Next year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. The Baylor-based Institute for Studies of Religion will be hosting a conference on April 7th-9th.
So far, the conference organizers have confirmed the participation of quite an impressive list of historians and theologians, including Mark Noll, Philip Jenkins, N. T. Wright, Alister McGrath, and David Bebbington.
From the conference website:
Major conference themes will include the way that the King James Bible created a common literary and religious culture in the English-speaking world; the significance of vernacular translation for Christian growth and development; and the challenges posed by recent declines in biblical literacy and the end of the King James’s dominance as the Bible translation for English-speaking Christians.
So mark your calendars and clear your schedules! To quote one of my professors, this is “arguably the Christian academic conference of the upcoming year.”
[...] the four-hundredth anniversary of the King James Version rapidly approaching, one can hear legions of scholars drawing their pens from their scabbards, [...]