Part way through this history of the King James Bible, Gordon Campbell turns his attention from the 17th century to our own age. "It would be difficult now," he writes, "to bring together a group of more than 50 scholars with the range of languages and knowledge of other disciplines that characterised the KJV translators. We may live in a world with more knowledge, but it is populated by people with less knowledge."

Campbell's book demonstrates that this conclusion is depressingly accurate. The King James Version was, first and foremost, an unbelievable feat of scholarship: its translators were fluent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Ethiopic, as well as being expert theologians and Bible historians. It was also an organisational feat, which brought together Britain's leading scholars in tiers of companies and committees, and which entailed a concerted effort by cohorts of printers, typesetters and bookbinders.

But the story of the King James Version is also a political story, about a monarch determined to assert his authority by setting his seal on every Bible in the land. There had been English translations of the Bible before the King James Version, produced by the likes of William Tyndale, who was condemned by Thomas More for "discharging a filthy foam of blasphemies out of his beastly brutish mouth", and who eventually burned at the stake for his efforts. The King James Version, however, was a state project, which celebrated the King as its God-like "principal mover and author". Rules were drawn up for massed teams of experts to follow, and factions formed and rivalries festered as scholars in Oxford, Cambridge and London raced to outdo each other. When the King James Version was eventually published, those academics who had been denied a slice of the action rushed to condemn it in print. One particularly bitter reviewer thought the translation so hopeless it should be burnt, and another loftily dismissed it as a botched rehash of older versions.

Despite some dissenting voices, the King James Version was a huge success. Today it is the all-time bestselling book in the English language, and in 2011 it will have been continuously in print for 400 years. Gordon Campbell's "affectionate biography" has been published to mark this anniversary alongside a new edition of the Bible itself. Both are published by Oxford University Press, one of the King James Version's original printers. Campbell is an academic treading a delicate line between book history and storytelling, and at times dry textual detail predominates. Yet he remains fully aware of the dangers of this, and successfully makes the case for his own scholarly rigour. A section titled "Punctuation", for example, acknowledges that the prospect of such a discussion "may make the reader's eyes glaze over", but also notes that "the issue has long been a battleground, and cannot be ignored, though it can be treated with merciful brevity".

There are enough good anecdotes in Bible to compensate for the occasional discussion of punctuation and paragraphs. In the 18th century, new editions of the King James Version were notable mostly for the errors introduced by drunken printers' employees, who were quite capable of rendering "parable of the vineyard" as "parable of the vinegar", earning one edition the sobriquet "Vinegar Bible". Other 18th-century King James detractors pointed to the already ludicrous obscurity of its language. In 1759 Matthew Pilkington published a greatest-hits of the most ridiculous bits, including the remarkable "Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and makes kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls".

In fact, the language of the King James Version was archaic even by 17th-century standards. Its translators may have been very brilliant, but they were also conservative and slightly out of touch, and Campbell is sceptical about the notion that their translation had a long-lasting impact on the English language. It was certainly the means by which various 16th- and 17th-century expressions, such as "salt of the earth" and "at their wits' end" survived through the centuries, but Campbell's account shows that the importance of the King James Version does not rest on its linguistic legacy. It enabled 17th-century men and women to read the Bible in their own language, it remains at the heart of the English-speaking Christian tradition, and today it continues to be celebrated as one of the great works of English literature. For Gordon Campbell, though, its significance is finally more personal. "It is the King James Version that has been loved by generations of those who have listened to it or read it to themselves or to others; other translations may engage the mind, but the King James Version is the Bible of the heart."

Daisy Hay is the author of The Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives (Bloomsbury)