Battles of a book: The King James Bible's history of dissent and inspiration
A spy named Henry Phillips betrayed one of the greatest of all English writers – the only one, perhaps, whose phrases by the dozen still fill the mouths of many millions of English speakers every day. Charged with heresy and treason, Phillips's victim was picked up in Antwerp and imprisoned outside Brussels. His detention came, a deal between monarchs, as a result of the sort of inter-state solidarity against alleged subversives that now gives us the European Arrest Warrant. After months in his fortress jail, he went on trial and received the inevitable death sentence. He was strangled at the stake with an iron chain. Then his corpse was burnt. According to legend, the translator and reformer William Tyndale ended his life in September 1536 with the words: "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."
Tomorrow begins the 400th anniversary year of the King James Bible of 1611: never strictly an...
Voddie Baucham | 9/4/2014
