Type of bind: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Amazon Remainders Account
Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 392
Printing Date: January 29, 2002
Publishing house: Amazon Remainders Account
Sale Popularity Level: 233666
Studio: Amazon Remainders Account
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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 initiator 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, as well as the fifty-four scholars from Oxford and Cambridge who crafted the King James Version of the Bible.
Historian Benson Bobrick traces this story 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.
Once people were free to interpret the word of God, they began to question the authority of their inherited institutions, both religious and secular. This led to reformation within the Church, and to the rise of constitutional government in England and the end of the divine right of kings.
Wide as the Waters is a story about a crucial epoch in the development of Christianity, about the English language and society, and about a book that changed the course of history.
'Bobrick is an exceptionally able writer of popular histories. . . . This new book is by far his most ambitious. . . . He succeeds entirely in the challenge he sets himself.' (Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, for The New York Times Book Review)
'With this compelling study, Bobrick has written an intricate and delightful prelude to any effective understanding of the evolution of modern Western democracy.' (Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun)
'[Wide as the Waters] . . . has the satisfying concreteness of a good novel. . . . This fast-paced nonfiction narrative is so engaging that it's likely to make a believer of any reader.' (Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Magazine)
Amazon.com Review:
Benson Bobrick's Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired is a brisk and gripping work of history, religion, and literary criticism. Translation of the King James Bible took centuries to complete, and Bobrick provides colorful descriptions of the distinctive contributions of various translators who took part in the project, particularly John Wyclif in the 15th century and William Tyndale in the 16th century. (Tyndale, he points out, is the second most widely quoted writer, after Shakespeare, in the English language ['eat, drink, and be merry,' is Tyndale's phrase; so is 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak'].) Wide as the Waters interprets each translator's work according to its contemporary political context in England. The book's most dramatic passages are found in its account of Henry VIII's showdown with Rome, which resulted in (among other things) Tyndale's execution. Although Bobrick may overstate the singularity of the Bible's influence on the English Revolution (he asserts that the concepts of liberty and free will that guided revolutionaries who overthrew Charles I were primarily derived from the King James Bible), his argument is, at the very least, an effective and engaging reminder of Scripture's liberating power. --Michael Joseph Gross
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Rated by buyers 
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I was supposedly "saved" at age 34 but don't count my real conversion until age 55. At that time I had been told enough little lies by the clergy and had completely gotten away from Christianity after a divorce (but now felt drawn back) so that I decided, if I was going to understand it, I must study it on my own. And as I was doing that, I began to discover that that was exactly what God wanted me to do (see Isaiah 2:22 and 1 John 2:26, 27).
About three years later I just happened to be watching a PBS Charley Rose interview with Benson Bobrick about his then new book "Wide as the Waters" and found it interesting enough to buy. What it did for me was validate the understanding God had given me from Scripture (when I read Wycliffe's own understanding). This book has been instrumental in establishing my faith in God; a faith that finds "visible" Christianity a corruption and no different than the self-glorification the Sanhedrin promoted for themselves, and who Jesus denounced (essentially) as "Children of Satan."
Rated by buyers -
Couldn't ask for a better primer on the history of the English Bible and the key contributors to its development through the King James. Until I read this, I had no idea of the sacrifice, the political and social impacts and the precarious development of this most cherished publication. Wycliffe, Coverdale, Tyndale, More, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I, the politics of court and canon law all play intiguing roles. If you want to really know why you have in your hands one of the greatest works of literature in history, this book is a very moving read and will keep your interest up.
Rated by buyers -
Although the author writes from the Protestant perspective the book is written in an easy to read, flowing style that it keeps you turning pages. I learned so much from this book that it will remain on my bookshelf as a reference. I very much enjoyed reading this book, although I have some reservations about some of his conclusions. Whatever faults I found with the book were overshadowed by the sheer scope of his research into the personalities and achievements of the translators on the Bible.
Rated by buyers -
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 readibility in mind.
