1611-2011: The 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible by Bonnie Buckingham

In the Parent’s Reviews, Charlotte Mason had articles on book recommendations for teachers and  students.  She gave lists of books.  Books to be read.  The King James Bible is having an extraordinary anniversary this year:  400 years  old! We need to read it plus tell others about it.

King James VI of Scotland, who is also King James I of England, ordered the translation of Scriptures. It is still the most beautiful  version  in the English Language. It was translated in the lifetime of Shakespeare and John Donne. Perhaps you memorized Psalm 23 with “ my cup runneth over.”  The  team of scholars, 48 of them, produced a work that changed the way we speak.   Where does one begin this Anniversary year of study?

 

1.READ the King James Version out loud.  Memorize from this version in celebration.

“It is a mistake to use paraphrases of the text; the fine roll of Bible English appeals to children with a compelling music, and they will probably retain through life their first conception of Bible scenes, and, also, the very words in which these scenes are portrayed.” (Mason, Home Education, p. 249.)

“The habit of hearing, and later, of reading the Bible, is one to establish at an early age.”  (Mason, School Education, p. 142)

“We do not, even for tiny children, advocate “Bible stories,” but actual passages from the sacred text, for the wonderful grand old English in which it is written has been more than one great writer’s school of language, and will, with necessary explanations, be far more impressive and likely to carry the contained idea, than the paraphrase of some well-meaning but common-place teacher.” (Miss R.A. Pennethorn, Parent’s Review, vol. 10, 1899, p. 590

 

Oxford University Press : King James Bible: 400th Anniversary Edition (Bible KJV) This is the most authorative edition published this year: 1611  text.

2. LOOK at the art in illuminated Bibles.

American Japanese artist Makoto Fujimura has  illuminated The Four Gospels with his contemporary abstract paintings. It is the size of a coffee table book and is stunning. He envisions it for family reading.This version is in the English Standard  although the book itself is a work of art.

Tears of Christ

3. FIND  the influences in language. New words and idioms were invented.

Lynne Bruce has a wonderful article on Ambleside Online: “Why KJV?”

http://www.amblesideonline.org/WhyKJV.shtml

Examples of new language :“Turned the world upside down” and  “feet of clay”

4. Read about KING JAMES

God used this man, not an excellent one,  to further His kingdom , even to send forth the Pilgrims to America. (1620)

RECOMMENDED BOOKS:   Check  your local library

* Donald Brake: Visual History of the King James Bible. Good for younger and older  students.

*Gordon Campbell  ( leading scholar on John Milton), Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011.

*David Crystal ‘s Begat: The Kings James Bible and the English Language writes  a fun book of the idioms and how they are found in modern culture.

*Robert Alter ( Hebrew Scholar) , Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible. Alter shows how the KJV has informed  American prose from Melville to Marilynne Robinson. He argues the aesthetic  influence  writers.

* David Norton, The King James Bible : A Short History from Tyndale to Today. Lots of praise for this book.

* A biography: Majestie: The King Behind the King James Bible by David Teems

 

If you are in England , check the King James Bible Trust for the calendar of events this year. Here  in the States, what are you doing?

The Good Book Shop in  Belfast, Northern Ireland is reading  through the KJV every afternoon at 4:00. You can sign up to be a reader! At home, in school, or in church  you can  do something similar.

How are you celebrating this 400^th Year Anniversary ?  Watch for the King James Anniversary stories!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Citizen Scientists in Cincinnati by Lisa Cadora

Have you heard of Cincinnatus, the original citizen soldier of Rome? Lucius Quinctius, former consul of Rome, is said to have been in his retirement farming his land one day when officials approached him to accept a six-month dictatorship in order to lead the Roman army in battle against the neighboring Aequi.  He led the troops to victory in a mere fifteen days, after which he immediately returned to his plow, declining what could have been another five months of dictatorship that was due him. Somewhere along the line, he acquired the name “Cincinnatus” because of his curly hair!

I first heard the term “citizen scientist” on Ira Flatow’s “Science Friday”, broadcast on my Cincinnati National Public Radio station. A citizen scientist, according to Wikipedia refers to “projects or ongoing programs of scientific work in which individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation.”  The idea is that scientific research, based largely on the gathering and analysis of empirical data, can be greatly helped along if scientists don’t have to rely only on their own five senses’ perceptions of what is immediately accessible to them.  Rather such research can marshal the eyes and ears (primarily) of regular every-day people situated in myriad parts of the world to increase the number of observations and enlarge the scope of their territory.

When I received the alert from a fellow Charlotte Mason educator that the Great Backyard Bird Count was coming up Feb 18-21, I recognized it as an opportunity for the girls and me to take our hands off our pencils, take up our citizen scientist battle gear (binoculars, sketch books, field guides) and ready ourselves to do our duty.

Here’s how it works. Each citizen scientist creates a list of birds he or she sees in at least fifteen minutes’ time on at least one day Friday-Monday of the Presidents’ Day weekend. You may participate all four days, for more than fifteen minutes a day, or at multiple times a day for at least 15 minutes each. You may participate in more than one location. You should create a new list for each location, and be sure to note the greatest number of a single species you see together at one time. Go to your local library for a field guide of birds in your area, or go to www.gbbc.birdsource.org to download a regional bird checklist.  You may submit your bird lists to that same site.

Once the data is collected, scientists are able to “detect changes in birds’ numbers and locations from year to year,” explains Janis Dickinson, director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While some marked shifts in bird populations are normal, others can corroborate danger in the proverbial coal mine, such as the steady decline of American Crow sightings since 2003 when the first outbreaks of the West Nile virus were discovered in the United States.

If you are reading this post after February 21, 2011, no need to despair. Now you know of this project and can participate in the Christmas Bird Count, or in next year’s GBBC. Take heart! There are MANY citizen scientists projects out there inviting your participation:

www.thewildlab.org — track bird and marine life

www.audubon.org — participate as a budding naturalist nature research

www.galaxyzoo.org — classify galaxies according to their shapes

www.greatsunflower.org — track pollinators by planting sunflowers and doing regular counts of your bee populations

www.planethunters.org — track changes in light curves of stars to detect the presence of previously unidentified planets.

www.einstein.phys.uwm.edu –lend your computer power to the search for gravitational waves from pulsars

www.folding.stanford.edu — participate in finding out how proteins fold in order to do the work of biology, and how they mis-fold and cause diseases

I love the idea of leaving my everyday, sometimes-mundane-but-certainly-necessary tasks to do my duty for my country and returning, after the exhilaration of battle and “victory” of amassing data, to take up the plow, er, pencil once again. The girls and I may not become official or professional scientists in this lifetime, but we can give our attention upon occasion in order to aid those who have committed to live with their eyes and ears to the ground for the sake of science. In doing so, we are sure to be blessed by an increased awareness of the abundant riches of this material world until, like Cincinnatus, our hair curls.

© 2011 Lisa Cadora

 

 

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