Read the full article “In the Galleries: John Speed’s Postdeluvian Genealogy from the First Edition of the King James Bible.”
Antiquarian John Speed created a thirty-six page genealogy that was inserted into the first edition of the King James Bible (1611).
John Speed’s genealogy from the first edition of the King James Bible (1611) portrays the then-popular view that Noah’s sons went on to populate specific regions of the world: Shem to Asia, Japheth to Europe, and Ham to Africa. In the Americas, pro-slavery advocates used the “curse of Ham” to justify the enslavement of Africans and their descendents.
In April, Helen Moore, Fellow and Tutor in English at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, spoke about the history of the King James translation at the Harry Ransom Center. The talk is now online on YouTube.
Moore was lead curator of Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible, an exhibition held at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in 2011. Her illustrated talk addressed the role played by Oxford in the translation of the King James Bible, the methods used by the translators, and some of the items displayed at the Oxford exhibition.
The Ransom Center’s related exhibition The King James Bible: Its History and Influence is on view through July 29.
A production still of Robert De Niro as Max Cady, the bible verse-tattoo sporting convict from Cape Fear.
Bible verse-tattoos sported by Robert De Niro’s chararcter Max Cady in Cape Fear.
A King James Bible carried by Robert De Niro’s character, Max Cady, in the film Cape Fear.
Highlighted passages from the King James Bible Robert De Niro used while preparing for his role as Max Cady in Cape Fear.
Read the full article In the Galleries: Robert De Niro’s King James Version-inspired tattoos in Cape Fear.
The New Testament title page from the first edition of the King James Bible (1611).
In the Galleries: Anatomy of the King James Bible title page
While writing Innocents Abroad, Samuel Clemens (known more familiarly as Mark Twain) carried a Bible during a trip to Constantinople in 1867. The book is now part of the Ransom Center’s collections and can be seen in the exhibition The King James Bible: Its History and Influence, which runs through July 29.
The Bible recently underwent some work in the Ransom Center’s conservation lab. Learn about the steps taken to conserve and house this historical book.
Read the full article “Making It New: The Bible and Modernist Book Arts.”
Eric Gill, Four Gospels (1931).
The Song of Song Which Is Solomon’s (1902).
Arthur Syzk, Haggadah (1939).
Paul Nash, Genesis: Twelve Woodcuts (1924).
Jenson Illuminated Bible (1476).
François-Louis Schmied, La Création (1928).
Dove’s Press Bible (1903).
The original manuscript of Charles M. Sheldon’s In His Steps. Sheldon first delivered the book as a series of sermons in 1896. The work later went on to inspire the “What would Jesus do?” movement in the 1990s.
Charles M. Sheldon’s pen holder. The accompanying envelope explains that Sheldon used this pen holder when writing In His Steps, Robert Hardy, and The Crucifixion of Phillip Strong.
In the Galleries: Learn about the origins of the “What would Jesus do?” movement of the 1990s.
Let My People Go by Marc Chagall, 1966. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP, Paris.
In the Galleries: Marc Chagall’s “Let My People Go”
