The King James Bible, widely known by the nickname King James Version (KJV) and the Authorized Version, is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England and Church of Scotland, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I. The 80 books of the KJV include 39 books of the Old Testament, 14 books of Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.
The KJV does not include a commentary on the text as the King believed that might contain anti-monarchist sentiment as had its predecessor the Geneva Bible.
Noted for its "majesty of style," the KJV has remained in continuous use for over four centuries, exerting more influence on English literature and Christian thought than any other English Bible translation. Its phrasing has been credited with shaping not only hymnody and liturgy, but also the idioms of everyday speech used in the English-speaking world. It is considered one of the important literary accomplishments of early modern England. The original KJV is a 17th-century translation and thus contains a large number of archaisms and false friends - words that contemporary readers may think they understand but that actually carry obsolete or unfamiliar meanings - making understanding the text difficult for modern readers, even pastors and preachers trained in formal theological institutes. While the 1611 text reflects Early Modern English usage, subsequent standardisations—most notably the 1769 Oxford edition and the more recent 1900 Pure Cambridge Edition—have made the KJV considerably more accessible to later generations. Many scholars note that its sentence structure is often clearer and more direct than some modern versions, despite occasional obsolete vocabulary.
The King James Version was the third translation into English approved by the Church of England. The first had been the Great Bible in 1535, and the second had been the Bishops' Bible in 1568. Meanwhile in Switzerland, the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible in 1560, which proved more popular among the laity. However, the footnotes represented a Calvinistic Puritanism.
King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, responding to Puritan grievances outlined in the Millenary Petition. At this conference, a proposal for a new English translation of the Bible was presented, aiming to address perceived issues in existing versions. King James issued directives to ensure the translation adhered to the ecclesiology of the Church of England, reflecting its episcopal structure and doctrines, including the belief in an ordained clergy. Notably, translators were instructed to avoid marginal notes whenever possible, a feature in the Geneva Bible that had been criticised for promoting Puritanical and anti-monarchical sentiments. For the New Testament, the Textus Receptus was utilized; the Old Testament was revised from the Bishop's Bible with reference to the Masoretic Text; and the Apocrypha was rendered from the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate.
By the first half of the 18th century, the King James Version had become effectively unchallenged as the only English translation used in Anglican and other English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the 18th century, the KJV supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible had become the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769, and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text.
In surveys of English-speaking Christians, the KJV frequently ranks among the most read and memorised translations, with one publisher citing its linguistic beauty and imagery as reasons for its continued preference.
The title of the first edition of the translation, in Early Modern English, was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Majesties ſpeciall Comandement." Underneath the title, it is written that the Bible is "[a]ppointed to be read in Churches." Biblical scholar F. F. Bruce suggests it was "probably authorised by order in council," but no record of the authorization survives "because the Privy Council registers from 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19."
For many years it was common not to give the translation any specific name. In his Leviathan of 1651, Thomas Hobbes referred to it as "the English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James." A 1761 "Brief Account of the various Translations of the Bible into English" refers to the 1611 version merely as "a new, compleat, and more accurate Translation," despite referring to the Great Bible by its name, and despite using the name "Rhemish Testament" for the Douay–Rheims Bible version. Similarly, a "History of England," whose fifth edition was published in 1775, writes merely that "[a] new translation of the Bible, viz., that now in Use, was begun in 1607, and published in 1611."
King James's Bible is used as the name for the 1611 translation (on a par with the Genevan Bible or the Rhemish Testament) in Charles Butler's Horae Biblicae (first published 1797). Other works from the early 19th century confirm the widespread use of this name on both sides of the Atlantic: it is found both in a "historical sketch of the English translations of the Bible" published in Massachusetts in 1815 and in an English publication from 1818, which explicitly states that the 1611 version is "generally known by the name of King James's Bible". This name was also found as King James' Bible (without the final "s"): for example in a book review from 1811. The phrase "King James's Bible" is used as far back as 1715, although in this case it is not clear whether this is a name or merely a description.
The use of Authorized Version, capitalized and used as a name, is found as early as 1814. For some time before this, descriptive phrases such as "our present, and only publicly authorised version" (1783), "our Authorized version" (1731, 1792) and "the authorized version" (1801, uncapitalized) are found. A more common appellation in the 17th and 18th centuries was "our English translation" or "our English version", as can be seen by searching one or other of the major online archives of printed books. In Britain, the 1611 translation is generally known as the "Authorised Version" today.
King James' Version, evidently a descriptive phrase, is found being used as early as 1814. "The King James Version" is found, unequivocally used as a name, in a letter from 1855. The next year, the King James Bible, with no possessive, appears as a name in a Scottish source. In the United States, the "1611 translation" (actually editions following the standard text of 1769, see below) is generally known as the King James Version today.
There were several translations into Middle English of large portions of Scriptures in the 14th Century, with the first English complete bibles probably being made by the followers of John Wycliffe. These translations were effectively but not formally banned in 1409 due to their association with the Lollards. The Wycliffite Bibles pre-dated the printing press but were circulated very widely in manuscript form.
In 1525, William Tyndale, an English contemporary of Martin Luther, undertook a translation of the New Testament into Early Modern English. Tyndale's translation was the first printed Bible in English. Over the next ten years, Tyndale revised his New Testament in the light of rapidly advancing biblical scholarship, and embarked on a translation of the Old Testament. Despite some controversial translation choices, and in spite of Tyndale's execution on charges of heresy for being a Lutheran, the merits of Tyndale's work and prose style made his translation the ultimate basis for all subsequent renditions into Early Modern English.