Thursday, March 01, 2007

Bible rankings

The CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) has released their March figures for sales of Bibles in their stores during January.
Their Bible sales ranked as:
1 King James Version
2 New International Version
3 New Century Version
4 New King James Version
5 New Living Translation
6 English Standard Version
7 Holman Christian Standard Bible
8 New American Standard Bible update
9 The Message Eugene Peterson
10 Reina Valera 1960 (Spanish)

What is most obvious from this is that the Authorised Version remains the bestseller in the USA. It also noteworthy that the ESV has not managed to supplant even the New King James or New Living Translation. It is also notable that the TNIV has dropped off the list for this particular month. It is sad, however, that The Message, which is a particularly bad and dangerous paraphrase should be in competition with translations, albeit that many of these have paraphrastic qualities themselves.