I'm an old-timey guy in that it takes me awhile to come across stories sometimes. Especially if they're published by the BBC. I don't know about you, but steam ships just don't seem a reliable way to communicate across the Atlantic anymore.
Well, it seems the BBC reported a little while ago that the bible--the King James Bible, specifically--has greatly influenced the way modern individuals speak. So much so that linguist David Crystal suggests in his book (Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language) that there are 257 phrases from the King James Bible used in modern English chit-chat.
Not that the King James Bible necessarily created those phrases. Just that it popularized them. The King James Bible itself coined, according to scholars, 40ish new words, including backsliding and battering ram. Experts say this all had to do with the English language evolving at this time. Shakespeare, writing around the same time, similarly influenced language. He created about 1,000 new words.
Half of which, to this day, still make no sense whatsoever to American high schoolers.
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