Rating: 
Summary: Great history. Buy it. Read it.
Review: This is a great history of the King James Bible. If you have even a passing interest in the KJV, you must buy and read it.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a serious and significant book
Review: This is a serious and significant book on the making of the King James Bible. The best parts of the book are when Nicolson takes passages from the KJV and commentates on them, such as his stirring section on the opening lines of the Book of Genesis and the account of the woman who breaks the alabaster jar of ointment in Mark 14 (192-197). It is in these parts of the book that one forgets one is reading, and is taken up into the beauty and grandeur of the subject in question. Especially helpful are the social and cultural context of the KJV, as well as the comparison of the KJV to Hatfield house. Also, the book gets better and better as one moves to the final chapter. The closing pages are beautifully written and moving. Nicolson's strength is when he gives his own opinions. At times the prose is brilliant. One such example can be found on page 234 where the author, criticizing the translation of the New English Bible (NEB) which sought to translate the Bible into ordinary language, says: "They had forgotten that ordinariness is not the Bible's subject." Those who love and read the KJV cannot ignore this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Useful But Not Too Much
Review: This is for anyone familiar with the England of James I and his immediate predecessors a disappointment. But perhaps I should have paid attention to the title, God's Secretaries. The Book is about this strange group of men who retranslated the Tyndale
Bible but actually made only small changes. It does not deal with a much more important issue, exactly how decisions on translation were made, but the source material is lacking here.The chief attraction then and now of this particular Bible translation is that it is understandable enough for those wanting the meaning of the Scriptures but archaic enough for aesthetic needs and inspiration.
Rating:
Summary: A gorgeously written book
Review: This is history written with flair, clarity, and intellectual pizzazz -- a model book. Turn to any page and Nicolson's talent shines forth. To choose an example almost at random, here he is on England under King James: "Submissiveness and obsequiousness were signals of the social order at work. Social differences between men were not an unfortunate result of economics or power politics, nor a distortion of how things ought to be but a sign that society was well ordered. Life, happily, was arranged on a slope as steeply pitched as a church spire." A description of the plague: "People felt they understood the plague. It was a moral affliction which attacked cities because cities were wicked and disgusting. London was a sucking sink of iniquity, with something murderous and dissolving at its core." The book is a feast.
Rating: 
Summary: God's Secretaries
Review: This very interesting topic is spoiled by the pedantic approach of the author. This is true of the lack of creativity in writing and in the vocabulary, which will send even well-educated readers scrambling for a dictionary. I plodded through to the end because the facts were interesting, but it was very tough going. All that research deserved better handling.
Rating:
Summary: A superb and enlightening read
Review: Though doubtless attributable in no small part to having been immersed in the King James Bible during childhood, and the fact that I already knew something about the period of British history in question, I can say without hesitation that God's Secretries was one of the best reads I've had. The author gives us a fascinating portrayal of the historical context and the often extraordinary characters involved in James's great project. His insights into what went into making the KJV what it is at times hint at the awesome. The clarity of the writing is exemplary. Exquisite turns of phrase bestrew almost every page. The humour, often in the form of direct quotes from the period, is delicious. The pace exactly right. To anyone who genuinely desires to better understand why the KJV has been considered the greatest prose work in the English language, I unreservedly commend Nicolson's book. As an added note, the one little bone I have to pick with Nicolson's book is that the Appendices do not include the original Preface. Nicolson whets the appetite with extolling words about Miles Smith's creation, in one case reproducing a short extract, and it would have been nice to have had the Preface at hand. Neither of my KJVs, both over fifty years old, contain it (in contrast to the obsequious Epistle Dedicatory to James)
Rating:
Summary: A Riveting Read
Review: Welcome to the astonishing world of Jacobean England...the time of Shakespeare, the time of wild religious division between the Calvinists and the Church of England. Learn just why our Pilgrim Fathers split for the New World...and learn how an amazing group of devoted scholars and frisky bishops put together the extraordinarily beautiful text of the King James Bible. No subsequent version, deemed by many of us to be 'bible lite', can approach the majesty of this work of love & learning from the 1600's. "God's Secretaries" works beautifully for anyone who ever wondered just where did we ever get the bible anyway?
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Summary: Sad King James Elitism
Review: When I bought this book I expected to love it. When I was done reading it -- I didn't. A beautiful Bible is one thing; but an understandable one is much more important. The Bible's original Greek and Hebrew texts were written in common everyday style. Just because King James wanted his version all dressed up in literary elegance didn't make his translation better -- it maked it less accurate. Elitist have always loved their Bible translations lofty and elegant, because they thought it made the Scriptures seem somehow more noble and holy. Nicholson falls into this same trap. What begins as a fascinating account of the history of Christianity in Jacobean England, sadly turns into some bad theology that elevates style over substance.
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