The English language we speak today is the result of changes over time going back hundreds of years. There was a point at which if one wanted to hear or read the Scriptures, it was in something other than English. The mere act of trying to produce a Bible in English was risking ones own life. The KJV translators mention this trouble in their message to the readers.
The documentary below is primarily concerned with a history of the English language, but in this episode it picks up with the story of translating the Holy Scriptures into English, leading to what we know today as the King James Version.
The Adventure of English, episode 3
I have heard some suggest that since the more modern KJV Bibles differ in the English being used from the original 1611 version, this is evidence that the "Bible has been changed". The language may have changed, but God's Word has been preserved. This cannot be said for others such as the NIV, ESV etc with verses missing and rearranged to suggest a different meaning.
The KJV came about at a time when several confluent efforts were underway, one of which was a standardization of the English language itself. One interesting point mentioned in the documentary that there was a point at which English differed depending on what part of the country you were in. It was only under the consolidating efforts of the King when he made it known that official documents would only be in English, rather a myriad of other languages, namely French. This helped consolidate the variances in the English language itself so that when the efforts began to translate the Scriptures into English, there was a consistent language to use. The result speaks for itself.
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