A stunning work of scholarship, the Norton Critical Edition of The English Bible, King James Version is the most accessible edition available. These volumes offer succinct introductions to each book, detailed explanatory annotations and a wealth of contextual and critical materials. Archaic words are explained, textual problems are discussed and stylistic features of the texts are highlighted. Judicious and economical, the introductions and annotations to the Old Testament give readers without Hebrew an entry into complexities of biblical literature, reconstructing its original contexts, tracing its evolution and pointing out productive strategies of reading. Incorporating the insights of modern scholarship as well as centuries of pre-critical interpretation, they offer essential guidance to a labyrinthine world while respecting the text's integrity. For the New Testament and the Apocrypha, the introductions and annotations provide necessary historical and cultural background, while at the same time illuminating the complexity of the original texts. Time lines, chronologies, diagrams and maps are included.