Teems, David. Majestie: The King Behind the King James Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.
In Majestie, David Teems presents King James VI of Scotland and I of England, authorizer of the King James Version of the Bible, as a man of great ability and many quirks. You might expect the quirks given that his father was killed, likely assassinated, under unusual circumstances. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was separated from him most his childhood and was eventually executed for treason by the government of her sister, Elizabeth I. James had little affection for his mother (the clerics and aristocrats who oversaw his education hated her) and much need for his powerful aunt’s support and wealth.
James chafed under the harsh tutelage of the Scottish nobles and clergy who took over his upbringing. They wanted to raise for themselves a king who would serve the interests of the Kirk and the Scottish peerage. James saw himself, and monarchs as class, as an agent of God to govern a nation and not answerable to any other authority but God. In Scotland he was browbeaten as a boy, kidnapped a as a king, and harassed by conniving powers and intrigues at every turn. It took him years to come into his own as king and become more or less the equal of his country’s nobles and church.
England, in contrast, knew how to do monarchy in the “divine right” style that James thought was suitable. From a distance, he wooed his aunt and lobbied to succeed her. Elizabeth I was an incredible conniver and welded power skillfully. She kept James and Scotland under her sway through the careful application of her wealth and the subtle promise of her throne. She came through on that promise and, at the end of her life when a named heir would not be more hazardous to her health than the imminent death she faced, she named he nephew as her heir.
England had its own contentious elements, namely Puritans. James had little use for them. He wasn’t especially fond of the Anglican bishops either, but as head of the Church of England, he found an alliance with them, leading to minimal reform, provided him with influential supporters of the type of powerful monarchy he wanted to exercise. The new English king brought with him from the Scottish throne he still held a wit an education to browbeat reformers and reactionaries alike. James liked one proposal the Puritans offered almost as an afterthought: a new translation of the Bible.
As you might imagine, Teems devotes a fair amount of space to the Bible translation that popularly bears King James’ name. It’s an interesting subject in itself. These chapters describe the how the idea came to be, how the work of translation was done, and some of the known translators. In the old-fashioned sense, James was the “author,” initiator and motivator, of the project. He was anxious to see it accomplished.
Teems has little to say about James’ life in the years following the translation. He believes the king peeked in the translation years and was never quite as majestic in the last 14 years of his life. The loss of a child, and later wife, can take some of the life out of a person. And we are all sometimes overcome by our own weaknesses. Teems seems to give the king a break in his earlier years, not avoiding but not overemphasizing the monarch’s many foibles, and maybe he should have carried that into James’ sunset years.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
God’s Secretaries by Adam Nicolson
In the Beginning by Alister McGrath
King James Bible
Wide as the Waters by Benson Bobrick
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Scottish. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Scottish. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
I was going read only fiction over
the holidays
and give myself a break from writing reviews.
So I picked up Arthur & George
by Julian
Barnes. I remembered I reviewed The Sherlockian by Graham Moore and
began to feel obligated to review this other novel about Arthur
Conan Doyle as well.
Google
The books are very different. The Sherlockian is a thriller
and it is entirely fictional. Barnes’
book is a more literary,
historical
novel based on real events. If he had
been writing a thriller, the story would have started when Doyle got involved
in overturning the wrongful conviction of solicitor George Adelji
for mutilating and killing animals
in the rural community where he was raised by a Scottish mother
and an Indian
father who converted to Anglicanism and
served as a vicar. This doesn’t occur
until you’ve already read 70 percent of the book. Barnes doesn’t indulge the achronologic order
a novel permits, but he does take his time, gets into the heads of his
protagonists, and takes a long look at side stories. This is why I refer to it as a literary novel
in contrast to a thriller, which is more to-the-point and plot driven.
I wonder why Barnes decided to write a novel instead of a nonfiction
account of the events. I suspect there
was plenty of source material. Doyle was
a prolific writer. Newspapers
abounded in England
at the time. Clues to the truth can be
found in even the most obfuscatory court and government
documents. The Adelji case led to new laws, including
the introduction of appeals courts to the British criminal
justice system. I suspect he wanted to
explore themes that interested him without too strictly bound to a factual
narrative.
