In The Beginning There Was The Bestseller

With More Translations And Versions Available, The Bible Continues To Be A Publishing Phenomenon

(CBS)  To the Christian faithful, the Bible is the absolute, incontrovertible word of God. For centuries, the Good Book has been celebrated, revered and wielded by men and women of the cloth.

Today, the sacred text is being sold in an assortment of designer colors.

In the beginning, there was the King James Bible: 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses — usually bound in sober black leather. The King James Bible was the English language standard for more than 400 years.

Bibles used to be made and sold in limited quantities. But in recent years, more translations and versions have become available. The demand for new and different Bibles grew, and publishers looked upon the Bible market and saw that it was good.

Simply put, the Bible is pretty much the best-selling book of the year — every year.

"The Bible always sells well," Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, told Saturday Early Show anchor Tracy Smith in an interview for Sunday Morning. "If it were a traditional book, we'd call it a backlist blockbuster, because it sells year after year after year — and it's been selling for 2,000 years. So it's not necessarily the top 10 on people's top 10 lists of sales in any given year, but it is a consistent seller."

"It's the best seller of all times," Abyssinian Baptist pastor Dr. Calvin Butts said. "It has to be. It's got everything you would want in a book: sex, violence, intrigue, mystery, the supernatural — it's all here."

In the book business, consistency pays: In 2006, sales of the Bible — in all of its different versions and translations — amounted to nearly half a billion dollars worldwide. Not bad for a book that many potential customers already have.

"Well, it's amazing that people seem to have an unquenchable thirst for having more than one Bible," said Rolf Zettner, who runs the Christian book publishing house, Faith Words, "that people aren't content to have just the one Bible that they have on the coffee table or on the bookshelf. But they seem to want to have several copies of Bibles. And so I've seen statistics as high as 10 — 10 Bibles in an average household. So it does have the opportunity for a publisher such as ours to look at ways to be that second, third and fourth Bible in the home."

The notion of owning several Bibles is relatively new: For more than 400 years, the King James version was the first — and for many, the only — Bible.

"Now of course many scholars and others will laugh at me when I say this, but it just sounds more like the Bible to me when I read the King James Version," Dr. Butts said. "It's what I was raised on."

The formal language of the King James had always been a stumbling block for some readers, and in September 1966, an alternative was created with today's English version, known as "Good News for Modern Man," published by the non-profit American Bible society.

"Well, I think it was huge," Nelson said. "I think it was maybe the beginning of the democratization of Bibles — and at the beginning of the understanding that there were a lot of different ways you could publish a Bible."

[godin6]

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

Richard Dawkins



some of You religious types really believe
we athiests are going to hell.

This would be funny if it were not so sad.

Here we are in the 21st century and there are so many narrow minded people who still believe in superstitous nonsense.

If there is a personal god he is not the god of the bible. That God is violent and immoral.
If you think the old testament is bad but the new is good.Well, Jesus disagees.
Jesus said He had come to fullfill the old testament not the go against it.


Anybody following the bible literally today
would be in jail for murder.
that's because the bible is filled with cruelty and barbaric laws....


If You still choose to believie in the bible...

well then you should not pick and choose
what to believe..

But follow it all to the letter...

Otherwise it is you who will risk going to hell for disoberying the word of your God.

[bmsbms29]

As to the Truth in the Bible - God's Word. You can study the Bible & memorize it from front to back BUT unless you are led by the Holy Spirit you won't understand it. You need your ears to hear & your mind to understand and ONLY God's Holy Spirit can do this for you.

God opens His Word to us by the Holy Spirit & by our belief in Him. I accept the Word of God because I believe & because I believe all that is written. Some scriptures to be taken literally, some you must understand what is being said.

But the Bible does hold the Truth AND the Truth Will Set You Free!!

We will all die & we will all stand before God - what is your belief and where will you be sent - Heaven or Hell! God is a Just God & yes there is a Hell.

