Popularity
The Christian Booksellers Association list the most popular versions of the Bible sold by their members (in the US). In 2007 the New International Version was the most popular, followed by the New King James Version and the King James Version More current data can be found in the External links section, which typically reflects the above rankings.
Amazon lists the top ten in current sales in the USA (as of 8/17/2009) to be the NAB, NRSV, NIV, KJV, The Message, NASB, NLT, RSV, The Amplified Bible, and the Orthodox Study Bible.
Sales are affected by denomination and religious affiliation (e.g. the most popular Jewish version would not compete with rankings of a larger audience). Sales data can be affected by the method of marketing. Some translations are directly marketed to denominations or local churches, and many 'Christian Booksellers' only offer Protestant Bibles, so Catholic and Orthodox Bibles may not appear as high on the Christian Bookseller's Association rank.
Read more about this topic: English Translations Of The Bible
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)