Bobrick, Benson

New York. 2001. April 2001. Simon & Schuster. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0684847477. 381 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by John Gall. keywords: England History Religion Bible Literature. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Next to the Bible itself, the English Bible was - and is - the most influential book ever published. The most famous of all English Bibles, the King James Version, was the culmination of centuries of work by various translators, from John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century catalyst of English Bible translation, to the committee of scholars who collaborated on the King James translation. Wide as the Waters examines the life and work of Wycliffe and recounts the tribulations of his successors, including William Tyndale, who was martyred, Miles Coverdale, and others who came to bitter ends. It traces the story of the English Bible through the tumultuous reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth I, a time of fierce contest between Catholics and Protestants in England, as the struggle to establish a vernacular Bible was fought among competing factions. In the course of that struggle, Sir Thomas More, later made a Catholic saint, helped orchestrate the assault on the English Bible, only to find his own true faith the plaything of his king.' ‘In 1604, a committee of fifty-four scholars, the flower of Oxford and Cambridge, collaborated on the new translation for King James. Their collective expertise in biblical languages and related fields has probably never been matched, and the translation they produced - substantially based on the earlier work of Wycliffe, Tyndale, and others - would shape English literature and speech for centuries. inventory #28835 ISBN: 0684847477.