AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION

The 'Authorized King James Version' is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and first published in 1611. The New Testament was translated from the ''Textus Receptus'' (Received Text) edition of the Greek texts, so called because most extant texts of the time were in agreement with it. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha was translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX).
The 1611 Bible is known as the ''King James Version'' in the United States. In the United Kingdom, it is commonly known as the ''Authorized Version''. Neither name is superior. King James did not literally translate the Bible but it was his authorization that was legally necessary for the Church of England to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in England. King James and the Bishop of London wrote the brief that guided the translation, such as prohibiting the marginal notes found in the Geneva Bible and ensuring the position of the Church of England was recognised on various points. While the new Bible did replace the Bishops' Bible in the Church of England, there is no extant documentation to suggest that it was ever formally 'authorized'. However, from 1662, the Epistle and Gospel texts in the Book of Common Prayer were taken from this Bible; and as such were 'authorized' by Act of Parliament.
The ''Authorized King James Version'' had a profound effect on English literature. Herman Melville and William Wordsworth were deeply influenced by it.

Background

Protestantism had the idea that the Bible was the sole source of doctrine (see ''sola scriptura'') and as such should be translated into the local vernacular. The act of Bible translation into any vernacular was a political as well as a religious statement, and remained so whether the Bible translation was a private endeavour, or sponsored by a monarch and his government, though at the particular place in question secularism was not the norm. Translating the Bible into vernacular meant defending the idea that everyone should have direct access to the word of God, and not depend on the church's authority for interpretation.
The English translations begun by John Wycliffe in the 14th century was a precursor of the Protestant Reformation in England and Scotland. Wycliffe himself probably did not translate the entire Bible, but copies of a complete translation ascribed to him were circulating in manuscript by the early 15th century. William Tyndale, a contemporary of Luther worked on an English translation in 1524 (Luther's complete German translation had been published in 1522).
Hence, by the time the Authorized Version was published in 1611, there was already a tradition going back almost two hundred years of Bible translation into English. Many of the vernacular translations of the time were said to be filled with "heretical" translations and notes and were thus banned by the Church. The English translation of the Bible authorized by the Roman Catholic Church was the contemporary Douay-Rheims version which was a strict translation of the Latin Vulgate.
The Authorized Version represents a revision of Tyndale's translation. When his New Testament appeared in 1525, as far as denominational labels had any meaning in this early phase of the Reformation, Tyndale was a Lutheran, in other words, a supporter of Luther's movement to reform the whole Christian community.
Tyndale's translation was deliberately provocative in a number of ways; he rendered Greek ''presbuteros[1]'', traditionally translated as "priest", as "elder" — a literal translation that slighted the connection between the Catholic clergy and the former biblical texts; in a similar fashion he translated ''ekklesia[2]'', traditionally "church", as "congregation"; these renditions were at the basis of a notorious controversy between Tyndale and Sir Thomas More, who took the establishment's side. In the preface, the translators of the King James note: ''“we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put WASHING for BAPTISM, and CONGREGATION instead of CHURCH:”.''
Despite these controversial renderings, the merits of Tyndale's work and prose style made his translation the basis for most of the subsequent renditions into Early Modern English, although Tyndale's own life ended with being strangled and having his body burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic authorities for his alleged heresy. With these controversial translations lightly edited, Tyndale's New Testament and his incomplete work on the Old Testament (see Matthew's Bible) became the in 1539, the basis for the Great Bible, the first "authorized version" issued by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII; and whose text was to provide the Prayer Book Epistle and Gospel readings up to 1662.
When Mary I took the throne, she sought to re-establish Roman Catholicism as the Established Church. Some English Protestant leaders, fleeing the "fires of Smithfield" instituted by Queen Mary in co-operation with Roman Catholic policy, established an English-speaking Protestant colony at Geneva. With the help of Theodore Beza, successor to John Calvin as leader of the Reformed church there, they created the Geneva Bible. This translation, which first appeared in 1560, was a revision of Tyndale's and the Great Bible, which was furnished copiously with Protestant annotations and references. Many of these marginal notes were to be substantially expanded and revised towards more explicitly anti-papal exegisis in subsequent editions. The 1599 edition in particular controversially incorporated Franciscus Junius's notations and commentary on the Book of Revelation in English translation; whose bulk greatly exceeded
that of the scriptural text.
By the time Elizabeth I took the throne, the flaws of the Great Bible were apparent. In 1568 the established church responded with the Bishops' Bible, but their version failed to displace the Geneva version as the most popular English version.

