The King James Bible – the bestselling book of all time and the most quoted book in the English language – is celebrating its 400th anniversary this year.

And the King James translation is hot.

Start with On Eagles’ Wings: The King James Bible Turns Four Hundred at New York’s Museum of Biblical Art (through October 16).

The exhibition [explores] the historic context in which the King James Bible was translated and published beginning with an examination of its predecessors, most notably the Bishop’s Bible sponsored by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568 and singled out as the model to which the translators commissioned by King James were to follow as closely as possible.

Then check out Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible,
at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., described by the New York Times this way:

[Y]ou will see not only manuscripts going back to the year 1000, an early translation from the 14th century, Queen Elizabeth I’s copy of the Bible, and imposingly bound versions of the King James; you will also sense the gradual birth of the modern English language and the subtle framing of a culture’s patterns of thought.

Sounds like fun, yes?