Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1269686 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Synopsis
Relates the story of the "English Bible," with details of how King James assembled a team of experts to translate the text into English, and examines the political, social, cultural, and spiritual ramifications of the King James Bible.

Customer Reviews

How little I knew
My knowlege of history is spotty. Bobrick made it clear that I had known little of English history.

"Wide as the waters" is dense with facts. While readable, it does appear as if it were a draft into which Bobrick had packed all the facts but not gone back for a final rewrite with enhanced readability in mind.

Bobrick does make clear the abuse of religious authority, arguments of tradition versus Scripture, the power of the English monarch, the extent of intolerance of what might seem nowadays small religious differences and the problems of Biblical translation. "Wide as the Waters" conveys the excitement of a time when courageous men risked their lives to speak freely and when the "common" people got access to the Bible. I hadn't heard of the Lollards before, who, like Cathar perfects in France, also chose a simple, dangerous life.

One learns of the responsibilities of proofreading, particularly so when it comes with a Bible, with the story of the "Wicked Bible". One wonders, if instead of omitting "not" in the seventh commandment, what would have become of the printer if "no" had been omitted in the first commandment in Exodus 20:3. As it was, the printer was fined and later sent to debtor's prison where he died 12 years after the "Wicked Bible" was released. Don't rush out looking for a copy of the "Wicked Bible": all copies were reportedly recalled.

Other than a reminder of my ignorance of large pockets of history, what I will most bring away from this book is the knowledge of the people who risked suffering and their lives to pave the way for the freedoms we take for granted today.

The memory of people like the Lollards (and the Cathars before them) is still subject to considerable misrepresentation to this day. I, for one, am most thankful that their sacrifices are well-documented. We must still, however, be on the alert for those who would try to reduce our religious freedoms. One step for us to not be misled is to turn to the historical record and consider the vested interests of the sources of the histories we read. Wikipedia notes, I believe correctly, that "The Lollards stated that the Catholic Church had been corrupted by temporal matters and that its claim to be the true church was not justified by its heredity." This may explain in large part why the Catholic Church labeled them heretics, a position still found in the "Catholic Encyclopedia". (For those interested in the Cathars, there are many books available which represent them fairly: Stephen O' Shea's "The Perfect Heresy" is an excellent introduction. Rene Weis's exceptional, detailed "The Yellow Cross" is closely based on historical records. The Cathars, like the Lollards are them, decried corrupt practices found in the Roman Catholic Church and were similarly then labeled as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church.)

Bobrick is to be commended to bringing the historical events and issues in England surrounding the Bible to our attention. Were it not for reputable historians like Bobrick, we might be misled by the work of propagandists.

more than just the story of the KJB
I know that more recent books have been published on the same subject, but I'm not sure if they give quite as much history on the King James Bible. "God's Secretaries" came out recently, but I believe that is focused on the writing of the KJB itself, while "Wide as the Waters" goes back to give the history of the Greek and Latin translations and, most interestingly, Wycliffe's translations and the persecutions of his followers. Just a great retelling of an interesting story.