The Project

In May 1601, King James I of England attended the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at St. Columba's Church in Burntisland, Fife, and proposals were put forward for a new translation of the Bible into English. Two years later, he acceded to the throne of England as King James I of England. (He is therefore sometimes known as "James the Sixth and First".)
The Authorized Version was first conceived at the Hampton Court Conference, which the new king convened in January 1604, in response to the problems posed by Puritans in the Millenary Petition. According to an eyewitness account, Dr John Rainolds "moved his majesty that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reign of king Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the original."
Rainolds offered three examples of problems with existing translations: "First, Galatians iv. 25. The Greek word ''susoichei'' is not well translated as now it is, bordereth neither expressing the force of the word, nor the apostles sense, nor the situation of the place. Secondly, psalm cv. 28, ‘They were not obedient;’ the original being, ‘They were not disobedient.’ Thirdly, psalm cvi. 30, ‘Then stood up Phinees and prayed,’ the Hebrew hath, ‘executed judgment.’"
King James proposed that a new translation be commissioned to settle the controversies; he hoped a new translation would replace the Geneva Bible and its offensive notes in the popular esteem. After the Bishop of London added a qualification that no marginal notes were to be added to Rainold’s new Bible, the king cited two passages in the Geneva translation where he found the notes offensive. King James gave the translators instructions, which were designed to discourage polemical notes, and to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England.
King James' instructions included requirements that:

# The ordinary Bible, read in the church, commonly called the Bishops' Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the original will permit....
# The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, &c.
# When any word hath divers significations, that to be kept which has been most commonly used by the most eminent fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place, and the analogy of the faith....
# No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.
# Such quotations of places to be marginally set down, as shall serve for the fit references of one scripture to another....
# These translations to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishops' Bible, viz. Tyndale Bible, Coverdale Bible, Matthew's Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible. (Influence from Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douai-Rheims Bible can also be detected, but the Douai Old Testament was published too late to have any effect.)

King James' instructions made it clear that he wanted the resulting translation to contain a minimum of controversial notes and apparatus, and that he wanted the episcopal structure of the Established Church, and traditional beliefs about an ordained clergy to be reflected in the new translation. His order directed the translators to revise the Bishop's Bible, comparing other named English versions. It is for this reason that the flyleaves of most printings of the King James Bible observe that the text had been "translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised (by His Majesty's special command.)"
The Authorized Version was translated by 47 scholars (although 54 were originally contracted) working in six committees, two based in each of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and Westminster. They worked on certain parts separately; then the drafts produced by each committee were compared and revised for harmony with each other. The scholars were not paid for their translation work, but were required to support themselves as best they could. Many were supported by the various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.

Committees

:'First Westminster Company', translating from Genesis to 2 Kings:
::Lancelot Andrewes, John Overall, Hadrian à Saravia, Richard Clarke, John Layfield, Robert Tighe, Francis Burleigh, Geoffrey King, Richard Thomson, William Bedwell;
:'First Cambridge Company', translated from 1 Chronicles to the Song of Solomon:
::Edward Lively, John Richardson, Lawrence Chaderton, Francis Dillingham, Roger Andrewes, Thomas Harrison, Robert Spaulding, Andrew Bing;
:'First Oxford Company', translated from Isaiah to Malachi:
::John Harding, John Rainolds (or Reynolds), Thomas Holland, Richard Kilby, Miles Smith, Richard Brett, Daniel Fairclough;
:'Second Oxford Company', translated the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation:
::Thomas Ravis, George Abbot, Richard Eedes, Giles Tomson, Sir Henry Savile, John Peryn, Ralph Ravens, John Harmar;
:'Second Westminster Company', translated the Epistles:
::William Barlow, John Spencer, Roger Fenton, Ralph Hutchinson, William Dakins, Michael Rabbet, Thomas Sanderson;
:'Second Cambridge Company', translated the Apocrypha:
::John Duport, William Branthwaite, Jeremiah Radcliffe, Samuel Ward, Andrew Downes, John Bois, John Ward, John Aglionby, Leonard Hutten, Thomas Bilson, Richard Bancroft.
In January 1609, a General Committee of Review met at Stationers' Hall, London to review the completed manuscripts from the six companies. The committee included John Bois, Andrew Downes, John Harmar, and others known only by their initials, including "AL" (who may be Arthur Lake).
The original printing of the Authorized Version was published by Robert Barker in 1611 as a complete folio Bible (Herbert #309), and could be bought looseleaf for ten shillings (s), or bound for twelve. It was also published in the same year as a 12º New Testament (Herbert #310). Minor revisions were introduced from time to time in later printings. It is the Oxford "standard" edition of 1769 (Herbert #1194) which is most commonly cited as the Authorized Version. The first major revision was issued in 1881 (Herbert #2017), and is known as the Revised Version, and numerous further revisions have been issued since, not always retaining "King James" in their titles.

