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Brush Up Your Bible ReviewThe Bible is one of the most influential books in the world, in more ways than one might think at first glance. The Bible, and in particular the King James Version, has had a profound impact on the English language, especially in word and turn-of-phrase choice. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the King James Version of the Bible was produced during the flowering of the English language, historically speaking about the same time as Shakespeare, and when English was beginning to be carried across the seas in commerce and colonisation.
Many of the phrases we take for granted today are of Biblical origin. Phrases such as 'salt of the earth', 'labor of love', 'fight the good fight', and 'to cast the first stone' come from the Bible. However, other 'biblical' statements and phrases, such as 'original sin', actually do not exist in the biblical text. Many things are attributed to the Bible, but are not in fact there.
'Brush Up Your Bible' is a fun little book designed to highlight the parts of the Bible that have made it into common speech, the stories, legends, and linguistic elements. It also highlights the common mistakes made in assessing these stories. For instance, how many animals of each sort did Noah take into the ark? Think it was two of each kind? Guess again.
Interspersed with the stories are historical notes--an essay entitled 'Why four gospels?' for instance, discusses the development the gospels as texts:
'It is now clear that the four canonical Gospels were not the only four to be written, and that others--now lost or excluded from the Bible--circulated among the Christian communities of the Roman world. But by the early second century, church leaders had begun to regard Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the best and most authoritative records of Jesus' works and teaching. The New Testament canon as we know it took shape as a whole in the fourth century.'
The section on non-biblical (but seemingly biblical) phrases includes an historical record of where these phrases actually originate. The phrase, 'don't know him from Adam' actually originates from the serial 'London Sessions' in 1784; 'raising Cain' might have been done, but was not referenced in the Bible; 'God forbid!' never occurs in the Bible, but rather in the thirteenth century poem 'Cursor Mundi'. The 'Golden Rule' is never actually called the Golden Rule, but is referred to as the 'Golden Law' by Robert Godfrey in 1674. And, while there are many Jehoshaphats in the Hebrew Bible, none of them was specifically known to be a jumper. These and other fascinating facts show the breadth of the influence of the Bible, as well as the breadth of Macrone's work in drawing it all together.
Macrone has a neat little section on famous 'typos' in Bibles of the past, and recounts such examples as the 'Ears to Ear Bible', which misprinted the famous line 'who hath ears to hear, let him hear' as 'who hath ears to ear, let him hear'. There was a 'Wicked Bible', printed in 1631, which misprinted the seventh commandment to read 'Thou shalt commit adultery'. There is the 'Placemaker's Bible' from 1562 in which Jesus in the beatitudes proclaims, 'Blessed are the placemakers'. Perhaps one printer, fearing persecution, was responsible for the 'Printer's Bible' in 1702, whose psalmist decries the 'printers' (rather than 'princes') who have 'persecuted me without a cause'.
Explore the Bible in a new way. If you are interested in the spiritual message, this will be a welcome side treat. If you don't care for the Bible much, this book will show you just how much of a debt of language and literature is owed to it nonetheless. In any case, this is an excellent book to learn fascinating facts often overlooked both by scholarly and inspirational studies.
The author, Michael Macrone, also produced a volume entitled 'Brush Up Your Shakespeare', whose language is contemporary with the King James Version of the Bible. This makes a good gift, a good refresher, and a good book for discover of a common but no longer commonly known subject, approached from a gentle, humourous, non-dogmatic way.
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