I sometimes get the feeling from pastors and Bible teachers that I’m not qualified to share this information about the King James Bible. After all, I’m just a wife, mom, and grandma who gets up early to read my Bible at my kitchen table.

But men throughout history have said these things I’m sharing about the King James Bible, too — and far better than I ever could.

So take a peek at all of this praise for the Authorized Version of the Bible. If you’re a Christian, or even if you’re not, you owe it to yourself to read the single most impactful Book in the history of the world.

Quotes about the King James Bible and Education

“Every one who has a thorough knowledge of the Bible may truly be called educated. … I thoroughly believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without the Bible.”

—William Lyon Phelps,
Yale professor of English Literature

“I consider an intimate knowledge of the Bible an indispensable quality of a well educated man.” 

—Dr. Robert Milikan
Nobel prize winner and former president
of California Institute of Technology

“A thorough understanding of the Bible is better than a college education.”

—Theodore Roosevelt,
26th President

“If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures.”

—Daniel Webster

“So much of our language, our categories of thinking, so many of our sayings are built off the KJV. I don’t think you’re really culturally literate without understanding the impact of the Bible on culture and more specifically, the King James Version.”

—John Kutsko

“I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount.”

—Martin Luther

The Impact of The King James Bible

“For more than three and a half centuries, its language and its images have penetrated more deeply into the general culture of the English speaking world, and have been more dearly treasured, than anything else ever put on paper.”

—Ronald Reagan

“For almost three centuries the Authorized, or King James, Version has been the Bible of the English-speaking world. Its simple, majestic Anglo-Saxon tongue, its clear, sparkling style, its directness and force of utterance have made it the model in language, style, dignity of some of the choicest writers for the last two centuries.

“Its phrasing is woven into much of our noblest literature; and its style, which to an astonishing degree is merely the style of the original authors of the Bible, has exerted very great influence in molding the idea of simplicity, directness, and clarity which now dominates the writing of English.

“It has endeared itself to the hearts and lives of millions of Christians and has molded the characters of leaders in every walk of life. During all these centuries the King James Version has become a vital part of the English-speaking world, socially, morally, religiously, and politically.”

—Ira Maurice Price,
The Ancestry of our English Bible (1906)

“[The] King James Version synthesized a whole century of English Bible translation into a climactic document. More importantly, it was through the King James Bible that this linguistic accomplishment remained dominant for three centuries.

“If there was just one book that the American pioneers carried in their covered wagons, it was the King James Version of the Bible. The King James Bible was first of all a religious authority, but it also provided a standard of stylistic and linguistic excellence that the pioneers preserved amidst conditions that doubtless seemed to threaten their cultural heritage.

“For more than four centuries, English-speaking people (around the world and not just in England and America) had a touchstone for what constituted good written and oral communication.”

—Leland Ryken

Quotes about the translation of the KJV

“The King James Bible is probably the greatest masterpiece of translation in the world; it has exercised on the thought and the language of English-speaking peoples an influence which cannot be overestimated.”

—Barrett Wendell,
professor of composition at Harvard

“The King James translation [has been] described as ‘the monument of English prose’ as well as ‘the only great work of art ever created by a committee.’ Both statements are true. Fifty-four scholars worked seven years to produce the work from its extant texts in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. Such an undertaking can be expected to produce  great scholarship, but hardly writing as spare and sublime as the King James.…”

— Charlton Heston, 
In the Arena: An Autobiography

“Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought, from the beginning, that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one; … but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against — that hath been our endeavor, that our mark.”

—the translators of the Authorized Version,
in their preface

The Accuracy and Faithfulness of the Translation

“The central objective of the king’s translators was scholarly accuracy — the finding of proper English words and phrases to render the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Sense and meaning took priority over elegance.”

—Alister McGrath

“The English translation of the Bible is the best translation in the world, and renders the sense of the original best.”

—John Selden,
Table-talk

“I call God to record, against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus Christ to give reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God’s word against my conscience, nor would to this day, if all that is in earth—whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches—might be given me.”

—William Tyndale,
translator of the Tyndale Bible, the first Bible to be printed
in English, much of which became part of the KJV

“The Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking both is one, so that in a thousand places thou neediest not but to translate it into the English word for word….”

—William Tyndale,
translator of the Tyndale Bible, the first Bible to be printed
in English, much of which became part of the KJV

“The translators have seized the very spirit and soul of the original, and expressed this almost everywhere with pathos and energy. Besides, our translators have not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation the standard of our language.”

—Adam Clarke,
Commentary on the Whole Bible

“The English of the King James Version is not the English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It is biblical English, which was not used on ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the King James Version….

