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THE KING JAMES (AUTHORIZED VERSION) BIBLE FOR THE MODERN READER

The King James Version (or Authorized Version) of the Bible was the culmination of 7 years of work (1604-1611) by about 50 English scholars and around 20 Bishops, authorized by King James I of England. The result was a poetic masterpiece that has profoundly influenced the English-speaking world ever since. It was not the first English translation (William Tyndale had previously translated the Bible into English, and much of the Authorized Version was taken from Tyndale's version) or the most accurate (modern translations benefit from better sources). Some mistakes in the translation of the King James Bible exist in very important passages. But the King James Version of the Bible was the most majestic and it has inspired English literature from Herman Melville to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For example, many cite Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech without acknowledging its source in the translation of Isaiah 40:4:

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

The King James translators described it as "Newly Translated out of the Original tongues." The King James Version of the Old Testament was based on the Hebrew Masoretic text, codified in the Middle Ages. The New Testament was primarily based on Greek texts predating the Latin Vulgate. The translators explicitly acknowledged making use of previous English translations, however, and the Catholic Encyclopedia describes it as being essentially the Bishops' Bible, corrected by comparison with the Hebrew and Greek texts. F. H. A. Scrivener, however, notes many passages which correspond to the Latin Vulgate rather than the Greek. The King James Version is freely and fully available for searching online.

A recent attempt to "update" the King James Version was the New King James Version, which most notably modernized pronouns such as "thou" and verb forms such as "art".

Some Christians believe that the original 1611 Authorized Version of the King James Bible is the only acceptable English translation of the Bible. This is referred to by some Christians, especially those who do not hold to this viewpoint, as the "KJV-only movement". On the other side of the debate, many Christians avoid the King James Bible because of its archaic language, advances in scholarship's understanding of ancient languages, and discovery of (arguably ) more reliable manuscripts. Note that the King James Bible uses British spellings like "favour" rather than "favor" (Acts 2:47).

The King James Version uses "king" and "kingdom" hundreds of times in translating the New Testament, even though there were no real kings at the time of Christ or now. But the King James Version was commission by King James during a period of the powerful English monarchy, and King James promoted the divine right of ...