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The Most Popular Book of All Time [Infographic]

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Unsurprisingly, the most popular book of all time has an interesting history. With thousands of translations, over forty original authors, and a two millennium history, let’s take a look at the trails, tribulations, changes, and status of the world’s most popular book.

The Bible:

Date of Publication: 1500 BC to 100 AD
Authors: 40 authors over the period of 1600 years
Note: On average 1 author every 40 years.

How it Stacks Up:

(number of copies printed compared to other famous books)

The Bible: 6 billion+
Quotations from Chairman Mao: 800 million+
The Qur’an: 800 million+
Xinhua Dictionary: 400 million+
Le Petit Prince: 200 million+
A Tale of Two Cities: 200 million+
The Lord of the Rings: 150 million+
The Book of Mormon: 120 million+
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: 107 million+
And Then There Were None: 100 million+
The Hobbit: 100 million+
Dream of the Red Chamber: 100 million+
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: 85 million+
The Da Vinci Code: 80 million+

Books, Chapters and Verses

66 books*/ 1,189 chapters/ 31,102 verses

Shortest Book:
3 John– 1 chapter or 299 words.

Shortest Chapter: Psalm 117– 2 verses
Shortest Verse: John 11:35– 2 words, “Jesus wept.”

Longest Book:
Psalms–150 Chapters or 43,743 words

Longest Chapter: Psalm 119– 176 verses
Longest Verse: Esther 8:9– 90 words.
Longest Word: Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:3)

Fact: The Bible didn’t have Chapters until Cardinal Huge de S. Caro added them in 1238. Robertus Stephanus added verse divisions in 1551.

*in the Protestant canon

A Work in Progress

100 million+ new Bibles are sold yearly[6]
98% of the world’s population have access to parts of or the whole Bible

Number of translations to new languages in progress: 1,300[2]
Number of languages with New Testament translation: 1,185
Total number of languages spoken in the world today: 6,900
Equals 2485 languages in translation
And 4415 to go

Thousands of editions of the Bible have been printed, copied, or released.

Most Popular Translations:

ESV–
Word for Word: Yes
Based on Earliest Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts: Yes
Publication Year: 2001
NLT–
Word for Word:No
Based on Earliest Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts: Yes
Publication Year: 1995
NKJV–
Word for Word: Yes
Based on Earliest Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts: No
Publication Year: 1963
NIV–
Word for Word: No
Based on Earliest Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts: Yes
Publication Year: 1978
KJV–
Word for Word: Yes
Based on Earliest Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts: No
Publication Year: 1511

Most popular book infographic

Lauren Hunter
Lauren Hunterhttps://laurenhunter.net
Lauren Hunter is a writer who loves the big picture of God’s journey we are all on together. In 2007, she founded ChurchTechToday, a website for pastors and church leaders to harness technology to improve ministry. Married to her high school sweetheart, Lauren lives in Northern California with her husband and their four children. Her latest book is Leaving Christian Science: 10 Stories of New Faith in Jesus Christ. She can be found online at https://laurenhunter.net.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Cool infographic. There’s an unfortunate mistake for the KJV publication date, though: it was 1611, not 1511 that it was published. James wasn’t even born in 1511, and such a bible would have pre-dated the 1560 Geneva bible. No complete English bible existed in 1511.

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