must limit himself to just one of the two, then perhaps McGrath's book will give the more thorough understanding.

Bear in mind, gentle sir or madam, that, unless you are yourself fluent in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, you, no more than I, have never read and will never be able to read any biblical texts. The best we can manage is to read a translation, itself based on and heavily influenced by even earlier translations, all of which were themselves influenced by the degree of linguistic skill of the translators, by their own beliefs and biases, and by the secular and church politics that controlled them. Both McGrath's and Nicolson's books will be of inestimable help in understanding just what it is that we are reading today when we claim to be reading the Bible. May I also emphasize that one need not be a follower of Jewish or Christian theology to enjoy these histories. Both educate in a most entertaining way, but, best of all, neither preaches.

Earlier reviewers have described this book well but have all given it five stars. I add this review simply to suggest that they may have gone a bit over the top. This is a fine book but it is more a history of the Bible in English than of the KJV itself. Its discussions of such things as the rise of the Puritan movement, the religious policies of various English monarchs, and the printing industry in England and the Low Countries are interesting and informative for those with a good basic knowledge of the history of the period but may be somewhat heavy going for others. Its comparisons of passages from various different translations demonstrate well how much the KJV depends on earlier versions but beyond that become tedious. Despite its frequent quotations from Biblical texts, several of which are repetitive, it actually mentions relatively few specific examples of the KJV's influences on the language.

This is a good book but is more a solid four-star than a five-star, exclamation-pointed experience.

At a time when Protestant Christians are engaged in a battle over the Bible, specifically which version is the "real one", a good, conscise history of the one translation that many feel is the only one is an invaluable asset to all Christians. Without marginalizing the King James Version at all, and in fact praising it rather highly in his conclusion, McGrath shows the struggles that resulted in the publication of this great translation made from several good ones.

While telling this story, though, McGrath does more. He tells the story of William Tyndale and his ground-breaking Bible. He tells the story of James I's betrayal of the Puritans, who thought they had a friend in this new King. He tells the story of the rise of English as an actual language. He connects the Reformation taking place in Europe. And then he shows how all these events impacted the development of the KJV.

This book is a great read, either in search of information or just as a casual, free-reading book. I also recommend Bobrick's Wide As the Waters. Both books cover the same ground, but from different perspectives.