Jeffrey A. Miller, assistant professor of English at Montclair (N.J.) State University, found more than he bargained for while visiting a rare books library at Cambridge (England) University. Miller acquainted himself with pages of a notebook that had belonged to Samuel Ward, a 17th-century biblical scholar. When he returned home, he discovered the notebook held draft portions of the most enduring English translation of the Bible: the King James Version, which was published in 1611 and named for the newly ascended monarch. The draft is the first of the KJV that can be attributed to a particular translator.
Flexible and grounded
If you happen to walk through the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) campus on a Tuesday evening, you might see a long line of students snaking around the…