Bobrick does make clear the abuse of religous authority, arguments of tradition versus Scripture, the power of the English monarch, the extent of intolerance of what might seem nowadays small religous 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 acess 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 responsbilities 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 very 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 religous freedoms. One step for us to not be midled 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 labelled 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 labelled 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.
Rated by buyers 
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With one massive exception, my problems with this book are more generic than particular. The popularized history certainly has a place on library shelves, but I will generally leave such a book on its shelf for reasons shortly to become obvious. I certainly should have left this book on the shelf, unread.
Sadly, Bobrick avoids none of the pitfalls of the genre - un-attributed quotes, passive voice, disportionately detailed digressions into radically random nooks and crannies of history dictated by his sources (which remain un-cited,) not by the importance of a sub-topic to his over-view. Passive voice is the norm for such a book - "it can be seen," "it is suggested" - because the author doesn't want to take the time to sort out his sources, so he simply tosses in an insight without bothering to say who sees or who suggests. While I find this intellectually bankrupt, I do realize that footnotes are not attractive to a main-stream audience. Still, it's hard for me to believe that a main-stream audience would choose to have important distinctions glossed over, even if, at very first blush, they may seem to be minor points. Bobrik's details, where they do appear, suggest no principle of inclusion but that of the arbitrary. If we must hear what Wycliffe ate at Oxford, we should also hear about the theological nuances in his translation of Genesis. Surely the latter is more important than the former in a book on the English Bible. But Bobrick evidently found the info on food, so he includes it, not bothering to read up on the more significant topic of Wycliffe's insertion of the word "nouyt" (nothing) into the very first line of the very first creation story.
Even crucial sub-topics receive cursory attention only. For all that he spews out half a chapter and more on the reign of Queen Elizabeth -- a corner-stone figure in any study of English history/theology -- his information never advances beyond the Blue Badge school of scholarship. In his bibliography, Bobrick cites only two studies of the much-studied monarch: Joseph M Levine's popularized life from the 1960s and the work of that prolific popularizer of accomplished females, Alison Weir.
So what do we call a text that is a popularization of a popularization? A meta-pop? Well, Bobrick never met a pop he didn't like.
OK, now for that massive exception. As with the details about Oxford meals, Bobrick tosses in bits and pieces of medieval and early Renaissance factoids. This, in context, is fine. Who can object to reading about the screech owl that gainsayed a pope? But, since they are off the topic of his summary, these factoids obviously receive little scrutiny from the author. (Yes, passive, as in "these items are passively conveyed to the reader.") Sometimes Bobrick's tidbits are simply popular history having one more unthinking iteration. And sometimes they are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
On page 67, Bobrick identifies - literally parenthetically - Christine de Pizan as "the author of Le Roman de la Rose." This is so wrong as to be criminal. Not only was Christine de Pizan not the author, she spent much of her career condemning the text, both in the famous querelle de la Rose -- an early version of a pamphlet war, in which she sided with the Chancellour of the University of Paris in condemning the wildly popular work of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun -- but also in her own oeuvre (such as The Book of the Duke of True Lovers and the famous Book of the City of Ladies.) The average undergrad English or history major knows that de Lorris and de Meun authored the text and that Christine de Pizan famously objected to it. If Bobrick's general knowledge of the period (and this is precisely the period of his topic) allows him to make such an error, I'm forced to regard all his other asides with the gravest suspicion. Yeah, sure, I know that Christine de Pizan didn't write the R de R, even though it's not my field. But what about the other stuff that Bobrick tosses out, other things also not in my field? Now that I know he can make a whopper of an error -- trust me, this is no nit being picked -- must I take the time to google every statement? Well, yes, if I want to file any of this away as knowledge. And what else could I do with it? Bobrick doesn't know enough about Englishing the Bible for his opinions to matter, so we are left with learning stuff from his bits and pieces. But the bits and pieces, as witnessed above, can be wrong.
That's the real sin of his error, casting doubt over everything else.
Popularizing should not mean mis-stating.
For a more trustworthy book on the topic by a scholar in the field, see In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture by Alister McGrath.
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