For One Week Only: King James Bible

2011 apparently marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. To mark the occasion, the BBC made a bit of a splash last week with a sequence of three forty-five minute documentaries fronted by James Naughtie on the commissioning, translation and legacy of the bible. These were followed by 7 hours of readings from the King James Bible made by the great and the good of the acting professions and introduced by well-known luminaries of literature and history.

For five days more, the whole lot is available from the special BBC King James Bible site and on the iPlayer. You can also download the readings (in twenty minute chunks) as a Podcast episodes which you can download to keep forever.

I’m not religious, but this is nonetheless a great listen for lovers of English and History and the podcasts are a great resource.

Apparently there’ll also be a series of documentaries on BBC 4 soon.