Literary attributes

Translation

Like the earlier English translations such as Tyndale's and the Geneva Bible, the Authorized Version was translated primarily from Greek and Hebrew texts, with only secondary reference to the Latin Vulgate. The King James Version is a formal translation of these base sources; words implied but not actually in the original source are specially marked in most printings (either by being inside square brackets, or as italicized text). A selection of variant readings were given in marginal notes; but in obedience to their instructions, the translators offered no exegesis of the text. Modern reprintings rarely reproduce these annotated variants.
The translators render the Tetragrammaton YHWH or the name Jehovah by the use of small capitals as LORD or GOD, denoting the divine name, Jesus is referred to as Lord with a capital "L" and lower case "ord" as the example of the scripture in Psalm 110:1 "The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool".
For their Old Testament, the translators worked from editions of the Hebrew Rabbinic Bible by Daniel Bromberg (1524/5); but adjusted the text in several places to conform to the Greek LXX or Latin Vulgate - in passages to which Christian tradition had tended to attach a Christological interpretation; as, for example, the reading "they pierced my hands and my feet" in Psalm 22:16. Otherwise, however, the King James Version is closer to the Hebrew tradition than any previous translation (Daiches 1941)- especially in making use of the rabbinic commentaries, such as Kimchi, in elucidating obscure passages in the Masoretic Text; where earlier versions were more likely to adopt LXX or Vulgate readings.
For their New Testament, the translators chiefly used the 1598 and 1588/89 Greek editions of Theodore Beza; which also present Beza's Latin version of the Greek and Stephanus's edition of the Latin Vulgate; both of which versions were extensively referred to - as the translators conducted all discussions amongst themselves in Latin. F.H.A. Scrivener (1884) identifies 190 readings where the King James translators depart from Beza's Greek text, generally in maintaining the wording of the Bishop's Bible or another earlier English translation. In about half of these instances, the King James translators appear to follow the earlier 1550 Greek Textus Receptus of Stephanus. For the other half, Scrivener was usually able to find corresponding Greek readings in the editions of Erasmus, or the Complutensian Polyglot; but in several dozen readings he notes that no printed Greek text corresponds closely to the English of the King James version - which in these readings derives rather from the Vulgate. For example, at Luke 23:34, the soldiers "cast lots" (as, indeed, they had in all previous English versions), following the Latin Vulgate "sortes"; where a strict rendering of the Greek text would be, "cast a lot". The King James New Testament owes much more to the Vulgate than does the Old Testament; but still, at least 80% of the text is unaltered from Tyndale's translation.
The books of the Apocrypha were translated from the Septuagint - primarily, from the Greek Old Testament column in the ''Antwerp Polyglot'' - but with extensive reference to the counterpart Latin Vulgate text. The translators also made use of the Sixtine Septuagint of 1587, which is substantially a printing of the Old Testament text from the Codex Vaticanus; and also to the 1518 Greek Septuagint edition of Aldus Manutius. They had, however, no Greek texts for 2 Esdras, or for the Prayer of Manasses, and Scrivener (1884) speculates that they here used an unidentified Latin manuscript.
The translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources; even those which - like the Codex Bezae - would have been readily available to them. However, they made wide and eclectic use of printed editions in the original languages then available; and also to the ancient Syriac New Testament printed with an interinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp Polyglot of 1572. In addition to all previous English versions - including the Catholic Rheims New Testament; they also consulted contemporary vernacular translations into Spanish, French, Italian and German.
Modern critical biblical translations differ substantially from the Authorized Version in a number of passages, primarily because they rely on source manuscripts not then accessible to (or not then highly regarded by) early 17th Century Biblical Scholarship. Some conservative fundamentalist Protestants believe that these source manuscripts should be rejected as corrupt; and that the Authorized Version is truer to the original languages. This preference is partially because many modern versions often excise or marginalize certain verses deemed by modern scholarship as later additions to the original text and thus are seen by traditionalists as tampering with the sacred text. (See King-James-Only Movement.) Those defending this view invariably also limit the scope of sacred scripture to Old and New Testaments alone - rejecting the Authorized Version in the books of the Apocrypha.
In the Old Testament, there are also many differences from modern translations that are based not on manuscript differences, but on a different translation of Ancient Hebrew vocabulary or grammar by the translators. Hebrew scholarship by non-Jews was not as developed in the early 17th century as it is now. The New Testament is largely unaffected by this as the grasp of Koine Greek was already quite firm in the West by the time the translation was made. The difference is partially caused by the fact that while there is a very large and diverse body of extra-biblical material extant in Ancient Greek, there is very little such material in Ancient Hebrew, and probably not even this little was known to the translators at the time. Additionally, Hebrew scholarship in modern times has been much improved by information gleaned from Aramaic (Syriac) and Arabic, two Semitic languages related to Ancient Hebrew, both of which have a continuous existence as living languages. Since these languages are still in use and have larger bodies of extant material than Ancient Hebrew (especially in the case of Arabic), many Hebrew words and Hebrew grammar phenomena can now be understood in a way not available at the time the Authorized Version was
written.
Scrivener (1884) asserts that the translations undertaken by the second Westminster Company - of the Epistles; and by the second Cambridge Company - of the Apocrypha; are of notably poorer quality than those for the rest of the Old and New Testaments; both in respect of clarity of English expression, and in accurate rendering of the Greek. In particular, he detects in these two companies too great a tendency to maintain the English text of the Bishop's Bible against superior renderings in the Geneva Bible.

