A question about the King James bible.

[SimonBridges]

I am not a Christian but I went to a C of E school and have had a broadly Christian upbringing.

Anyway, the version of the bible I am most familiar with is the King James. Any quotes I use come from the King James Version.

Now I got to thinking today, are there versions like that which are so popular in other languages? Do other langagues have versions which endure as the KJ version has or do they just update with the language.
Are we unusual for sticking to such an old fashioned translation?

I don't know the answer to your question, it's an interesting one! Like you, I went to a C of E primary school and Bible quotes I remember are in the language of that version. Now, however, I use a variety of translations for different reasons:
Not really sure what's going on? I read The Message to get the gist.
Applying its teaching to modern day life - Joyce Meyer's Amplified and NIV Life Application Bible
Churches I have attended as an adult use NIV and The Story . These other translations/paraphrases weren't around when I was a child. I still go back to KJV for sheer beautiful language, but I wouldn't say I've stuck to it.

I’d forgotten I’d asked this question.
As an atheist I’ve not read the bible in years but the KJV is so ingrained in my psyches that quotes in anything else sound wrong.
I can’t cope with modern versions of the Lord’s Prayer.

I was on holiday when you asked it, but thought I'd answer, albeit belatedly! My friend has a list of all the everyday sayings that originate in the KJV Bible - it's very long!

One thing I wonder about is whether sayings such as "It's not cast in tablets of stone" will last.

Thanks for the kind gesture @Niminy, I can't get that link to work though.

There appears to be a pervasive, unwritten rule that the older the text the more accurate it is. KJV happens to be one of the earliest versions translated into modern English and split into verses (not THE earliest, but one of) so it sort of makes sense that the English speaking world would stick to that version.

Kjv was written in antiquated language even at the time.
I'm wondering if a similar phenomenon happened in French or German.

Wow the Lutheran version was 'updated' in 1984. How odd.

you may find this interesting, OP. There's an awful lot of stuff in Wikipedia about the bible.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_in_the_Middle_Ages

According to Wikipedia it's the same in German: "The most influential is Luther's translation, which established High German as the literary language throughout Germany by the middle of the seventeenth century and which still continues to be most widely used in the Germanic world today."

The most widely used version in France is the Bible de Jerusalem. It was translated in the mid-20th century. It's much more accurate than the equivalent English Jerusalem Bible.

Interesting about the German version.