Celebrating the Remarkable Achievements of Dr. Jeffrey Alan Miller

You’re Invited to an Evening in the Presence of “Genius” – December 4

 On Wednesday, December 4, join the Montclair State community for “‘By Chance’: Milton, the King James Bible, and Discovery in the Humanities,” a special event celebrating the remarkable achievements of Dr. Jeffrey Alan Miller, Associate Professor of English at Montclair State University.

Earlier this year, Miller was awarded the MacArthur “Genius Grant” for his discovery of the earliest known draft of the King James Bible, yielding new insight into the creative process behind the most widely read work in English literature. Miller came across the manuscript while researching Samuel Ward, a King James translator, in the Sidney Sussex College archives in Cambridge, England.

The implications of Miller’s work have not been lost on the academic community. One New Zealand-based scholar told The New York Times that it was very nearly comparable to unearthing a lost draft by Shakespeare, while other experts characterized the discovery as “perhaps the most significant archival find relating to the King James Bible in decades.”

Now, friends of the University can hear all about Miller’s breakthrough find in person. The event will kick off with a lecture and Q&A, followed by a reception where you can mingle with Miller. Don’t miss this opportunity – save your spot today.

About Dr. Jeffrey Alan Miller

A Rhodes Scholar, Miller achieved international recognition in 2015 when he announced his discovery of the King James Bible’s earliest known draft, which he identified while doing research in the archives of Cambridge University’s Sidney Sussex College. Published in 1611, the King James Bible is the most widely read work of English literature of all time and, it follows, one of the most influential.

The MacArthur grant is the latest development in what has been an eventful past year for Miller. Recently, Miller was awarded two prestigious fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): an NEH Fellowship and a fellowship through the NEH Awards for Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions program. Each fellowship (he was required to choose one) was to support a full year of dedicated work to complete a book-length critical edition and study on the discovered draft of the King James Bible.

In addition to his work on the King James Bible, Miller is also nearly finished with a book on John Milton, the 17th-century writer and author, most notably, of Paradise Lost. It was actually Miller’s research on Milton that first paved the way to what would become his world-famous discovery of the King James Bible draft, as it was while researching an essay in graduate school on Milton that Miller first began exploring the archive of papers in Cambridge formerly belonging to the King James translator, Samuel Ward, whose early draft of part of the translation Miller would later come to identify.

For more on Jeffrey Alan Miller, visit the MacArthur Foundation website at http://www.macfound.org/fellows.