Style

The Authorized Version has traditionally been appreciated for the quality of the prose and poetry in the translation. However, the English language has changed since the time of its publication, and the King James Version employs words and grammatical structures that may be foreign to modern readers. For example, the Authorized Version uses the second person singular pronouns, such as "thou". Some words used in the Authorized Version have changed meaning since the translation was made; for example "replenish" is used in the translation in the sense of "fill" where the modern verb means "to refill", and "even" (a word very often introduced by the translators and thus italicized) is mostly used in the sense of "namely" or "that is". Because of this, some modern readers find the Authorized Version more difficult to understand than more recent translations.
At the time William Tyndale made his Bible translation, there was no consensus in Early Modern English as to whether the older pronoun ''his'' or the neologism ''its'' was the proper genitive case of the third person singular pronoun ''it''. Tyndale dodged the difficulty by using phrases such as ''the blood thereof'' rather than choosing between ''his blood'' or ''its blood''. By the time the King James translators wrote, usage had settled on ''its'', but Tyndale's style was familiar and considered a part of an appropriately biblical style, and they chose to retain the old wording.
The Authorized Version is notably more Latinate than previous English versions, especially the Geneva Bible. This results in part from the academic stylistic preferences of a number of the translators - several of whom admitted to being more comfortable in Latin than in English - but was also, in part, a consequence of the royal proscription against explanatory notes. Hence, where the Geneva Bible might use a common English word - and gloss its particular application in a marginal note; the King James version tends rather to prefer a technical term, frequently in Anglicised Latin. Consequently, although the King had instructed the translators to use the Bishop's Bible as a base text, the New Testament in particular, stylistically owes something to the Catholic Rheims New Testament, whose translators had also been concerned to find English equivalents for Latin terminology.
As the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read in churches", and aimed at a particularly dignified and formal style, it tends to flatten stylistic differences in the source text and aims instead for a uniformly elevated and "biblical" sounding prose. For example, here is the Geneva Bible's rendition of Genesis 38:27-30:

Now, when the time was come that she should be deliuered, beholde, there were twinnes in her wombe. And when she was in trauell, the one put out his hand: and the midwife tooke and bound a red threde about his hand, saying, This is come out first. But when he plucked his hand backe againe, loe, his brother came out, and the midwife said, How hast thou broken the breach vpon thee? and his name was called Pharez. And afterward came out his brother that had the red threde about his hande, and his name was called Zarah.

Here, by contrast, is the same passage in the 1611 King James:

And it came to passe in the time of her trauaile, that beholde, twinnes were in her wombe. And it came to passe when she trauailed, that ''the one'' put out his hand, and the midwife tooke and bound vpon his hand a skarlet threed, saying, This came out first. And it came to passe as he drewe back his hand, that behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken foorth? ''this'' breach ''bee'' vpon thee: Therefore his name was called Pharez. And afterward came out his brother that ''had'' the skarlet threed vpon his hand, and his name was called Zarah.

