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| Authorised Version | |
|---|---|
| Name | Authorised Version |
| Other names | King James Version |
| Language | Early Modern English |
| Published | 1611 |
| Commissioned by | King James VI and I |
| Country | England |
| Publisher | Robert Barker |
| Genre | Bible translation |
Authorised Version The Authorised Version is the early 17th-century English Bible translation completed under the patronage of King James VI and I and first printed in 1611. It emerged from a royal initiative involving leading scholars from Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Church of England, and it has profoundly influenced English literature, William Shakespeare, John Milton, and public life in Great Britain and the British Empire. The translation's language shaped subsequent editions such as those used by Puritans, Anglicans, and later American Founding Fathers.
Commissioned in 1604 at the Hampton Court Conference convened by King James VI and I and attended by bishops including Richard Bancroft and representatives of Puritan leaders like John Whitgift, the project responded to disputes involving existing translations such as the Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible. Royal directives aimed to produce a single, authoritative text for use in Church of England services and among English-speaking Protestants in Scotland, Ireland, and overseas in Virginia Colony and New England. Key patrons and overseers included Thomas Bilson and the rector and theologian Francis Bacon influenced contemporary intellectual framing, while printers like Robert Barker and booksellers in London handled production.
The translation was executed by six committees or "companies" based at Westminster Abbey, Cambridge University, and Oxford University, composed of divines and linguists such as Lancelot Andrewes, John Overall, and Miles Smith. Translators consulted sources in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and followed mandates to retain ecclesiastical terminology and to conform to the episcopal liturgy of Richard Hooker's tradition. Instructions emphasized a balance between literal accuracy and ecclesiastical diction, stipulating consultation of earlier versions including the Tyndale Bible, the Coverdale Bible, and the Bishop's Bible, and required that marginal notes be free of polemical commentary to avoid controversy with Roman Catholic Church or continental Reformers like John Calvin and John Knox.
Translators relied principally on the Masoretic Text of Hebrew Bible manuscripts and on editions of the Greek New Testament such as those by Erasmus of Rotterdam and Stephanus (Robert Estienne), with significant consultation of the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Peshitta. Manuscript evidence included medieval codices and printed critical editions circulating in Renaissance scholarship; consults drew on scholarship by Richard Simon and the philological advances of Joseph Scaliger and contemporaries. Variants from sources like the Textus Receptus informed New Testament readings, while Old Testament readings used vocalizations found in Ben Asher tradition manuscripts and comparative citations from Masoretes.
The translation's Early Modern English diction, cadence, and rhetorical devices—periods, parallelism, and antithesis—reflect the pedagogical and homiletic aims espoused by figures like Lancelot Andrewes and rhetorical models from Isocrates and Cicero. Its lexicon and syntactic patterns influenced writers including John Donne, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Charles Dickens, and later shaped public oratory by statesmen such as Oliver Cromwell, William Ewart Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln. The Authorized phrasing also informed hymnody by Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley and liturgical formulations in Book of Common Prayer and colonial catechisms used in Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Reception among contemporaries varied: proponents in Anglicanism praised its unity and majesty, while Puritans critiqued perceived retention of episcopal bias and some preferred the Geneva Bible. Critics over centuries have targeted translation accuracy, textual choices, and alleged doctrinal slants; scholars such as Benjamin Jowett and later textual critics in the 19th century engaged in philological reassessment. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, including work by F. F. Bruce and Bruce Metzger, evaluated its textual bases against newly discovered manuscripts like Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, prompting debates about textual fidelity and need for revision.
Early printings by Robert Barker varied in typographic errors and readings—famously the "Wicked Bible" misprint involved printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas—prompting recall and correction. Subsequent standardized editions emerged through editorial efforts by scholars such as Benjamin Blayney (Oxford, 1769) and later textual emendations in editions by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Twentieth-century ecumenical and scholarly revisions produced alternative translations like the Revised Version (1881–1885), the American Standard Version (1901), and later New Revised Standard Version, though many congregations retained traditional readings.
The translation shaped devotional life across denominations including Anglican Communion, Presbyterian Church (USA), Methodism, and Baptist traditions, and it was integral to missionary efforts by organizations like the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the London Missionary Society. Its phrases permeate law and politics—quoted in speeches by Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., and cited in legal contexts in United Kingdom and the United States Supreme Court. The Authorized text influenced music by composers such as George Frideric Handel and poets like Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and remains central to debates on biblical authority, translation philosophy, and cultural heritage.