5 Most Popular Best Selling Bible Translations in 2018

Published on March 7, 2018 at 6:25 am by Vana Filipovski in Lists

Which are the most popular best selling Bible translations in 2018, you must wonder? Let’s find out!

In the world, there are basically over hundreds of different translations of the Bible to English language, and each version can be analyzed in different ways. So, we have a literal translation, which is a word-for-word translation from Greek and Hebrew to the English language. The other option is thought-for-thought translation, which put the emphasis on the importance of the meaning of the translated sentence and the context of the whole text. Based on these differences, people have their own preferences. As we cannot agree on tastes, it means there is no universal agreement of what is the best Bible translation. However, if you want to know which are the top 5 most accurate Bible translations, we suggest you to give a glance at our previous article on 5 Best and Most Accurate Bible Translations According to Scholars.

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On the other hand, there are also easiest Bible versions to read and understand for beginners. Among those on the top of the list are the New International Version and New American Standard Bible. Also, there are some translations that are trusted by people the most, as they are unbiased. If you want to know which ones they are, check out the 6 Unbiased Most Literal and Trusted Bible Translation in Circulation. We are not gonna discover everything! When it comes to the most popular Bible versions, we can divide them by the year, because that is how it varies. For example, the most popular or top selling Bible translations in 2016, according to the Rose Publishing, were the New International Version and the King James Version. In the year 2017, the top selling Bible translation was the Christian Standard Bible updated in the same year, according to the Bible Sources.

In order to create our list of the top bible translations in 2018, we checked resources such as the Christian Book Expo, ThoughtCo, Calvary Chapel Eastside Church and Bible Sources for the most repeated suggestions. Then by creating that list, we checked if they are considered to be the best-sellers on the Amazon and ranked it in that manner. We made a little comparison with the best selling Bible translations in 2017, and, trust us, the results don’t differ much. In any case, our list goes from the “least popular” best seller to the most popular one. Enjoy!

5. English Standard Version

English Standard Version or EVS for short, is an English translation of the Christian Bible. It represents a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version. The words and phrases were borrowed from the Tyndale-King James legacy. This translation belongs to the group of literal translations that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text without putting behind the personal style of each Bible writer. This is one of the reasons why it is among the bestsellers on our list.

4. Christian Standard Bible

Fourth on our list of the most popular best selling bible translations in 2018 is Christian Standard Bible or CSB. It is a modern English Bible translation of the Christian Bible published in March 2017. It represents a revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) from 2009 edition. It was developed by 100 scholars from 17 denominations, which is why it is among the most sold Bible versions. It is readable, clear and at the same time, original.

3. King James Version

The King James Version (KJV) ranks third on our list of most popular Bible translations in 2018. It is also known as the King James Bible (KJB) or simply the Authorized Version (AV). It is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England whose first edition was translated in 1611. It is very popular edition especially among the youngest, what is partially the reason of being on our list of the most popular best selling bible translations in 2018.

2. New Living Translation

New Living Translation, or NLT, is a translation of the Bible into modern English. It was originally published as a revision of The Living Bible, the project which evolved into a new English translation from Hebrew and Greek texts. First edition was published in 1996, while revisions came after in 2004 and 2007. In 2014, it was the second most popular English version of the Bible based on unit sales. We could see its position didn’t change since.

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1. New International Version

On the top of our list of the most popular best selling bible translations in 2018 is New International Version (NIV). This translation is an English translation of the Protestant Bible. Its publisher and the copyright holder is Biblica, the worldwide publisher. It was first published in 1978 but then updated in 1984 and 2011. Currently is number one bestseller Bible translation, according to our calculations.