When all is said and done, the significance of the King James Version of the Bible is somewhat overstated.
In the first place, it is, after all, a translation of a very powerful original. Genesis 1 and the Parable of the Prodigal Son would shine through virtually any attempt to render them into English.
Secondly, it is not unique. It belongs to a line of translations from much of which it draws heavily. In its own day, it took several decades to make headway against the Geneva Bible.
Third, in later years it has been rightly superseded by Bibles descended from it as well as new translations. The reason is not simply the antique language. It is also the quality of the underlying text and the translation techniques which make it outmoded.
Fourth, its reputation is boosted by the patronising admiration for the KJV by those who entirely disavow its teaching but profess a love for its language, as though these things can in any way be separated. When we have safely boxed Jesus and the Bible away in the 17th century, we can allow that they did have something after all, as literature, but not as religion.
As a constant Bible reader, as one who reads the Bible as the infallible word of God - that is, in the same way as the translators and first readers - I have not used the KJV for decades and there is no way I would be drawn back to it. It no longer works.
That being said ...
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