Both passages owe a great deal to Tyndale's earlier rendition of this text. But the King James text repeats ''and it came to pass'' where Geneva has ''now'' or ''and when''.
Here are some brief samples of text that demonstrate the King James Version's literary style:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
(''John 1:1-5'')

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(''John 3:16'')

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,
saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
And they said, Some [say that thou art] John the Baptist:
some Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my
Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock
I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
(''Matthew 16:13-18'')

Criticism

Main articles: Bible version debate

Some scholars working with Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew versions regard the Authorized Version as an inferior English translation of the Bible. For example, New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman has written:
:The Authorized Version is filled with places in which the translators rendered a Greek text derived ultimately from Erasmus's edition, which was based on a single twelfth-century manuscript that is one of the worst of the manuscripts that we now have available to us!^[1]
Some suggest that its value lies in its poetic language at the cost of accuracy in translation, whilst other scholars would firmly disagree with these claims. Some of today's exegetes (Walter Brueggemann, Marcus Borg, Warren Carter, James L. Crenshaw, Robert W. Funk, John Dominic Crossan, and N.T. Wright) do not endorse the KJV for Masters or Doctoral-level exegetical work .

Subsequent history

While the Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the official version for readings in the Church of England, it was apparently (like the Bishops' Bible) never specifically "Authorized", although it is commonly known as the ''Authorized Version'' in the United Kingdom. However, it began to replace earlier editions in the Church of England; also completely new translations were rarely attempted thereafter.
The Authorized Version's acceptance by the general public took longer. The Geneva Bible continued to be quite popular, and was reprinted at least up to 1644; in the period of the English Civil War, soldiers of the New Model Army were issued a book of selections called "The Soldiers' Bible" (1643, Herbert #577). Several printings of the KJV, one as late as 1715 (Herbert #936), combined the King James translation text with the Geneva marginal notes. After the English Restoration, however, the Geneva Bible was held to be politically suspect, and a reminder of the repudiated Puritan era. The King James Bible then became the only current version circulated among English speaking people as familiarity and stylistic merits won it the respect of the populace. In the 1662 Book Of Commmon Prayer, the text of the Authorized version finally supplanted that of the Great Bible in the Epistle and Gospel readings - though the Psalter nevertheless remained in the 1539 version.
Current printings of the Authorized Version differ from the original in several ways.

The opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews of the 1611 edition of the Authorized Version shows the original typeface. Marginal notes reference variant translations and cross references to other Bible passages.

Difference in the contents

Like most Bibles of the Reformation period, the Authorized Version originally included the ''Apocrypha'', so named in the text. It contained all the books and sections of books present in the Latin Vulgate's Old Testament but missing in the Hebrew. Under the Thirty-Nine Articles, the doctrinal confession of the Church of England established in 1563, these books were considered non-canonical but were to be "read for example of life and instruction of manners".^[2] Indeed, the Old Testament lectionary readings for Morning and Evening Prayer tabulated in the Book of Common Prayer include passages from the Apocrypha. These texts are printed separately, between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. This section also includes apocrypha from the Vulgate's appendix. (For more information, see the article on the biblical canon.) Verses unique to the Septuagint's version of the Book of Esther and the Book of Daniel (The Prayer of Azariah, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna) were placed here, rather than included in the texts of those books. From approximately 1827, many editions have omitted the whole section of Apocryphal Books; and the most common contemporary editions are available in versions both with and without them. A list of these apocrypha can be found here.

The original printing also included a number of variant readings and alternative translations of some passages; most current printings omit these. The original printing also included some marginal references to indicate where one passage of Scripture quoted or directly related to another. Most current printings omit these.

Prefatory material

The original printing contained two prefatory texts; the first was a rather fulsome '' to "the most high and mighty Prince" King James. Many British printings reproduce this, while a few cheaper or smaller American printings fail to include it.
The second, and more interesting preface was called ''The Translators to the Reader'', a long and learned essay that defends the undertaking of the new version. It observes that their goal was not to make a bad translation good, but a good translation better, and says that "we do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession... containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God". Few editions anywhere include this text.
The first printing contained a number of other apparatus, including a table for the reading of the Psalms at matins and evensong, and a calendar, an almanac, and a table of holy days and observances. Much of this material has become obsolete with the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar by the UK and its colonies in 1752 and thus modern editions invariably omit it.

