Thursday, November 23, 2006

the best selling Bible Translations

Rick Meigs posts the Nov 2006 list of Best Selling Bible Translations according to the Christian Booksellers Association:

Ranking Translation
1 New International Version
2 New King James Version
3 King James Version
4 New Living Translation
5 English Standard Version
6 Reina Valera 1960 (Spanish)
7 Holman Christian Standard Bible
8 New American Standard Bible update
9 The Message
10 New International Readers Version

For many years, I preferred the NIV in the Old Testament and the NASB in the New. Today I'm a diehard ESV guy - I love this translation.

I thought it was very interesting that the TNIV is didn't even make it to the top ten.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been enjoying The Message Bible for devo's. It flows like a novel.

Stephen said...

except maybe on the midterms!

:)

Anonymous said...

I love my ESV also. I do believe this is one of the first months where the ESV has been in the top 10 and the TNIV is not. Not sure what that tells us.

Wayne Leman said...

A recent ESV Bible blog post explains how the ESV jumped to the #5 position.

The TNIV has never been in the top 10 and may never be as long as it is being boycotted by many Christian bookstores, as called for by major church leaders.

R. Mansfield said...

If you look at the December CBA Bible list, the TNIV is on it for the first time coming in at #7 in the rankings. The ESV is #5.

To give this some perspective, the ESV did not show up on the list until December last year and it has been on and off the list (more off than on) since then. That means that the ESV, released in 2001 took three and a half years to get on the CBA top ten.

On the other hand, the TNIV, which was only released in complete form last year has hit the top ten in less than two years. That should say something about it's growing acceptance, which I fully support.