[jimsand82]

It's apparent by the comments that there is a lack of undertanding and knowledge in the general population as to what scripture is meant to be. There are at least two approaches that one must take toward the Bible.
1. Faith based which is believing that there is something there ( based on a hx of existence )

2. Research and study (Find out what it is) The answers are there if one wants to know them.

[gddiii]

You're right, godin6, there is no "proof."

Empirically or scientifically, there certainly is none.

As attorney, if I had to prove God's existence or "truth" of the Bible as a whole in a court of law by a preponderance of admissable evidence, my client would lose.

Nor, as in the popular movie of a few years ago, Contact, could the character played by Jodie Foster prove that her dead father had loved her.

Perhaps you find life lived cynically to be more meaningful and full and find truth only in those things that are tangible and accessible to your personal perception and experience. I don't. I do fid an interesting commonality in the limited, limiting thought processes of narrow minded athiests/agnositcs and narrow minded religionists.

[godin6]

Well giddii How do you know
what is true and what is a lie in the bible?
There is NO WAY you can make a distinction without some kind of proof, And there is NO proof.

Your suffering froma bad case of denial and wishful thinking. I went through it myself.
I was brought up christian...brain washed from birth...but I glad to be free of it now.

The bible is total BS the sooner you understand it
the better off you will be.

Enjoy the here and now because this is all you GET
What else is there to say.

Think for a moment about the concept of hell
..your soul would need some kind of body in order to experience PAIN. It doesn't make any sense.

[wleman]

Interesting article. The Bible version used by Denzel Washington and others in The Bible Experience is the new Today's New International Version. It has received a fair amount of press since it was completed in 2005. A few of us are trying to set the record straight about this fine translation of the Bible, at the TNIV Truth blog: http://tnivtruth.blogspot.com

[bjeis]

I realize this was an Easter story, but it was also the sixth day of Passover, and the Bible certainly belongs to Jews as well as Christians. Never was the Hebrew Bible mentioned. Not one rabbi was quoted, nor was anyone from The Jewish Publication Society interviewed, although they are constantly publishing new Bibles. What ever happened to the People of the Book?

[gddiii]

(continued)But I approach every biblical passage with open eyes and without fear of asking honestly simple questions that one intelligently asks of any writing, like "Who wrote this?," "To whom were they writing?," "What was the social, political, personal or other context in which they were writing?," "Why were they writing this?," "What else did they write, and how does this compare?," "How is this consistent or inconsistent with other things in the Bible, and what are reasonable explanations for inconsistencies (whether that means that seeming inconsistencies can be harmonized or not)?" In the end, while I cannot take every single passage in the Bible and simplistically declare it to be %u201Cliteral truth directly from God,%u201D taken as a whole there is in the Bible as a whole, in the words of biblical translator J.B. Phillips, a %u201Cring of truth%u201D that runs from the opening lines of Genesis to the conclusion of Revelation.

[gddiii]

No, godin6, I do not accept the theory of Paschal's wager, which is a very limited way of approaching faith, but one to which literalism forces many who cannot blindly believe things that do not make sense in the world of experience and logic, so they declare belief as a way of accommodating to what they think is the "safe" position to protect themselves from damnation. That's the problem with literalism. It's yes or no, black or white. My view is one of both such absolutes and of things beyond human grasp in which I have made a leap of faith. I can live with a Bible that is rich and full of truth inspired by the contact of people of faith in their encounters with the divine and, as a Christian, specifically with their encounters, both earthly and spiritual with Jesus Christ. (continued)

[max_grandeur]

I am one who takes the Bible literally in Its entirety, unless the text indicates a passage is to be taken figurativly.

