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Revision as of 04:58, 23 September 2014
The Authorized Version or King James Version is an English translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) and first published in 1611. For about three centuries it was the English Protestant Bible, and it is still popular. Its literary qualities have been widely praised, even by some unbelievers.
Names
The original 1611 title reads as follows:
"THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, AND THE NEW: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and reuised, by his Maiesties speciall Cõmandement."
As can be seen, there is no specific title for this particular translation. Over the centuries it was occasionally referred to by various names or descriptions, but its effective monopoly meant that such identifiers were not really needed and not often used. It was only with the issuing of the Revised Version starting in 1881 that it became common to give an identifying name on the title page. This was regularly Authorized Version in Britain, King James Version in America. Recently, the latter has been gaining ground in Britain, being adopted by Cambridge University Press, while the Oxford World's Classics edition compromises with Authorized King James Version.
Origins
The first printed English Bible appeared in 1535.[1] It was translated from German and Latin by Miles Coverdale, making much use of published translations by William Tyndale of the New Testamant and some of the Old. A revision of this was produced in 1537 by Thomas Matthew (thought to be a pseudonym of John Rogers), making use of unpublished manuscript translations of more of the Old Testament by Tyndale. This in turn was the basis of a revision by Coverdale published in 1539. This "Great Bible" was authorized by Henry VIII as the source for Bible readings in church. It was replaced in 1568 by the "Bishops' Bible", revised by a group of bishops, for the first time in this sequence of revisions checking against the "original"[2] languages. It was the Bishops' Bible that served as the basis for the AV.