“The King James Version … owes its merit not to 17th-century English — which was very different — but to its faithful translation of the original. Its style is that of the Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek.

“Even in their use of thee and thou, the translators were not following 17th-century usage but biblical usage, for at the time these translators were doing their work, these singular forms had already been replaced by the plural you in polite conversation.”

—Edward Hills,
The King James Version Defended

More quotes about translation of the King James Bible

“The translation [now known as the King James Bible] was extraordinarily well done because to the translators what they were translating was not merely a curious collection of ancient books written by different authors in different stages of culture, but the word of God divinely revealed through his chosen and expressly inspired scribes. In this conviction they carried out their work with boundless reverence and care and achieved a beautifully artistic result….

“[T]hey made a translation so magnificent that to this day the common human Britisher or citizen of the United States of North America accepts and worships it as a single book by a single author, the book being the Book of Books and the author being God.”

—George Bernard Shaw,
as quoted in The Men Behind the King James Version

“Secretaryship is one of the great shaping forces behind the King James Bible. There is no authorship involved here. Authorship is egotistical, an assumption that you might have something new worth saying. You don’t. 

“Every iota of the Bible counts but without it you count for nothing. The secretary knows that. Like Robert Cecil, he can be clever, canny, resourceful and energetic, but for all the frustrations, he does not distort the source of his authority. 

“A secretary, whether of God or of a king, is in a position of dependent power. He has no authority independent of his master, but he executes that authority without hesitation or compromise. He is nothing without his master but everything through him. Loyalty is power and submission control. 

“For this reason, biblical translation, like royal service, could only be utterly faithful. Without faithfulness, it became meaningless.” 

—Adam Nicholson,
Historian

The Inerrancy of the King James Bible

“I believe that the Authorized Version [also known as the King James Bible] is the inspired, infallible, inerrant, immutable, pure word of God to English speaking people….”

—James Son,
The New Athenians, 1992

The English Language and the King James Bible

“It [the KJV] did not follow literary trends; it established them.

“The two greatest influences on the shaping of the English language are the works of William Shakespeare and the English translation of the Bible that appeared in 1611. The King James Bible — named for the king of England who ordered the production of a fresh translation in 1604 — is both a religious and a literary classic.”

—Alister McGrath,
Historian

“The Authorized Version is a miracle and a landmark. Its felicities are manifold, its music has entered into every blood and marrow of English thought and speech, it has given countless provers and proverbial phrases even to the unlearned and the irreligious. There is no corner of English life, no conversation ribald or reverent it has not adorned.”

—J. Isaacs,
from his essay, The Authorized Version and After (1940)

“The translators of our Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any which we see in our present writings, which I take to be owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.”

—Jonathan Swift

“Now, as the English speaking people have the best Bible in the world, and as it is the most beautiful monument erected with the English alphabet, we ought to make the most of it, for it is an incomparably rich inheritance, free to all who can read. This means that we ought invariably in the church and on public occasions to use the Authorized Version; all others are inferior.”

—William Lyon Phelps, 
Professor of English Literature at Yale University

“The Authorized Version is a miracle and a landmark. Its felicities are manifold, its music has entered into the very blood and marrow of English thought and speech, it has given countless proverbs and proverbial phrases even to the unlearned and the irreligious. There is no corner of English life, no conversation ribald or reverent it has not adorned. Embedded in its tercentenary wording is the language of a century earlier. It has both broadened and retarded the stream of English Speech.”

—H. Wheeler Robinson,
Ancient and English Versions of the Bible

“Shakespeare aside, there’s no comparable writing in the language, as has been observed by men wiser than I. Over the past several centuries, it’s been the single book in most households, an enormous force in shaping the development of the English language.

“Carried around the world by missionaries, it provided the base by which English is about to become the lingua franca of the world in the next century.”

— Charlton Heston, 
In the Arena: An Autobiography

“The elevation and nobility of Biblical diction, assisted by its slightly archaic tinge, have a tendency to keep all English style above meanness and triviality.”

—Albert Cook,
The Authorized Version of the Bible and Its Influence

“The Authorized Version is a miracle and a landmark. Its felicities are manifold, its music has entered into the very blood and marrow of English thought and speech, it has given countless proverbs and proverbial phrases even to the unlearned and the irreligious. There is no corner of English life, no conversation ribald or reverent it has not adorned. Embedded in its tercentenary wording is the language of a century earlier. It has both broadened and retarded the stream of English Speech.”

—H. Wheeler Robinson,
Ancient and English Versions of the Bible

“Priests, atheists, skeptics, devotees, agnostics, and evangelists are generally agreed that the Authorized Version of the English Bible is the best example of English literature that the world has ever seen.”

