By the early seventeenth century, several English Bibles were in circulation, and their differences carried political and theological weight. King James I commissioned a new translation, to be the authorized version for use in the churches of England.
Forty-seven scholars worked in companies, drawing on the Hebrew and Greek and on the English translations before them — above all William Tyndale's, whose phrasing survives throughout. The result, published in 1611, was both accurate and singularly beautiful in its cadence.
For three centuries the King James Version was, for the English-speaking world, simply 'the Bible.' Its phrases entered ordinary speech, and its rhythms shaped English prose. Few books have done more to form a language.