A history of the English bible as literature, David Norton, Cambridge, 524 pages Contents List of plates page ix Preface xi List of abbreviations xii Creators of English The challenge to the translators Literal translation: Rolle’s Psalter and the Wyclif Bible William Tyndale John Cheke and the inkhorn Myles Coverdale From the Great Bible to the Rheims-Douai Bible: arguments about language Official Bibles Opposing camps Does the verbal form matter? The King James Bible The excluded scholar: Hugh Broughton Rules to meet the challenge The preface Bois’s notes Conclusion Epilogue: Broughton’s last word Literary implications of Bible presentation Presentations of the text, – John Locke’s criticism of the presentation of the text The struggle for acceptance The defeat of the Geneva Bible v The failure of revision Quoting the good book The literary reception The Psalter in verse and poetry ‘Fidelity rather than poetry’ ‘A great prejudice to the new’ An aside: verse epitomes of the Bible Ideas of biblical poetry The Sidney Psalms George Wither and the Psalter ‘The eloquentest books in the world’ The eloquent Bible Divine inspiration John Donne Conquering the classics Conflict over the Bible as a model for style The Bible ‘disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled’ Wit, atheism and the sad case of Thomas Aikenhead Writers and the Bible : Milton and Bunyan ‘The best materials in the world for poesy’ John Milton John Bunyan The early eighteenth century and the King James Bible ‘All the disadvantages of an old prose translation’ John Husbands Anthony Blackwall ‘A kind of standard for language to the common people’ Mid-century Robert Lowth’s De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Uncouth, harsh and obsolete The critical rise of the King James Bible The influence of popular feeling Lowth and the English Bible Myths arise George Campbell and the KJB as a literary example The KJB in literary discussions of the Bible vi Contents Revision or ‘superstitious veneration’ Rancorous reason and brouhaha Writers and the Bible : the Romantics The faker and the madman William Blake and ‘the poetic genius’ William Wordsworth and the possibility of a new literary sense of the Bible Samuel Taylor Coleridge and ‘the living educts of the imagination’ Percy Bysshe Shelley and ‘Scripture as a composition’ An infidel and the Bible: Lord Byron A Bible for the romantic reader Charlotte Brontë and the influence of the KJB Literary discussion to mid-Victorian times The pious chorus An inspired translation The KJB as a literary influence Parallelism revisited George Gilfillan and ‘the lesson of infinite beauty’ The Revised Version Rules for the revision The preface to the New Testament Evidence from the New Testament revisers An English account of changes in the New Testament The New Testament revisers at work The reception of the New Testament The preface to the Old Testament An American account of changes in the Old Testament Notes from the first revision of Genesis Conclusion An aside: dialect versions ‘The Bible as literature’ The Bible ‘as a classic’: Le Roy Halsey The American Constitution and school Bible reading Matthew Arnold Richard Moulton and literary morphology Anthologists Presenting the text as literature Contents vii The later reputation of the King James Bible Testimonies from writers Fundamentalists and the God-given translation Modern AVolatry The Shakespearean touch Dissenting voices The Hebrew inheritance and the virtues of literalism The New English Bible Aims Reception A princely epilogue Bibliography General Index Biblical Index