King James Version -- 257 idioms discussed by David Crystal, Oxford U. (new book BEGAT)

reviewed in WorldWideWords dot-org website:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/re-beg1.htm

Whenever you hear phrases such as the salt of the earth, a man after our own heart, let there be light, two-edged sword, how are the mighty fallen, rod of iron, wheels within wheels, get thee behind me, Satan, new wine in old bottles, a voice crying in the wilderness, a fly in the ointment, you are hearing echoes of the prose of the KJV.

As David Crystal makes clear, however, these are not quotations but idioms based on allusions. They have entered the language, to the extent that their biblical origins have become obscured and they are used as often by non-believers as believers. They have become so fixed a part of the way we speak that — like gird your loins — they are frequently adapted for humorous effect.
He discusses each allusion in turn, illustrating it with usages old and new. There is for me too great a whiff of Google in the modern examples he has found from book titles, song lyrics, comic strips, newspaper headlines, social networking, even porn. But the results of his searching illustrate the depth of our familiarity with the words of the KJV, even if we often don’t know it.
But we mustn’t make too much of it. David Crystal discusses 257 idioms altogether. Though he notes that this number is greater than for any other source, including Shakespeare, in only 18 cases is the exact form found in the KJV; in the rest, the ultimate source is an earlier translation, or in a few cases the common stock of English expressions that predates Biblical translations. And he makes clear that he has restricted himself to discussing idiom, not direct quotation, stylistic influence or innovative vocabulary.

David Crystal, Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language, published by Oxford University Press.