There is the suggestion of a theme in the opening chapters. Doyle and Adelji are introduced through their
childhood exposures to death, something
that would have been common in the 1800s. Doyle famously became a spiritualist. He was committed to the idea that death was
passage into another life and that gifted people could communicate with the
departed. I do not know if Adelji’s
views are on the record, but Barnes depicts him as something between neutral and
skeptical. He also seems indifferent and
uncurious. The only fact he is sure of
is that everyone dies. What happens
after death, if anything, is unknown, and he finds the evidence of an afterlife
to be weak. These views are not
contrasted; they are juxtaposed.
Ethics
may be another theme. Doyle derived his
ethical view from his notions of chivalry. Adelji, who comes across as a
high-functioning person with Asperger’s
syndrome, found his place in the order and logic of the law. There was plenty of unethical activity, or at
least human venality, presented in the story: racism, eugenic notions,
sloppy police work, unjust courts, and heel-dragging bureaucrats.
I might have preferred a straight nonfiction account of the
events. Barnes novelization worked for
me, though. It was certainly more
effective than the partial fictionalization attempted by David
Gelernter in his history
of the 1939 World’s Fair.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Defining Noah Webster by K. Alan Snyder
Snyder, K. Alan. Defining Noah Webster: A Spiritual Biography. Washington, DC: Allegiance Press, 2002.
Noah Webster was in interesting man in interesting times. A young man during the American Revolution, he became interested in politics and went on to know many of the statesmen of that era, especially amongst his fellow Federalists . He was published the first magazine of original material in America and edited a Federalist newspaper, sometimes drawing fire from his own party for his evenhanded reporting. He is best known for writing educational materials, readers, texts, and especially his dictionary.
K. Alan Snyder covers this biographical fare in Defining Noah Webster. He is more interested in the philosophical and religious arc of Webster’s life and how his views changed, especially after his conversion to Christianity.
Webster was raised in the Congregational church of his family in Connecticut and attended Yale, which was still ostensibly a religious college at the time. (Incidentally, later in life he would help to establish Amerherst because, among other things, he found Harvard, itself originally a seminary, to be too liberal.) As he reached adulthood and had to fend for himself, he turned away from the faith and sought guidance in literature and philosophy. He is hardly the only Enlightenment-era youth to seek to perfect himself through reason .
Snyder sees Webster falling under the influence of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. After reading his book, I can’t tell you much about Common Sense philosophy, though Snyder provides just enough to follow how it appears in Webster’s activities and writings in the early part of his career. The major themes are that reason must be guided by conscience, and that as a person matures and develops reason, reason should take the drivers seat and direct his other faculties. Thus, Webster’s educational views include inculcating moral values. Common Sense also viewed political philosophy as part of moral philosophy. Webster valued character in politicians and thought foolish put public trust in people whose private morals were questionable.
While Webster’s views were not opposed to Christianity, his real faith through much of his career as an educator, author, politician, and public figure was in reason, not in Christ. As he saw his country grow and become factious and reported the horrors that developed during the French Revolution, he became disillusioned with the idea that reason, even if guided by a trained conscience, could cure people of moral shortcomings.
Webster converted to Christianity at the age of about 50, to the delight of his wife and daughters. He did not make a disillusioned retreat to religion. He was born again and the experience changed his perspective on everything. The final chapters are the meat of the book. Snyder writes about how this conversion changed Webster’s views on politics and education and influenced his dictionary.
Webster remained a staunch Federalist. However, the reasoning behind his political views changed. He found the roots of republican government in the Bible-base wisdom of America’s Christian settlers. Solid character, especially Christ-like character, became an even more important requirement for elected officials.
Before his conversion, Webster steered clear of what he saw as the overuse of the Bible in readers. Afterward, he no longer trusted natural conscience and reason. People were too prone to error and selfishness. They needed revelation from God’s Word as a reliable to guide to what is right.
