Still, the King James Version remains extremely popular. Phrases like “my brother’s keeper,” “the kiss of death,” “the blind leading the blind,” “fall from grace,” “eye for an eye” and “a drop in the bucket”-to name only a few-all owe their existence, or at least their popularization in English, to the KJV.įrom the early 20th century onward, mainstream Protestant denominations increasingly turned toward more modern Bible translations, which have been able to provide more accurate readings of the source texts, thanks to the use of more recently discovered ancient Semitic texts unavailable in 1611. quoted the King James Version of Isaiah (from memory) in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.īeyond the countless artists and leaders inspired by the King James Bible, its influence can be seen in many of the expressions English speakers use every day. Writers from Herman Melville to Ernest Hemingway to Alice Walker have drawn on its cadences and imagery for their work, while Martin Luther King Jr. The cultural legacy of the King James Bibleįrom Handel’s Messiah to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” the King James Bible has inspired a wide swath of cultural expression across the English-speaking world over generations. “But in the colonies, the Anglicans no longer had supremacy, because the Puritans, Presbyterians, Methodists came,” all of whom made use of the King James Bible. The Puritans and other reformers “didn’t overtake the Anglican Church in England,” Meyers explains.

What Other Proof Exists? Religious and political impactīy giving more people direct access to the Bible, the King James Version also had a democratizing influence within Protestantism itself, especially in the English colonies being settled in the New World. READ MORE: The Bible Says Jesus Was Real. With its poetic cadences and vivid imagery, the KJV sounded to many like the voice of God himself. Not only that, but the language they read in the King James Bible was an English unlike anything they had read before. Whereas before, the Bible had been the sole property of the Church, now more and more people could read it themselves. “The translation into English, the language of the land, made it accessible to all those people who could read English, and who could afford a printed Bible.” “Printing had already been invented, and made copies relatively cheap compared to hand-done copies,” says Carol Meyers, a professor of religious studies at Duke University. Because of the wealth of resources devoted to the project, it was the most faithful and scholarly translation to date-not to mention the most accessible. Published in 1611, the King James Bible spread quickly throughout Europe.

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