God’s Secretaries Audiobook By Adam Nicolson cover art

God’s Secretaries

The Making of the King James Bible

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God’s Secretaries

By: Adam Nicolson
Narrated by: Clive Chafer
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About this listen

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.
Bibles European Great Britain Historical History Literary History & Criticism Religious Royalty England King Dream Ireland
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Critic reviews

“This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-language work of all time is entirely true to its subject: Adam Nicolson’s lapidary prose is masterly, his measured account both as readable as the curious demand and as dignified as the story deserves.” (Simon Winchester, New York Times best-selling author)
“So few documents have survived this labor—apart, of course, from the translation itself—that piecing together the tale is at least as much a matter of intelligent guesswork as of hard research. This is what Adam Nicolson has done, and he has done it extraordinarily well.” ( Washington Post Book World)
“An astonishingly rich cultural tour of the art, architecture, personalities, and experiences of Jacobean England: high and low entertainment, high and low churchmanship, courtiers, schoolmasters, and ecclesiastics. [Nicolson’s] picture is beguilingly full.” ( Times Literary Supplement (London))

What listeners say about God’s Secretaries

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting history

Great research, lots of detail and history. Fun information for those interested in this topic

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Informative

Excellent book to give context of the events and circumstances that shaped the translators of the King James Bible

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great read!

This elegant and fascinating history beautifully imerses the reader in Jacobean England, as it introduces the reader to many of the Translators and persons involved in creating the Bible known as the Authorized Version. A must read for all who love the English language and its heritage.

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4 people found this helpful

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Excellent

Nicolson is a great writer and scholar.
I learned much from this beautiful text, particularly the contrastive analysis and synthesis at book’s end.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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A Holy Reading

The book is fantastic. Each chapter is prefaced with a Biblical passage that portends the content. The reading is clear and brings out the language.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Poor performance ruins the book

I could only listen to this for about an hour or so before the narrator’s read about brought me to tears.
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 😏

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting, good historical content, dryly read

The first thing that immediately stood out to me was in the reading of this book. The man has a very nice accent and is very articulate. However, his voice is monotonous in this reading and the flavor is dry. To be clear this is not meant as an insult and I believe the performer is an excellent reader.
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.

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Wonderful

I appreciate the intensive scholarship. The ending is for me intellectually and spiritually exciting. My thanks to the author.

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Exceptional Work of Historical Christianity

The book is great. Well researched and story will told with brilliant writing in some sections to bring out the story of the St. James bible, it's history and creation from older biblical texts. Lose yourself in the words and you can truly imagine yourself back in England in the 1500s-1600s.

The story teller--sigh. Initially impressed with a rich, heralded British accent, I soon found myself bored with a nearly sonorous performance. I had never heard a British monotone before, but now I have. My God man, tell the story! It's ups! It's downs! Use voice acting!

Overall, very good book. I may read the hard copy.

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3 people found this helpful

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More history than Bible

Not what I expected at all. I recently read the entire Bible cover to cover - it was a 'bucket list' item. So this book sounded like a fascinating way to learn about how the King James version was created. I knew that there were some matters of interpretation and translation, and disputed passages, and disagreement about which books to include, and the like.
But almost all of this book was about the lives of the men who translated it, in interminable detail. And commentary on the social and political times -, the royal family, the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot, the Puritans, etc etc.
You WILL find that fascinating if you are into British history and want to know all that detail. But I do mean every detail. The research is, I'm sure, impeccable. But the detail goes on and on.
I actually can't believe that I slogged through the entire book, but I kept hoping that it would become more interesting and that the author would finally focus on the Bible itself. The last part of the book (maybe the last hour or 1 1/2 hours) had the most information about the actual translation of the Bible, and I did find that interesting.
I rarely, if ever, pay much attention to the narrators of the audiobooks I listen to. They are all good - or maybe I'm just not picky. I have never complained about one ever - until now. This narrator spoke in clear and precise English... in an absolute monotone for the entire book with barely a break or rise between sentences or paragraphs... in some places that made the text difficult to follow, and it almost put me to sleep.
I wouldn't say don't get the book. Definitely read it if you are a history buff. But I wish I had gotten the print version; then I could have just skipped to the parts that interested me and saved a few hours.

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2 people found this helpful