These Christian views are prominent in Webster’s dictionary, though largely removed from its successors. Webster traced etymologies with the notion of finding the true meaning of a word in its origins in an Adamic tongue. His illustrations of meanings frequently reflected his Christian views.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis
The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen
Triumvirate by Bruce Chadwick
Noah Webster was in interesting man in interesting times. A young man during the American Revolution, he became interested in politics and went on to know many of the statesmen of that era, especially amongst his fellow Federalists . He was published the first magazine of original material in America and edited a Federalist newspaper, sometimes drawing fire from his own party for his evenhanded reporting. He is best known for writing educational materials, readers, texts, and especially his dictionary.
K. Alan Snyder covers this biographical fare in Defining Noah Webster. He is more interested in the philosophical and religious arc of Webster’s life and how his views changed, especially after his conversion to Christianity.
Webster was raised in the Congregational church of his family in Connecticut and attended Yale, which was still ostensibly a religious college at the time. (Incidentally, later in life he would help to establish Amerherst because, among other things, he found Harvard, itself originally a seminary, to be too liberal.) As he reached adulthood and had to fend for himself, he turned away from the faith and sought guidance in literature and philosophy. He is hardly the only Enlightenment-era youth to seek to perfect himself through reason .
Snyder sees Webster falling under the influence of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. After reading his book, I can’t tell you much about Common Sense philosophy, though Snyder provides just enough to follow how it appears in Webster’s activities and writings in the early part of his career. The major themes are that reason must be guided by conscience, and that as a person matures and develops reason, reason should take the drivers seat and direct his other faculties. Thus, Webster’s educational views include inculcating moral values. Common Sense also viewed political philosophy as part of moral philosophy. Webster valued character in politicians and thought foolish put public trust in people whose private morals were questionable.
While Webster’s views were not opposed to Christianity, his real faith through much of his career as an educator, author, politician, and public figure was in reason, not in Christ. As he saw his country grow and become factious and reported the horrors that developed during the French Revolution, he became disillusioned with the idea that reason, even if guided by a trained conscience, could cure people of moral shortcomings.
Webster converted to Christianity at the age of about 50, to the delight of his wife and daughters. He did not make a disillusioned retreat to religion. He was born again and the experience changed his perspective on everything. The final chapters are the meat of the book. Snyder writes about how this conversion changed Webster’s views on politics and education and influenced his dictionary.
Webster remained a staunch Federalist. However, the reasoning behind his political views changed. He found the roots of republican government in the Bible-base wisdom of America’s Christian settlers. Solid character, especially Christ-like character, became an even more important requirement for elected officials.
Before his conversion, Webster steered clear of what he saw as the overuse of the Bible in readers. Afterward, he no longer trusted natural conscience and reason. People were too prone to error and selfishness. They needed revelation from God’s Word as a reliable to guide to what is right.
These Christian views are prominent in Webster’s dictionary, though largely removed from its successors. Webster traced etymologies with the notion of finding the true meaning of a word in its origins in an Adamic tongue. His illustrations of meanings frequently reflected his Christian views.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis
The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen
Triumvirate by Bruce Chadwick
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury & The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst
In Dreams of Iron and Steel (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), Deborah Cadbury tells the stories of seven great works that cover over a century of engineering history. Originally published in Great Britain as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, the book was a companion to a BBC television series. The projects covered vary widely from a sewer built under a metropolis to a bridge that towered above the skyline of its day.
The oldest of these (still standing like all but one of the other projects) is the Bell Rock lighthouse. The Bell Rock sank many ships that sought shelter from North Sea storms in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, designed and oversaw the construction of a tower on it. The rock was a formidable construction site. It sat eleven miles from land. High tide covered it with as much as 16 feet of water. Low tide exposed an area only 250 by 130 feet. Yet Stevenson and his men built a 100-foot, stone tower on it. They did it 200 years ago.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, several wonders were built almost at once. The Great Eastern, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was twice the size of any other ship. Though a commercial failure, it set the standard for the next generation of ships.
