
God’s Secretaries
The Making of the King James Bible
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Narrated by:
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Clive Chafer
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By:
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Adam Nicolson
A net of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the Gunpowder Plot; the worst outbreak of the plague England had ever seen; arcadian landscapes; murderous, toxic slums; and, above all, sometimes overwhelming religious passion. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than it had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between the polarities.
This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
The sponsor and guide of the whole Bible project was the king himself, the brilliant, ugly, and profoundly peace-loving James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England. Trained almost from birth to manage the rivalries of political factions at home, James saw in England the chance for a sort of irenic Eden over which the new translation of the Bible was to preside. It was to be a Bible for everyone, and as God’s lieutenant on earth, he would use it to unify his kingdom. The dream of Jacobean peace, guaranteed by an elision of royal power and divine glory, lies behind a Bible of extraordinary grace and everlasting literary power.
Adam Nicolson is the author of Seamanship, God’s Secretaries, and Seize the Fire. He has won both the Somerset Maugham and William Heinemann awards, and he lives with his family at Sissinghurst Castle in England.
©2003 Adam Nicolson (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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Interesting history
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Informative
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Great read!
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I learned much from this beautiful text, particularly the contrastive analysis and synthesis at book’s end.
Excellent
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A Holy Reading
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I really wanted to hear this as the subject matter is most interesting to me but I’ll have to buy it again as a physical book 😏
Poor performance ruins the book
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The author did a fine job of presenting the historical evidence for the book in a very objective manner, which is difficult to come by for books of spiritual and religious matters. I may object as to the truth or validity of the author’s personal comments at the end of the book, but it was evident that there was separation between this personal exposé and the rest of the book.
I enjoyed it and will listed a second time to get more of the information. It is not, however, a complete story of how the Bible was manufactured, but does an excellent job of illustrating how the King James Version came to be.
Interesting, good historical content, dryly read
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Wonderful
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Otherwise, well done entry.
Excellent book
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Great book; odd narration
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