The King James Version has shaped the church, our worship, and our mother tongue for over 400 years. But what should we do with it today? The KJV beautifully rendered the Scriptures into the language of turn-of-the-seventeenth-century England. Even today the King James is the most widely read Bible in the United States. The rich cadence of its Elizabethan English is recognized even by non-Christians. But English has changed a great deal over the last 400 years—and in subtle ways that very few modern readers will recognize. In Authorized Mark L. Ward, Jr. shows what exclusive readers of the KJV are missing as they read God's word.#In their introduction to the King James Bible, the translators tell us that Christians must "heare CHRIST speaking unto them in their mother tongue." In Authorized Mark Ward builds a case for the KJV translators' view that English Bible translations should be readable by what they called "the very vulgar"—and what we would call "the man on the street."

This unique edition of the most important book in the history of Western civilization offers an exciting new approach to the most influential of all English biblical texts - the Authorized King James Version, complete with the Apocrypha. Its wide-ranging introduction and notes draw on the most up-to-date scholarship to show how and why the Bible has affected the literature, art, and general culture of the English-speaking world.

This heirloom quality Family Bible is affordable for all households. Design features include a detailed engraved decorative border with gold foil accents on the front, back and spine. Inside, you'll find classic illustrations, reader-friendly subheadings, a double-column format, a helpful Scripture verse finder, a One-year Bible reading plan and 14-point type.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

The King James Version (KJV), commonly known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII, and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568. In January 1604, King James I convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England. James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek and Latin. In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible - for Epistle and Gospel readings - and as such was authorized by Act of Parliament. By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version was effectively unchallenged as the English translation used in Anglican and Protestant churches. Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English speaking scholars. Today, the most used edition of the King James Bible, and often identified as plainly the King James Version, especially in the United States, closely follows the standard text of 1769, edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford. Editorial Criticism: F. H. A. Scrivener and D. Norton have both written in detail on editorial variations which have occurred through the history of the publishing of the Authorized Version from 1611 to 1769. In the 19th century, there were effectively three main guardians of the text. Norton identified five variations among the Oxford, Cambridge and London (Eyre and Spottiswoode) texts of 1857, such as the spelling of "farther" or "further" at Matthew 26:29. In the 20th century, variations between the editions was reduced to comparing the Cambridge to the Oxford. Distinctly identified Cambridge readings included "or Sheba" (Josh. 19:2), "sin" (2 Chr. 33:19), "clifts" (Job 30:6), "vapour" (Psalm 148:8), "flieth" (Nah. 3:16), "further" (Matt. 26:39) and a number of other references. In effect the Cambridge was considered the current text in comparison to the Oxford. Cambridge University Press introduced a change at 1 John 5:8 in 1985 reverting its longstanding tradition of having the word "spirit" in lower case to have a capital letter "S." It has also done the same in some of its publications in Acts 11:12 and 11:28. These are instances where both Oxford and Cambridge have now altered away from Blayney's 1769 Edition. The distinctions between the Oxford and Cambridge editions has been a major point in the Bible version debate. Differences among Cambridge editions, in the 21st century, has become a potential theological issue, particularly in regard to the identification of the Pure Cambridge Edition. Translation The English terms "rejoice" and "glory" stand for the same word in the Greek original. In Tyndale, Geneva and the Bishops' Bibles, both instances are translated "rejoice." In the Douay-Rheims New Testament, both are translated "glory." Only in the Authorized Version does the translation vary between the two verses. In the Old Testament the translators render the Tetragrammaton YHWH by "the LORD" (in later editions in small capitals as LORD), or "the LORD God"

Published on the occasion of two exhibitions, held in 2011 at the Bodleian Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library respectively, celebrating the 400th centenary of the publication of the King James Bible.