—William Lyon Phelps,
Yale professor of English Literature

The popularity of the KJV

“It was wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was received, not only among the learned sort, but generally all England over, among all the vulgar and common people; and with what greediness the Word of God was read, and what resort to places where the reading of it was!

“Everybody that could, bought the book, or busily read it, or got others to read it to them if they could not themselves. Divers more elderly people learned to read on purpose; and even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read.”

—John Strype,
Historian (1643-1737)

“On a historical scale, the sheer longevity of this version is a phenomenon, without parallel…. ‘King James’ is still the bestselling book in the world…. In the story of the earth we live on, its influencing cannot be calculated.”

—David Daniell,
The Bible in English: Its History and Influence, 2003

“In the crowded immigrant ships which sailed to the New World of America, there was little room for baggage. If the adventurers took books with them, they took the Bible, Shakespeare, and later Pilgrim’s Progress; and the Bible they mostly took with them was the Authorized Version of King James I.

“About ninety million copies are thought to have been published in the English language alone. It has been translated into more than seven hundred and sixty tongues.

“The Authorized Version is still the most popular in England and in the Unites States. This may be deemed James’ greatest achievement, for the impulse was largely his. The Scottish pedant built better than he knew. The scholars who produced this masterpiece are mostly unknown and unremembered. But they forge an enduring link, literary and religious, between the English-speaking peoples of the world.” 

—Sir Winston Churchill

“A general effect of the King James Version was to influence writers in their model of writing; beforehand, authors generally wrote as scholars addressing an audience of other scholars, as few ordinary peasants were literate at the time.

“The King James Version, as it was meant for dissemination among the ordinary man and to be read by preachers to their congregations, could not afford the luxury of using such a technique.

“The simpler, more direct style used by the translators of the King James Version so influenced authors that their prose began to address the reader as if he or she was an ordinary person instead of a scholar, thus helping create the idea of the general reader.” 

—The New World Encyclopedia

“Every verse, chapter and book is inspired, inerrant, impeccable, irrefutable, indestructible, invincible…. It is powerful, perfect, priceless, pure, productive, and preserved for us in our own language in the 1611 King James Bible.”

—Raymond Barber,
Walking in Wisdom, 2006

“In popular Christian culture, the King James translation is seen to possess a dignity and authority that modern translations somehow fail to convey…. The King James Bible retains its place as a literary and religious classic, by which all others continue to be judged.”

—Alister McGrath,
In the Beginning

“In the greater perspective of history, it should be apparent that God was involved in every step of the preparation, purifying, and publishing of the King James Bible.

“God certainly knew in advance the wide-spread distribution and influence the KJV would have. To the contrary, it would seem that God so-ordained it….

“There can be no other conclusion except that God has had a direct and providential hand in the development and propagation of the most widely used version of His Word in human history.”

—Pastor Dave Sorenson

“Can it be necessary to argue that no one can inflict a graver wound on the unity of a race, and on all the sacred interests which depend on that unity, under God, than by tampering with the English Bible? By the acclamation of the universe, it is the most faultless version of the Scriptures that ever existed in any tongue.

“To complain of its trifling blemishes, is to complain of the sun for its spots. Whatever may be its faults, they are less evil, in every way, than would be the evils sure to arise from any attempt to eradicate them; and where there is so much of wheat, the few tares may be allowed to stand till the end of the world.

“Two centuries, complete, have identified even its slightest peculiarities with the whole literature, poetry, prose, and science, as well as with the entire thought and theology of those ages, and the time, to all appearance, is forever past, when any alteration can be made in it, without a shock to a thousand holy things, and to the pious sensibilities of millions.”

—Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1857)

“The Authorised King James Version, on the other hand, is the inspired, preserved, and infallible Word of God for today; just as it has been for generations of Protestants for nearly 400 years.”

—David B. Loughran,
The New International Version:
Is This the Word of God?, 1999

“This book had to be written by one of three people: good men, bad men, or God. It couldn’t have been written by good men because they said it was inspired by the revelation of God. Good men don’t lie and deceive. It couldn’t have been written by bad men because bad men would not write something that would condemn themselves. It leaves only one conclusion. It was given by divine inspiration of God.”

—John Wesley

The fruit of the King James Bible

“Whoever attempts to shake the confidence of the common people in the common version [the KJV] puts their faith in imminent peril of shipwreck…. The best fruits of Christianity have sprung from the seeds our translation has scattered.”

