Orthodoxy is given form by language, and language is always in motion. This essay uses the history of the 1611 King James Bible to examine the tension between the fundamental Protestant conviction that the Bible ought to be made available in the ‘vernacular’ – that most mercurial, evanescent form of language – and the long-standing Christian (and pre-Christian) impulse to place certain texts into holy stasis. Protestantism’s emphasis on religion of the heart, and prayer in one’s own native tongue, naturally meant that in England the Bible in use shifted from the Latin Vulgate to translations in English. Yet the desire of the faithful to have the ‘word of God’ fixed and unchanging remained. Out of the many Reformation-era English translations the King James Bible came to be dominant, a victory which rested not only on its monumental prose but on its ability to serve as a successor to the Latin Vulgate, a universal translation that did not appear to be a denominational weapon. The essay argues that over the following centuries the King James Bible became in effect a new English Vulgate, a pillar of orthodox teaching and practice acquiring something close to inspired status. The very fact of its language being left behind by everyday usage gave it the opportunity to achieve universal relevance by transcending its own cultural context. We see in Gebarowski-Shafer’s study another glimpse at the diversity, cross-channel influences and global reach of English national religion.