The King James Version of the Bible

The King James Version, also known as the Authorized Version or King James Bible, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 apocrypha books, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

It was first printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker and was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second had been the Bishops' Bible of 1568. In January 1604, James I convened the Hampton Court Conference, where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans, a faction of the Church of England. The translation is widely considered to be both beautiful and scholarly and thus a towering achievement in English literature.