Brunel launched his ship into a dirty and diseased Thames. Joseph Bazalgette sought to make the river safer for London residents. He built sewers under an ancient city that had grown to 2.5 million people and sprawled over 80 square miles.
In the American West, rival firms raced across the continent to build a railroad that would unite a nation recovering from civil war. In New York, John and Washington Roebling tackled the broad East River with their Brooklyn Bridge. They risked their lives and reputations on the longest span of the day and a material untested in bridges—steel.
The twentieth century inaugurated bigger feats. First proposed in 1879 by Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps of France, builder of the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal defeated most of those tried to build it. Even the United States poked at the mountains in futility until John Stevens, a railroad engineer, upgraded the infrastructure and equipment. When Stevens left the canal, a frustrated Theodore Roosevelt put military officers in charge. Lieutenant Colonel George Goethels, an engineer with extensive lock and dam experience, saw the canal through to its completion shortly before World War I.
The final project, America’s “damn big dam”, was build during the Depression. Hoover Dam was huge and constructed under difficult conditions. But construction engineer Frank “Hurry up” Crowe pushed and planned to get it done early and under budget.
Cadbury treats each project separately. However, they are linked by common elements.
Tragedy and setbacks touched each one. Thousands of men, usually poor laborers and sometimes children, were killed or injured to make these huge structures. They were beset by lack of financing, reluctance to try new methods and materials, bankrupt contractors, political opposition, corruption, greed, prejudice, and other human imperfections.
At their best, these engineers and their wonders are linked by the same qualities that appear in the best of engineering today. They had a vision to make people safer, healthier, richer, and freer. They created solutions to immense problems.
Robert Stevenson’s triumph at Bell Rock won the confidence of the Northern Lighthouse Board. It also launched an association between the Stevenson family and Scottish lighthouses that lasted four generations. During their tenures in the office of engineer for the board, Stevenson and his sons dominated the design, construction, and operation of the lights. Bella Bathurst tells their story in The Lighthouse Stevensons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
This book has its own kind of variety: technical, professional, and personal. It covers the construction and technology of several lighthouses, the masterpieces of Robert and his three sons. They not only built towers, but also improved their design and the design of the lamps, reflectors, optics, and mechanical systems that operated in them. One even studied the waves that assaulted their works.
It shows that engineering is more than simply design and construction. The Stevensons were also managers, fundraisers, businessmen, public servants, purchasing agents, manufacturers, contractors, and more. Their work included a broad section of what engineers do.
The book is also a biography of these four men that reveals the dynamics of the family. Robert insisted his sons join the family profession and business. Only one, David, seemed to take to it naturally. Only David’s sons filled the next generation of lighthouse Stevensons. Alan and Tom were more inclined to work in literature and the arts. Alan proved himself to be a capable engineer by building a 138-foot light at Skerryvore that could withstand the elements and exhibit a simple beauty. He became so disabled by disease, Bathurst suggests it was muscular sclerosis, that he gave up his work with the lighthouses. He managed to work irregularly as a writer. His works include and encyclopedia article on lighthouses and a translation of Greek poems. Tom shared Alan’s artistic leaning, but not his intensity and focus. He and David eventually divided the engineering work for the Northern Lights.
Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, of course. As Robert Louis Stevenson said about his internship in the profession, “He is a wise youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two parts of drudgery between four walls and for the sake of one, manfully accept the other.” But some managed to catch what Marion Allen, a laborer on the Hoover Dam, called constructitis. “Sometimes one thinks he is cured,” said Allen, “only to have a relapse when he goes by fresh concrete or catches the smell of fresh sawdust from new lumber. Anyone with this affliction has to start construction of some kind, even of only to dig a hole and fill it up again.”
Order this book here.
