High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third official translation into English; the first having been the Great Bible commissioned by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII, and the second was the Bishop's Bible of 1568. In January 1604, King James I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England.