The Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible (KJV)has been the de facto English LDS Bible since the very beginning of the Restoration. The initial reason for this is simple: The KJV was the Bible of American Protestantism in the nineteenth century and was therefore Joseph Smith’s Bible. For example, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery used an 1828 KJV to begin work on the Inspired Version of the Bible, known by Mormons as the “Joseph Smith Translation” (JST).