Typeface, spelling, and format

The original printing was made before English spelling was standardised. They wrote "v" invariably for lower-case initial "u" and "v", and "u" for "u" and "v" everywhere else. They used long "ſ" for non-final "s". The letter "j" occurs only after "i" or as the final letter in a Roman numeral. Punctuation was used differently. The printers sometimes used ''ye'' for ''the'', (replacing the Middle English thorn with the continental ''y'') and wrote ''ã'' for ''an'' or ''am'' (in the style of scribe's shorthand) and so forth when space needed to be saved. Current printings remove most, but not all, of the variant spellings; the punctuation has also been changed, but still varies from current usage norms.
The first printing used a black letter typeface instead of a Roman typeface, which itself made a political and a religious statement. Like the Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible, the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read in churches". It was a large folio volume meant for public use, not private devotion; the weight of the type mirrored the weight of establishment authority behind it. However, smaller editions and Roman-type editions followed rapidly; e.g. quarto Roman-type editions of the Bible in 1612 (Herbert #313/314). This contrasted with the Geneva Bible, which was the first English Bible printed in a Roman typeface (although black-letter editions, particularly in folio format, were issued later).
The Authorized Version also used Roman type instead of ''italics'' to indicate text that had been supplied by the translators, or thought needful for English grammar but which was not present in the Greek or Hebrew. In the first printing, the device of having different type faces to show supplied words was used sparsely and inconsistently. This is perhaps the most significant difference between the original text and the current text.

The current text

Current printings of the Authorized Version are typically based on an edition published at the University of Oxford in 1769, edited by Benjamin Blayney, and contain substantially the same text; however, there are a number of differences between the 1769 and the 1611. But these are limited to punctuation, spelling and other minor etymological corrections. Based on comparison, the differences amount to 1/20th of 1%. The Oxford edition applied the device of supplying italics for absent words much more thoroughly, corrected a number of minor errors in punctuation, and made the spelling more consistent and updated (that is, to the standards of the 18th century). However, in 2005, Cambridge University Press released its New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, edited by David Norton, which modernized the spelling much more thoroughly (that is, to present-day standards) and introduced quotation marks.

Copyright status

In most of the world the Authorized Version has passed out of copyright and is freely reproduced. This is not the case in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom, the rights to the Authorized Version are held by the British Crown. The rights fall outside the scope of copyright as defined in statute law. Instead they fall under the purview of the Royal Prerogative and as such they are perpetual in subsistence. Publishers are licensed to reproduce the Authorized Version under letters patent. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the letters patent are held by the Queen's Printer, and in Scotland by the Scottish Bible Board. The office of Queen's Printer has been associated with the right to reproduce the Bible for many years, with the earliest known reference coming in 1577. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the Queen's Printer is Cambridge University Press (CUP). CUP inherited the right of being Queen's Printer when they took over the firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode in the late 20th century. Eyre & Spottiswoode had been Queen's Printer since 1901.
Other letters patent of similar antiquity grant Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press the right to produce the Authorized Version independently of the Queen's Printer. In Scotland the Authorized Version is published by Collins under license from the Scottish Bible Board, but in recent years the publisher Canongate were allowed to produce a series of individual books of the Bible under the series title "The Pocket Canons".
The terms of the letters patent prohibit those other than the holders, or those authorized by the holders from printing, publishing or importing the Authorized Version into the United Kingdom. The protection that the Authorized Version, and also the Book of Common Prayer, enjoy is the last remnant of the time when the Crown held a monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.
This protection should not be confused with Crown copyright, or copyright in works of the United Kingdom's government; that is part of modern UK copyright law. Like other copyrights, Crown copyright is time-limited and potentially enforceable worldwide. The non-copyright Royal Prerogative is perpetual, but applies only to the UK; though many other Royal Prerogatives also apply to the other Commonwealth realms, this one does not.
It is common misconception that the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office holds letters patent for being Queen's Printer. The Controller of HMSO holds a separate set of letters patent which cover the office Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. The Scotland Act 1998 defines the position of Queen's Printer for Scotland as also being held by the Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. The position of Government Printer for Northern Ireland is also held by the Controller of HMSO.

