...echoing through the canon...

[T]he various inaccuracies and other inadequacies of the King James Version, though they justify a new translation, are beside the point when it comes to that version’s aesthetic power. The K.J.V. is so ingrained—its poetry has so completely seeped into the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world—that a new rendering, however valuable, is a vaguely disconcerting experience. In the four centuries since its completion, the K.J.V. has become our lives’ background poetry, its phrases and rhythms echoing through the canon, having been endlessly plundered by writers in search of a turn of phrase, or of a certain resonance unattainable elsewhere.

—Nathaniel Stein, "The Sun (Also) Rises: How Alter's New Translation Fares in Literature," posted on The New Yorker's The Book Bench blog (October 1, 2010)