[vadcl]

Here's an idea for a follow-up to your 04/08/07 story regarding all the re-publishing styles of The Bible.
As was stated in your story, publishing companies are making big money on the many forms of The Bible they are publishing. My questions is; Do the publishing companies donate any of the profits from reprinting The Bible (in its many various forms) to ANY worthwhile causes or do they just pocket the profits?
I just thought it would be interesting to know?
Thank you for your consideration of this follow-up story idea.
Just curious,
Vera Crockett
(A long time viewer)

[godin6]

Giddi in addition
I think you should refrain from ad-hominid

lastly what parts of the bible do you take literally and which are just figurative and who decides this?

thanks

[mauicasmall]

Regarding you segment on "Bible Road" - I'm thinking Mr. Fentress might want to go to Maui, Hawaii and take the road to Lahaina. Just before entering Lahaina, on the "old" road, there is a church with a sign..."Jesus Coming Soon". I grew up on Maui and often our family would drive to Lahaina and onto Kapalua's Fleming's Beach and my brothers and I would ask Dad..."how soon?" Well, that was in the 50's and 60's. I recently went to Maui with my husband, and sure enough, the sign is still there..."not soon enough!" Thank you for a wonderfully refreshing program!!!

CA Small, Oro Valley, AZ

[godin6]

Being an agnostic does not mean you should believe in any crazy thing.

As such the bible provides no scientific explanations is full or errors and contreadictions and such.

Therefore Giddii is just rephrasing Pascal's wager.

Giddii is a "non literal" bible believer
Which is sadly representative of the majority of believers.

The bible should be taken literally if NOT then you ARE NOT a believer.

You can't have it both ways

[kp74]

I thought it funny that they often showed the King James version of the bible. People must know he changed 75% of the bible by adding some and taking out what he didn't like.
It amazes me that every detail of every even is written yet no shred of physical evidence is left. There is plenty left from Greeks, Romans, Egyptians even Druids yet they wrote very little down...Makes ya think?

[gddiii]

(Continued) Most thinking people of the Christian faith find in their Bible (as for thinking Jewish people in their Tanakh, including the Torah and other sacred Hebrew scriptures, thinking Islamic people in their Koran, etc.) writings passed down through the millennia that reveal a kaleidoscope of glimpses of the Eternal worthy of thought, study, contemplation and prayer by those using the Bible as a guide and resource for more meaningful life and a grasp, however imperfect, of ultimate truths beyond mortal existence. Although the noise is made by the religious fundamentalists of various faiths with their narrow and limited views both of scripture, of their faiths and of the world in general, more intelligent people of faith regard as preposterous, shallow and intellectually dishonest the fundamentalists' rationalizations of the internal contradictions, mythology, allegory and other elements of scripture that defy the multiple historic, real contexts and purposes of the people who wrote them. Taking the Bible seriously does not necessarily require taking it literally; indeed it requires the opposite.

[gddiii]

Arrogant, narrow-minded atheists, like arrogant, narrow-minded Christians, divert the conversation about the Bible to a place that has little to do with sensible faith or intelligence in general.

Contrary to the shallow religion of biblical literalists who treat the Bible as the inerrant word of God and the shallow atheism of others who likewise think that is the exclusive or even dominant way that the faithful view the Bible, there is the alternative of rational, intelligent believers who know that the mysteries of God are unreachable by human thought and perception. (continued)

[wleman]

The Bible version used for the script of wonderful dramatized "The Bible Experience" is Today's New International Version (TNIV), an accurate Bible translation carefully made by competent biblical scholars. You can read more about it at our blog, TNIV Truth: http://tnivtruth.blogspot.com.

[godin6]

These comments are basically...sad, very sad.
Minds filled with such hate

You mean the minds of the faithful...
I dare not count how many have died in reliogous wars


....on a holy day, no less.

What makes a day holier then another?



If you don't believe, fine, don't, but spare your venom against those of us who do.

It's called a blog buddy...You are free to not read my posts..freedom of speech goes along with freedom of religion. I don't stop anybody from beliving...I just state the facts...people make their own decisions

[godin6]

I am filled with love for the truth
the beauty of life, the beauty of this world and the universe

I have only disgust for a book
that claims to be the word of god
but is full of stupidity, errors, contradictions,
prejudice and so on

once again
if the god of the bible is real
then prove it

There is no proof only faith
which requires non-thinking and brainwashing