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I am writing a memoir and want to use some quotes from the King James Version Bible. Will this be considered Public Domain because of the age.

Thank you

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  • Welcome to the site. We already have a question that is almost identical to yours. Check it out and see what you can glean from it.
    – fredsbend
    Feb 14, 2014 at 1:05
  • Welcome to the site! This next has nothing to do with the quality of your question, it's just standard to help new visitors avoid misunderstanding the site (as I did at first.) As a new visitor, I'd recommend checking out the following two posts, which are meant to help newcomers "learn the ropes": help page and How we are different than other sites?
    – David Stratton
    Feb 14, 2014 at 1:45
  • The linked answers rightly say that the KJV is public domain except in the UK. However, even in the UK it is perfectly fine to quote from the KJV (within certain, generous limits) if you give attribution to the rights holder ( cambridge.org/bibles/about/rights-and-permissions ). The same is true of most copyrighted Bible translations.
    – rjpond
    Oct 8, 2022 at 22:41

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Yes, it will. Quote away, without fear of being attacked for not footnoting what you are quoting.

In the Wikipedia article on the KJV, you'll find the following: "The Authorized Version [i.e., the KJV] is in the public domain in most of the world."

In your memoirs, just make sure your quotation corresponds to the correct chapter and verse. A personal pet peeve of mine is the frequency with which I go to the reference provided in a writing and fail to find the verse that is quoted and cited.

On the plus side, however, that kind of erratum makes me appreciate all the more the miraculous job performed by generations of faithful and meticulous scribes and transcribers who all did their part in providing us with the Bible we have today. PTL!

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