—Alexander McClure

“Until relatively recently, the King James Version was what people meant when they spoke of ‘the Bible.’  Wherever we dip into the sermons and writings of the famous preachers and theologians of the English-speaking world, it is obvious at once that they used the KJV.  Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitfield, D. L. Moody, Matthew Henry, and Billy Graham all used the King James Version and did not need to tell their audiences what translation they were using.”

— Leland Ryken

The Musicality of the KJV

“Good rhythm for a Bible is like a qualifying exam; if a translation cannot measure up on this matter, it is not in the running to be a superior Bible for public use and oral reading in more private situations….

“The best test of rhythm is simply to read passages aloud…. If in oral reading a passage ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases where possible, and provides a sense of continuity, it is rhythmically excellent. If a translation clutters the flow of language and is consistently staccato in effect, it is rhythmically inferior….

“All of these considerations make rhythm an essential translation issue, not a peripheral one. For a book that is read aloud as often as the Bible is, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling and sublime ideas, excellent rhythm should be regarded as a given.”

—Ryken,
The Word of God in English

“The King James is poetry. You find that as soon as you start saying it out loud, it helps you. The words start to carry you along, and it’s got that resonance to it.”

—Tim Brearley

The Simplicity and Elegance of the KJV

“We are concerned here with something that is spiritual, something that does not belong to this world at all. Human wisdom is of no value here. It is spiritual truth. Yet we are told that it must be put in such simple terms and language that anybody taking it up and reading it is going to understand all about it. My friends, this is sheer nonsense.

“What we must do is to educate the mass of the people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level. The common man is made to stand up to authority, he decided everything, everything has to be brought down to him. How do we do that with the Word of God? I say no. What we need, therefore, is no to replace the AV [Authorized Version, also called the King James Bible]. We need rather to preach and train people up to the standard, the language, dignity and the glory of the old AV.”

—Martin Lloyd-Jones

“Every sentence, nay, every word, must count. The spirit which animates the whole must inform every particle. There is no room for delicate shadings; the issues are too momentous, the concerns too press ion, to admit of introducing anything that can be spared. A volume is compressed into a page, a page into a line.

‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.’

‘Jesus wept.’”

—Albert S. Cook
The Authorized Version of the Bible and its Influence

“The translators of our Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any which we see in our present writings, which I take to be owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.”

—Jonathan Swift

“The authors of several boring translations that have followed over the last fifty years mumble that the KJV is ‘difficult,’ filled with long words. Have a look at the difficult long words that begin the Old Testament, and end the Gospels: 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

and

“Now, of the other things which Jesus did, if they should be written every one, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

— Charlton Heston, 
In the Arena: An Autobiography

The Foundation of the King James Bible

“The Bible is not only the foundation of modern English; it is the foundation of Anglo-Saxon civilization.”

—William Lyon Phelps

“Until you come to realize that we have an absolute authority, perfect and settled in the King James Version, you are not prepared to serve the Lord! It is a basic essential to Christian service.”

—Raymond Blanton, 1995

“From approximately 1700 to 1950, the King James Bible was the preeminent book in England and American in virtually every sphere of society that we can name — family, religion, church, politics, education, literature, art, and music. The foundation on which everything else rested was the influence of the King James Version on the English language.”

—Leland Ryken

“It is impossible to enslave a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.”

—Horace Greeley

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

—George Washington

The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.

—John Jay, first Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court

“The major problem in the Bible controversy is that many people in the pew and many in the pulpit do not understand that there are two Greek texts. There is the Traditional Greek Text, which can be traced right back to the beginning, and there is the modern Critical Text which was developed about 130 years ago. From the Traditional Text there is only one major English Bible translation, The King James Bible. From the Critical Text comes virtually every other modern translation. …It is not an issue of ‘Readability’ or a particular version you prefer, but one text is based on the true word of God and one is not.”

—Dr. David Sorenson

The Steadfast Endurance of the King James Bible

“Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. With their massora they kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They has special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty it was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity — scribes, lawyers, massorettes.

“A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put.

“No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such mass attack as the Bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet?

“The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions.”

—Bernard Ramm

Divine Revelation and Majesty of the KJV

“[W]e hold that the Translators enjoyed the highest degree of that special guidance which is ever granted to God’s true servants in exigencies of deep concernment to his kingdom on earth. Such special succors and spritual assurances are always vouchsafed, where there is a like union of piety, of prayers, and of pains, to effect an object of such incalculable important to the Church of the living God.

“The necessity of a supernatural revelation to man of the divine will, has often been argued in favor of the extreme probability that such a revelation has been made. A like necessity, and one nearly as pressing, might be argued in favor of the belief, that this most important of all the versions of God’s revealed will must have been made under his peculiar guidance, and his provident eye.

