From The Washington Times-
In his new book, “The Shadow of a Great Rock,” the eminent literary critic Harold Bloom laments that few people today read and fully appreciate the King James Bible of 1611. But Mr. Bloom is talking about the beauty of the language and the majesty of the
most sonorous passages in the seminal 17th-century translation rather than its appeal as a source of religious devotion or comfort.
As it marks its 400th anniversary this year, the King James Bible is suddenly a trending topic, the focus of a surge of scholarly, curatorial and public interest - not to mention ecclesiastical anxiety - that includes a spate of books and essays as well as “Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible,” a fascinating new exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The King James Bible, or KJB, has from the beginning led a double life. It is the sacred Scripture of the Protestant communion, particularly of Episcopalians and Anglicans, but it also is a literary masterpiece - “the sublime summit of literature in English,” which it shares only with Shakespeare, and “a basic source of American literature,” Mr. Bloom declares.
“Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickenson, are its children, and so are William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy,” he writes.
More here-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/29/the-king-james-bible-folger-exhibit-looks-at-endur/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS
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