The oldest of these (still standing like all but one of the other projects) is the Bell Rock lighthouse. The Bell Rock sank many ships that sought shelter from North Sea storms in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, designed and oversaw the construction of a tower on it. The rock was a formidable construction site. It sat eleven miles from land. High tide covered it with as much as 16 feet of water. Low tide exposed an area only 250 by 130 feet. Yet Stevenson and his men built a 100-foot, stone tower on it. They did it 200 years ago.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, several wonders were built almost at once. The Great Eastern, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was twice the size of any other ship. Though a commercial failure, it set the standard for the next generation of ships.
Brunel launched his ship into a dirty and diseased Thames. Joseph Bazalgette sought to make the river safer for London residents. He built sewers under an ancient city that had grown to 2.5 million people and sprawled over 80 square miles.
In the American West, rival firms raced across the continent to build a railroad that would unite a nation recovering from civil war. In New York, John and Washington Roebling tackled the broad East River with their Brooklyn Bridge. They risked their lives and reputations on the longest span of the day and a material untested in bridges—steel.
The twentieth century inaugurated bigger feats. First proposed in 1879 by Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps of France, builder of the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal defeated most of those tried to build it. Even the United States poked at the mountains in futility until John Stevens, a railroad engineer, upgraded the infrastructure and equipment. When Stevens left the canal, a frustrated Theodore Roosevelt put military officers in charge. Lieutenant Colonel George Goethels, an engineer with extensive lock and dam experience, saw the canal through to its completion shortly before World War I.
The final project, America’s “damn big dam”, was build during the Depression. Hoover Dam was huge and constructed under difficult conditions. But construction engineer Frank “Hurry up” Crowe pushed and planned to get it done early and under budget.
Cadbury treats each project separately. However, they are linked by common elements.
Tragedy and setbacks touched each one. Thousands of men, usually poor laborers and sometimes children, were killed or injured to make these huge structures. They were beset by lack of financing, reluctance to try new methods and materials, bankrupt contractors, political opposition, corruption, greed, prejudice, and other human imperfections.
At their best, these engineers and their wonders are linked by the same qualities that appear in the best of engineering today. They had a vision to make people safer, healthier, richer, and freer. They created solutions to immense problems.
Robert Stevenson’s triumph at Bell Rock won the confidence of the Northern Lighthouse Board. It also launched an association between the Stevenson family and Scottish lighthouses that lasted four generations. During their tenures in the office of engineer for the board, Stevenson and his sons dominated the design, construction, and operation of the lights. Bella Bathurst tells their story in The Lighthouse Stevensons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
This book has its own kind of variety: technical, professional, and personal. It covers the construction and technology of several lighthouses, the masterpieces of Robert and his three sons. They not only built towers, but also improved their design and the design of the lamps, reflectors, optics, and mechanical systems that operated in them. One even studied the waves that assaulted their works.
It shows that engineering is more than simply design and construction. The Stevensons were also managers, fundraisers, businessmen, public servants, purchasing agents, manufacturers, contractors, and more. Their work included a broad section of what engineers do.
The book is also a biography of these four men that reveals the dynamics of the family. Robert insisted his sons join the family profession and business. Only one, David, seemed to take to it naturally. Only David’s sons filled the next generation of lighthouse Stevensons. Alan and Tom were more inclined to work in literature and the arts. Alan proved himself to be a capable engineer by building a 138-foot light at Skerryvore that could withstand the elements and exhibit a simple beauty. He became so disabled by disease, Bathurst suggests it was muscular sclerosis, that he gave up his work with the lighthouses. He managed to work irregularly as a writer. His works include and encyclopedia article on lighthouses and a translation of Greek poems. Tom shared Alan’s artistic leaning, but not his intensity and focus. He and David eventually divided the engineering work for the Northern Lights.
Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, of course. As Robert Louis Stevenson said about his internship in the profession, “He is a wise youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two parts of drudgery between four walls and for the sake of one, manfully accept the other.” But some managed to catch what Marion Allen, a laborer on the Hoover Dam, called constructitis. “Sometimes one thinks he is cured,” said Allen, “only to have a relapse when he goes by fresh concrete or catches the smell of fresh sawdust from new lumber. Anyone with this affliction has to start construction of some kind, even of only to dig a hole and fill it up again.”
Order this book here.
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