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  The Year of the Bible

2011 was the year of the Bible - at the end of 2010 Preston Minster hosted a Bible reading marathon which involved the whole of the Bible being read by volunteers over a four day period - non-stop!! I went along, as did John, and we both found the experience of reading Scripture aloud, accompanied by constant visitors, at all times of the day and night,  'dropping-in' to the Church to see what was happening a very moving experience.

At St. Peter's, we celebrated the year of the Bible throughout 2011, not the least with our own Bible reading 'marathon' that took place alongside our Easter vigil as part of our Lent and Easter devotions this year. You can see how we celebrated this 'year' throughout this site.

... let's make every year 'A Year of the Bible'!!

Andrew

 

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Sheila Goodman has written this about the King James Bible:    

 

Long Live King James !

A Sunday school Prize.   A Bible presented to Sheila Smart (guess who!) in 1954 from the Church of the Holy Cross Sunday School, in Crediton, Devon.   Known as the Authorised, or King James version, this translation will be celebrating its 400^th birthday on 2^nd May 2011.

We’ve become accustomed to the Good News Bible.   There are copies in the pews at St Peter’s.   We listen to Gospels, Epistles, Old and New Testament readings regularly in church.   Maybe we also read our Bibles at home.   The language of the Good News Bible “seeks to state clearly and accurately the meaning of the original texts in words that are widely accepted by people who use English as a means of communication”.

However, what we may not realise is that many familiar phrases or sayings have originated in the King James’ Bible.   Do we ever “eat, drink and be merry”, “see the writing on the wall”, “go from strength to strength”, “fight the good fight” ?   Well, if we do, then we are quoting from the Bible as translated 400 years ago !   Someone had identified no fewer than 257 phrases in everyday use.   A labour of love … or “no rest for the wicked”, “from cradle to grave” ?

It is said that the works of William Shakespeare are full of “Quotes”, only Shakespeare wrote them in the first place !   Likewise, the Bible, and the Authorised Version is much loved for its poetry and rhetoric as for its message.   Besides, Shakespeare has a vocabulary of 31,000 different words, the King James Bible uses a lexicon of just 12,000 words.

100 years ago Theodore Roosevelt declared: “The King James Bible is a Magna Carta for the poor and oppressed, the most democratic book in the world”.   This still rings true today.

Next year commemorative events will be fruitful and multiply, nationally and locally.   On the one hand, the King James Bible is one of Britain’s greatest exports, with 2.5 million copies cast on the waters so far.   On the other hand, we also know it isn’t just one book, but a collection of books, encompassing history, poetry, guidelines for everyday living, morality tales and the Greatest Story ever told, upon which our Christian faith, in the New Testament, while we share parts of the Old Testament with our Jewish and Muslim friends.

We should give thanks for the miracle of the King James’ translation, a triumph of creative collaboration (54 scholars in six committees!) and we should also give thanks for good old Google.   It seems that, each month, 450,000 people make a Google search for King James Bible, and fewer than 10% of these searches originate in the United Kingdom.   No wonder they call it the World Wide Web !

Make a New Year’s Resolution to remember to read your Bible every day, and watch out for some Biblical activities at St Peter’s in 2011.