In The Beginning & The Keys of Egypt

honestpuck writes "Linguistics has long been an interest of mine, and one of my fields of study, and I've recently read two good books that combine linguistics with other topics. The Keys of Egypt is the tale of history's most famous decoding task, the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics and In The Beginning is the story of the King James Bible, the history, theology, politics, linguistics and technology that surrounded Bible translation and printing in Renaissance Europe and England." Read on for his combination review of two books that might inspire your curiosity, no matter how far from the usual Slashdot fare.

In The Beginning & The Keys of Egypt
author	Alister E. McGrath & Lesley Adkins & Roy Adkins
pages	352 & 368
publisher	Anchor & Perennial
rating	7
reviewer	Tony Williams
ISBN	0385722168, 0060953497
summary	A good book on the history of the King James Bible & A decent read on the translation of hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphs

The Keys Of Egypt was written by husband-and-wife archaeological team Lesley and Roy Adkins. It is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code," and starts with a short chapter that introduces the eventual winner of that race, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and mentions his most serious rival, the Englishman Thomas Young.

The book goes on to examine Napoleon's expedition to Egypt which both brought the Rosetta Stone to light and started a period of French and European fascination with ancient Egypt. These were the two catalysts for the riddle's eventual solution.

This is a well-written book that looks at the struggle and race for translation and the political and academic machinations (often both combined) that surrounded Champollion. It is essentially a biography of Champollion, who grew up and worked amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic era. The story is a compelling one and the authors have done well to make it at times fascinating.

As a genre I find that 'scientific biographies' tend to be a little overblown and flowery, the writing not quite precise -- and Keys suffers from these shortcomings. I also felt that while the book is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code" it really only focuses on Champollion, while he is the eventual winner a little more effort in examining the others involved in the effort would have improved the book.

The Bible

It can be argued that the King James Bible has had as large an effect on our language today as the work of Shakespeare. 'In The Beginning' has at its core the story of biblical translation, a topic you may think anything but fascinating. McGrath has done a good job in making this a compelling book.

He starts, as one may expect, with the story of Gutenberg and his first printed bibles. Before arriving at the King James he covers Martin Luther, the rise of Protestantism in Europe, Henry the Eighth, more than one hanging, and several other bible translations and translators. Along the way he manages to dispel a few myths I had held about biblical translation and the King James in particular. I always thought that it was the King James version that introduced the idea of the main body in roman type and words inserted to clarify meaning in italics, but it was actually an earlier English translation known as the Geneva Bible that first implemented this idea. After explaining the technology, theology, politics and linguistics nuances that led King James to permit (but not fund) a new translation, McGrath tells us how the translation was accomplished organizationally before examining some of the nuances of the translation itself. Some of the language in the King James was archaic even when it was published; translators had been instructed to lift from previous translations all the way back to the partial translation of William Tynsdale published 90 years earlier, and this at a time when the English language was going through the huge changes of the Elizabethan era. McGrath examines this aspect, pointing out such things as changes in verb endings and personal pronouns.

I found the book patchy. McGrath does a much better job covering the story up until the translation. It is harder to get a feel for how the translation was accomplished and how the various teams worked, and when he comes to examine some of the nuances of the translation, the text makes much harder going. If this had not been a part of the topic that interested me a great deal, I may have lost interest.

Conclusion

Both books may have their flaws but both are well worth the read. It is important to realise the history of science and language that have brought us to our current place and both these volumes do a good job of illuminating the past efforts of men who worked under entirely different pressures than we find today.

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You can purchase both In The Beginning and The Keys of Egypt from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Jerry Falwell sentences Timothy to Fatwah

[Adam Rightmann]

for posting "The Bible... has its flaws".

It's okay Timothy, the True Church [vatican.va] understands the Bible can not be interpreted directly as the immutable Word of God, so if the heretical snake handlers come after you, you can seek refuge in Rome.

Wow! You are the one. Now, just sue Neitsche,

[typical geek]

Keirkegaard, Satre and Camus for IP infringement, at least for a start.

Should have used PGPP on the cartouches

[Anonymous Coward]

I told pharaoh to use Pretty Good Pharaoh Privacy on those damn cartouches. France was just a mote in Isis's eye at the time, but even then I knew they would turn out to be nothing but troublemakers.

Re:Interesting topics, horrible review

[JessLeah]

You obviously went to a better fifth grade class than I did. I was virtually the only one in my fifth grade class who could put together a coherent sentence.

Re:Just a question about translations...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my Jews for Jesus acquaintance, it does not matter. All bible translation occurs under the influence of God and is immune from question.

Yeah, that's what I thought when I heard it too...

Re:King James Bible vs. Shakespeare

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the bible once, it was ok. I like Tom Clancy better though.

Bible was translated??? Damnable LIES

[Mr.Sharpy]

Pfft...everybody knows the bible came down from heaven in Renaissance era English way back in the day. Imagine the trouble Moses had trying to explain the Ten Commandments without knowing what language they were in! Fortunately, God guided our language in such a way that we are today able to read it.

The idea that the words of the bible changed to English from some heathen language is an evil LIE and work of the Devil! Everybody knows that Jesus was and his disciples were English speaking white men! Haven't you seen the movie! and TBN! They couldn't possibly be wrong!

Re:Languages

[sanchny]

In university, I was an Enlgish major with a habit of studying other languages - specifically, French, Russian and Old Icelandic. Studying human languages, you quickly realize that there are many ways to express the same abstractions

But how do you express irony in other languages?

For fun

[conan_albrecht]

A man comes up on a priest banging his head against the wall -- clearly frustrated. The man asks him, "what's wrong?"

The man, who has been celibate all his life, replies, "We just retranslated the oldest manuscript available. The word is 'celebrate'!"

Obligatory HHGttG Quote:

[PhxBlue]

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing."