BiblicalInsights.net

This year is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible.  Here are some interesting facts about the KJV.
-There have been approximately 7.5 billion Bibles printed since the invention of printing and the majority of these Bibles are the King James Version.  Some scholars have estiamated that the total number of printed copies of the KJV is in the billions.
-Thomas Nelson Publishers is the leading publisher of the King James Version.  In the last twelve months, Nelson Publishing has sold more than one million copies of the KJV.
-The Bible is the best selling book in history.  The King James Version is the best selling translation of all time.
-The first Bible version printed in America was the King James Version.  It was printed by Robert Aitken of Philadelphia in 1777 and only the New Testament was published.  About four years later, he released his full Bible.
-Crucial to the growth in sales of the Bible in the 1800’s was the founding of Bible societies.  Their goal:  to put a Bible in the hands of every American.  In 1816, 34 of these socieites joined to form the American Bible Society.  The ABS had printed the KJV in almost 60 forms by 1850.  In each year of the 1860’s, the ABS printed over a million Bibles.  David Daniell notes that by 1850, 73 years after the first Bible was printed on American soil, “nearly fifteen hundred separate editions of the KJV had been published in America.” (Chris Armstrong, “Old Book in a New World” Christian History, Issue 100, p. 31).
-The top translator and overseer of the KJV translation was Lancelot Andrewes perhaps the most brilliant man of his age.  Andrewes served as the leader of the first Westminster Company of Translators which translated Genesis–II Kings.  He was also the general editor of the whole project.  He was born in 1555.  He studied at the University of Cambridge.  He was ordained at 25 and spoke 15 modern languages and 6 ancient languages.  He possessed a memory boardering on the photographic. He was a man of intense piety, spending five hours every morning in prayer. (Chris Armstrong, “Master of Languages: Lancelot Andrewes, Christian History, Issue 100, pp. 14-15).
-Altogether, 47 different scholars worked on the translation of the KJV.  These men were outstanding scholars of the day.
-The King James Version is the translation of the Bible that has had the greatest impact on the English language.  In his book, Begat, David Crystal lists 257 specific examples of phrases from the KJV that have found their way into the common vernacular of English speaking people.  Crystal remarks, “No other single source has provided the language with so many idiomatic expressions.  Shakespeare is the nearest, but the number of idioms we can confidently attribute to him (such as to the manner born) is under a hundred” (p. 258).  Consider a sampling of the idioms used:  “The land of the living” (Job 28:13); “At their wit’s end” (Ps. 107:27); “Heap coals of fire on his head” (Prov. 25:22; Rom. 12:20); “There is no new thing under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9); “The salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13); “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country” (Matt. 13:57); “The signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3); “In the twinkling of an eye” (I Cor. 15:52); “Labour of love” (I Thess. 1:3); and “Filthy lucre” (I Tim. 3:3).
After four hundred years, the King James Version is still the best selling book in the world!  Amazing!