I still can't find a version of the Bible that contains Maccabees 1 and 2, Enoch and all the other books that should be in it but aren't, AND is not dumbed down into some kind of Valley Speak.
Joking aside, the KJ Bible isn't hard to read, at all, if you're English and can cope with regional accents. Nor, for that matter, is the Wycliffe Bible - if you can read Chaucer you can read Wycliffe.
There'll be a Gideon Bible in my hotel tomorrow, and Good News Bibles are easy to get hold of.
I think this story's being overplayed. America has dozens of different versions of the Bible in common use but there's only about three versions in mainstream circulation in the UK. You can get hold of more obscure ones if you want, or regional translations, but there's a bit of a "pub quiz" element to knowing the differences between the NKJV and the AKJV. By that I mean it's more likely to come up in a pub quiz than anywhere else.
Bible development should definitely be covered in the curriculum because of its historical importance, but then again, I also think the Wycliffe version in particular should be covered alongside the King James and Douay-Rheims versions, since it predates them both and is therefore - arguably - of greater significance as a historical marker.
***I still can’t find a version of the Bible that contains Maccabees 1 and 2, Enoch and all the other books that should be in it but aren’t, AND is not dumbed down into some kind of Valley Speak.***
Go to your Bible bookstore and look for a copy of the KJV Apocrypha. If they don’t have one in stock they can order it.