Book description
The King James Bible was a landmark in the history of the English
language, and an inspiration to poets, dramatists, artists and
politicians. Without the King James Bible there would have been no
Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim's Progress, no Handel's Messiah. Yet more than
a literary, even more than a religious influence, it was seen as a
social, economic and political text. Those seeking to overthrow the
English monarchy and those wanting to retain it, both sought support
from the same Bible.
So how did this remarkable translation come to be written? To answer
this question is to throw open the doors of a world which was being
transformed by the new technology of printing. In reading about the
greatest English text ever produced we must close our eyes to our own
world in which books are plentiful and readily available and enter
another, very different universe... Alistair McGrath is an Anglican
priest, theologian, and Christian apologist, currently Professor of
Theology, Ministry, and Education at Kings College London and Head of
the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture. He was previously
Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was
principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford until 2005. He is a leading authority
on the history of Christian thought, especially in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and is the author of many studies in this field.
