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The King James Version (KJV), also referred to as the King James Bible and the Authorized Version, is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I. The 80 books of the KJV include 39 books of the Old Testament, 14 books of Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

Noted for its "majesty of style," the KJV has remained in continuous use for over four centuries, exerting more influence on English literature and Christian thought than any other English Bible translation. Its phrasing has been credited with shaping not only hymnody and liturgy, but also the idioms of everyday speech used in the English-speaking world. It is considered one of the important literary accomplishments of early modern England. The original KJV is a 17th-century translation and thus contains a large number of archaisms and false friends—words that contemporary readers may think they understand but that actually carry obsolete or unfamiliar meanings—making understanding the text difficult for modern readers, even pastors and preachers trained in formal theological institutes. While the 1611 text reflects Early Modern English usage, subsequent standardisations—most notably the 1769 Oxford edition and the more recent 1900 Pure Cambridge Edition—have made the KJV considerably more accessible to later generations. Many scholars note that its sentence structure is often clearer and more direct than some modern versions, despite occasional obsolete vocabulary.

The King James Version was the third translation into English approved by the Church of England. The first had been the Great Bible in 1535, and the second had been the Bishops' Bible in 1568. Meanwhile in Switzerland, the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible in 1560, which proved more popular among the laity. However, the footnotes represented a Calvinistic Puritanism.

King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, responding to Puritan grievances outlined in the Millenary Petition. At this conference, a proposal for a new English translation of the Bible was presented, aiming to address perceived issues in existing versions. King James issued directives to ensure the translation adhered to the ecclesiology of the Church of England, reflecting its episcopal structure and doctrines, including the belief in an ordained clergy. Notably, translators were instructed to avoid marginal notes whenever possible, a feature in the Geneva Bible that had been criticised for promoting Puritanical and anti-monarchical sentiments. For the New Testament, the Textus Receptus was utilized; the Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Text; and the Apocrypha was rendered from the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate.

By the first half of the 18th century, the King James Version had become effectively unchallenged as the only English translation used in Anglican and other English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the 18th century, the KJV supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible had become the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769, and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text.

In surveys of English-speaking Christians, the KJV frequently ranks among the most read and memorised translations, with many citing its literary cadence and faithfulness to the original texts as reasons for its continued preference.