Holy Bible: The King James Version

The Bible is a canonical collection of texts sacred in Judaism and Christianity. Is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time, has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where it was the first mass-printed book. This translation is considered a towering achievement in English literature, as both beautiful and scholarly. The King James Version (KJV), commonly known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568. In January 1604, King James I convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England.