“And the manner in which that version has met the wants of the most free and intelligent nations of the old world and the new, may well confirm us in the persuasion, that the same illuminating Spirit which indicted the original Scriptures, was imparted in rich grace to aid and guard the preparation of the English version.”

—Alexander W. McClure,
Translators Revived

“The English Bible is still fresh and mighty, even if it has archaic or obsolete words. It has waxed old, but it has not decayed. Its youth abides, and the sun never sets on its sphere of influence. Many volumes have perished since it first saw the light; but its message is as modern as ever. It has not only kept up-to-date, it has anticipated every need of men, and still responds to every new demand.”

—William Muir,
Our Grand Old Bible

“It has the Divine touch, even in its diction, which lifts it above the limitations of locality and time, and makes it valid and living for all the ages.”

—William Muir,
Our Grand Old Bible

“The Authorized Version has often been called a well of English undefiled, and much of its purity is due to the fact that its water was drawn from the ancient springs. It has the universal note which gives it a place among the immortals.”

—William Muir,
Our Grand Old Bible

“The Bible is not a modern, human book. It is not as new as the morning newspaper, and no translation should suggest this. If the Bible were this new, it would not be the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible is an ancient, divine Book, which nevertheless is always new because in it God reveals Himself. Hence the language of the Bible should be venerable as well as intelligible, and the King James Version fulfills these two requirements better than any other Bible in English.”

—Edward F. Hills

“It is plain that there must be difficulties for us in such a revelation as the Bible has proven to be. If someone were to hand me a book that was as simple to me as the multiplication table, and say, ‘This is the Word of God; in it, [God] has revealed his whole will and wisdom,’ I would shake my head and say: ‘I cannot believe it; that is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom.’ There must be in any complete revelation of God’s mind and will and character and being things hard for the beginner to understand, and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.”

—R.A. Torrey

“Like a rare jewel fitly set, the sacred truths of Scripture have found such suitable expression in it, that we can hardly doubt that they filled those who made it with reverence and awe, so that they walked softly in the holy presence.”

—William Muir,
Our Grand Old Bible

Quotes about reading the Bible

“I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this Book that you can by reason and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man. It is the best Book which God has given to man.”

—Abraham Lincoln

“Read the Bible, and read it again, and do not despair of help to understand something of the will and mind of God, though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble yourself, though you may not have commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from man.”

—John Bunyan

“I was never out of my Bible.”

— John Bunyan

“So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.”

—John Quincy Adams,
Sixth President of the United States

“It will greatly help you to understand scripture if you note — not only what is spoken and written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstances, considering what goes before and what follows.”

—Miles Coverdale

“When the Bible itself becomes irksome, inquire whether you have not been spoiling your appetite by sweetmeats and renounce them; and believe that the Word is the wire along which the voice of God will certainly come to you if the heart is hushed and the attention fixed.” 

― Frederick Brotherton Meyer

“I am a man of one Book.”

—John Wesley

Living by the Word of God

“You might as well quit reading and hearing the Word of God, and give it to the devil, if you do not desire to live according to it.”

—Martin Luther

“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God — admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.”

—William Wilberforce

“The first three years after conversion, I neglected the Word of God. Since I began to search it diligently, the blessing has been wonderful. I have read the Bible through one hundred times and always with increasing delight!”

—George Muller

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” 

—A.W. Tozer

“Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we’re only talking about it.”

—Charles F. Banning

“The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means of bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in his presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God himself in the for and center of their hearts.”

—A.W. Tozer

“Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as he is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify him and bring him nearer our own image.”

—A.W. Tozer

Literary Impact of the KJV

“In all study of English literature, if there by any one axiom which may be accepted without question, it is that the ultimate standard of English prose style is set by the King James version of the Bible.”

—John Hayes Gardiner,
Harvard University

“Literary scholars have heaped praise upon it. Nineteenth-century writers and literary critics acclaimed it as the ‘noblest monument of English prose.’

“In a series of lectures at Cambridge University during the First World War, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch declared the King James Bible was ‘the very greatest’ literary achievement in the English language. The only possible challenger for this title came from the complete works of Shakespeare. His audience had no quarrel with this judgment. It was the accepted wisdom of the age.”

—Alister McGrath,
Historian

“There is no doubt in my mind that the King James Bible, not Shakespeare, set this language on its path to become a universal language on a scale unprecedented before or since.”

—Melvyn Bragg

“[The King James Bible] is still arguable the version that best preserves the literary effects of the original languages.”

—The Literary Guide to the Bible,
Harvard University Press

“It is unlike any other book in our language, and in charm and power is above them all.”

—Charles A. Dinsmore,
The English Bible as Literature