It is a fascinating journey to watch the trends of Bible translations, particularly the sales and presumed popularity of each translation. These trends often reflect cultural shifts, changes in religious practice, and the evolving language needs of Bible readers. For sales and rankings, we used the information of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). The ECPA gets its data from Circana Bookscan which receives sales information from reporting retailers.
Neither ECPA nor Church Answers imply that the reporting of this information to be an endorsement of any one translation. But I will offer my commentary specifically on the King James Version (KJV).
First, let’s look at the sales rankings of the top ten translations for 2021 and 2022. ECPA offers monthly rankings but, for the purpose of this analysis, I will use full-year data. I include a brief description of each translation.
2022 Rankings (2021 in parentheses)
1. New International
