After finishing the unabridged 'Dune' by Frank Herbert (read by Scott Brick), which was a completely absorbing 22 hours on another world (and even more marvellous to listen to than read), I'm now listening to Melvyn Bragg's Adventure of English. It's a truly fascinating story for anyone interested in history and language and Robert Powell's narration makes the words and language come alive. From Beowulf to Chaucer to Elizabeth I... (that's about as far as I've got!)
I'm currently deep in the Middle Ages; being inspired and moved by the stories of Wycliffe and Tyndale and their respective Bible translations. Tyndale sounds like a fantastic character particularly. The story of him agreeing to sell a whole print run of 6000 copies to the Bishop of London - which were then burnt - and then using the proceeds to finance a new version - pure brilliance! And Melvyn Bragg rightly raves about the lyricism and brilliance of his translation. He introduced a huge number of new words and phrases into English (see the Wikipedia article for examples). The King James Version stuck to his phrasing and vocabulary in most cases and lots is still familiar today in modern translations.
Tyndale was a preacher and his version was a preacher's Bible, lyrical and memorable. Bragg comments that English Bibles today still share this legacy from Tyndale of being designed to be read aloud and understood by all.
"I defy the pope, and all his laws... If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did."Bragg has some great quotes from Tyndale and others, which sadly I cannot share because I don't have the text in front of me, but I highly recommend reading the book - or even getting the audiobook (I have a subscription at Audible - by far the cheapest way!)
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