Literary influence

The Authorized Version has proved to have been an influence on writers and poets, whether in their literary style, or matters of content such as the images they depicted, until the advent of modernism. Although influenced by the Bible in general, they likely could not have helped being influenced by the style of writing the Authorized Version used, prevalent as it was during their time. John Hayes Gardiner of Harvard University once stated that "in all study of English literature, if there be any one axiom which may be accepted without question, it is that the ultimate standard of English prose style is set by the King James Version of the Bible". Compton's Encyclopedia once said that the Authorized Version "…has been a model of writing for generations of English-speaking people." [3]
A general effect of the Authorized Version was to influence writers in their model of writing; beforehand, authors generally wrote as scholars addressing an audience of other scholars, as few ordinary peasants were literate at the time. The Authorized Version, as it was meant for dissemination among the ordinary man and to be read by preachers to their congregations, could not afford the luxury of using such a technique. The simpler, more direct style used by the translators of the Authorized Version so influenced authors that their prose began to address the reader as if he or she was an ordinary person instead of a scholar, thus helping create the idea of the general reader.
19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon once declared of author John Bunyan, "Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself." Bunyan's allegorical novel, ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', was a cornerstone of early Protestant literature; frequently, it would be the second piece of literature translated into the vernacular by missionaries, the first being the Authorized Version itself — though it is noteworthy that ''The Pilgrim's Progress'' mostly quoted from the Geneva Bible. According to Thomas Macaulay, "he knew no language but the English as it was spoken by the common people; he had studied no great model of composition, with the exception of our noble translation of the Bible. But of that his knowledge was such that he might have been called a living concordance".
John Milton, author of the blank verse epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', was heavily influenced by the Authorized Version, beginning his day with a reading from that version of the Bible; in his later life, he would then spend an hour meditating in silence. Milton, who cast two Psalms into meter at the age of 15 while an undergraduate at Cambridge, filled his works with images obviously taken from the Bible. The poem ''Lycidas'', for example, depicted the Apostle Peter and the keys he was given by Jesus according to a literal reading of the Bible:

Last came and last did go

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

The allusions made to the Bible by John Dryden were inescapable for those who had studied it well; as an example, in the poem ''Mac Flecknoe'', he wrote:

Sinking, he left his drugget robe behind,

Borne upward by a subterranean wind,

The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,

With double portion of his father's art.

Several more famous writers and poets have taken inspiration from the Authorized Version. William Wordsworth's poems such as ''Intimations of Immortality'' and ''Ode to Duty'' contained obvious references to the Bible. Poet George Byron even composed poems which required prior understanding of the Bible before one could fully comprehend them, such as ''Jephtha's Daughter'' and ''The Song of Saul Before his Last Battle''. John Keats described "the sad heart of Ruth, / when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn." The poetry of William Blake was also greatly influenced by the language and imagery of the Authorized Version, a famous example being ''The Lamb'' from his ''Songs of Innocence''.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, an American poet, once wrote "There are times when the grasshopper is a burden, and thirsty with the heat of labor the spirit longs for the waters of Shiloah, that go softly", a clear reference to the Authorized Version, both in its content and in its style. Herman Melville, too, could not avoid being influenced by the Authorized Version; his book ''Moby Dick'' is clearly related to the Bible, with characters going by names such as Ishmael and Ahab. Walt Whitman was deeply influenced by the King James Version, and especially by the biblical poetry of the prophets and psalms. Whitman wrote in ''Leaves of Grass'':

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;

I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate...

The language of Emily Dickinson was informed by the Bible. Mark Twain used the book of Genesis as the basis for ''From Adam's Diary'' and ''From Eve's Diary''. ''The Rise of Silas Lapham'' by William Dean Howells uses the image of Jacob wrestling with the angel as an important metaphor. Many poems by T. S. Eliot employ images drawn from the Bible. Ernest Hemingway titled his first novel ''The Sun Also Rises'', after a quote from Ecclesiastes, and Flannery O'Connor drew on the gospels for the title and theme of ''The Violent Bear it Away''. The title of Robert A. Heinlein's seminal science fiction novel ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' is a direct quote from : "And she [Zippo'rah] bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land." The title of John Steinbeck's ''East of Eden'' comes from the Authorized Version of Genesis 4:16.
Martin Luther King used in his 'I have a dream' speech:

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''.

References

1. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, , Bart, Ehrman, HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, ISBN 0-06-073817-0 , 209.
2. Article VI: 'Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation' see as recorded at Anglicans Online

External links

★ Schoenberg Center facsimile of the 1611 printing of the King James Bible.

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