First published 400 years ago, the King James Bible is a landmark in the history of the English Language. It formed our language and enabled normal people to understand their faith as never before. But it can also be seen as a social, economic and political text. Both those seaking to overthrow the English monarchy and those wanting to retain it sought support from the Bible.
So how did this remarkable translation come to be written? To answer this question is to throw open the doors of a lost world - a world in the process of being transformed by the new technology of printing. In reading about the greatest English text ever produced we must close our eyes to our own world - in which books are plentiful and readily available - and enter another, very different, universe.
