This document discusses trends in how people engage with and read the Bible. It notes that while digital Bible reading has grown with new technologies, print Bibles remain very popular as people still desire holding the physical book. It also explores the many Bible translations available today and how retailers need knowledgeable staff to help customers choose the right translation for their needs. Finally, it discusses debates around Bible translations and ensuring they remain as true as possible to the original texts while being understandable for modern readers.

1. See new trends affecting the most important book you sell.
By Lora Schrock
How Do People Engage
With the Bible?
“The greatest joy of my first day on the
job in March 1969 was when I put a copy of
God’s Word into someone’s hands knowing
that their lives could be changed forever be-
cause of that one book,” says Steve Potratz,
president of The Parable Group and owner of
The Parable Christian Store (Arroyo Grande,
CA). “Today, that joy remains and it’s still
the central focus of everything we do.”
The Bible and Retail
Jim Armstrong, marketing director for An-
chor Distributors and Whitaker House,
thinks readers who want a Bible will make
the trip to a Christian retailer, “even custom-
ers who wouldn’t typically shop at a Chris-
tian store.”
And there’s no shortage of Bible readers.
According to the American Bible Society’s
State of the Bible 2015, 88 percent of U.S.
households own at least one Bible and more
than 60 percent of Americans want to read
the Bible more.
To match customers with the right trans-
lation, storeowners and frontliners need
tools such as the Bible Translations and Ver-
sions Chart included in this issue of CBA
Retailers+Resources.
“There are so many different [Bible] ver-
sions available today that there’s bound to be
confusion. It seems that the retailer is up-to-
date on the options, but the rest of the sales
staff isn’t always as well informed,” says Ort-
lund.
“It’s more difficult today to help someone
find the right Bible because of all the choices,
but that also is a blessing as people buy many
Bibles to broaden the scope of their under-
standing,” says Potratz.
Tyndale House Publishers Associate Pub-
lisher of Bibles Blaine Smith says great cus-
tomer service and knowledgeable staffers
make the difference in selling Bibles. “Bibles
are a complex and oftentimes confusing cat-
egory. The store associate’s expertise in help-
ing a guest find just the right Bible is a key
competitive advantage for Christian retail-
ers.”
While the popularity of reading Scripture
on tablets and using Bible apps has grown
with the development of new technology—
and has affected some portable Bible sales—
print Bibles aren’t going away.
“We’re thrilled Scripture is available like
never before, but by-in-large, people still
desire the feel of God’s Word,” says Doug
Lockhart, senior VP of Bible marketing
and outreach for Harper Collins Christian
Publishing. “What we believe to be the case
is that when there’s a need for portability,
Christian retailers are hardwired
to pair the right Bible with the
right customer. After all, God’s
Word is the cornerstone of the
Christian marketplace—a posi-
tion Dane Ortlund, Crossway
executive VP of Bible publish-
ing/Bible publisher, believes it
will always hold.
“While certain trends may come and go
as to how people engage the Bible, the Bible
itself is a perennial fixture in retail due to its
profound and unique spiritual value as the
very Word of God,” he says.
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online Bibles are an additive experience.”
“Certainly it’s easier to have 100 different
translations on your phone, but for taking
notes, Bible study, and just being able to hold
it in your hands, print Bibles will always be in
demand,” says Armstrong. “And if the pastor
is coming over to the house for a visit, which
is more impressive to have laying out on the
coffee table, an open Bible or your phone?”
The Bible and Culture
Over the last few decades, some new Bible
translations and paraphrases have raised
concerns that they’ve strayed too far from
the original texts.
In The Marketing of Evil, author David
Kupelian writes: “Rowan Williams, head
of the seventy-million-member Anglican
Church, enthusiastically endorsed a brand-
new version of the Bible that flatly contra-
dicts traditional core Christian beliefs on sex
and morality. Titled Good as New, the new
Bible was rewritten by former Baptist minis-
ter John Henson for the ‘One’ organization,
to produce what the group calls a ‘new, fresh
and adventurous’ version … Although Wil-
liams described it as a book of ‘extraordinary
power,’ he admitted many would be startled
by its content.”
While Bible translation teams can’t avoid
“working out of a certain cultural lens,” Ort-
lund believes they “must strive prayerfully to
keep as close to the meaning of the original
text as they possibly can, to minimize cultur-
ally influenced drift from the original mean-
ing. At the same time, the church is well
served by having Bibles available to them
from multiple translation approaches, from
those that are maximally transparent though
somewhat stilted to those that are free-flowing
and heavily interpretive.”
Andrew Hood, managing director of
communications for the American Bible
Society, says, “It isn’t the job of the transla-
tor to interpret the Bible. However, different
translators and translation organizations use
different approaches to select language that
is both faithful to the original text and mean-
ingful in its present expression.”
The result is different Bible versions hav-
ing supporters and detractors who are often
passionate in their opinions.
“Many churches in the Bible Belt have
never ventured off of the King James Only
plantation, while areas with a more lib-
eral culture will typically use paraphrases
or looser translations,” says Armstrong.
continued on page 26
Debate has always surrounded Bible
translations. The original Old Testament
was written mainly in Hebrew, with some
Aramaic, while the original New Testa-
ment was written in Greek.
Beginning as early as 250-200 B.C., the
Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek
by Jewish scholars in Egypt. Known as
the Septuagint, this translation also con-
tained books called the Apocrypha. Early
Christians differed over whether these
books should be considered Scripture
or not. Martin Luther spoke against the
Apocrypha; the Roman Catholic Church
convened the Council of Trent in the mid-
1500s at which they declared the Apocry-
pha to be canonical.
From circa 40 AD to about 90 AD, the
Gospels were written. In 397 AD, in an ef-
fort to protect Scripture from heresies and
offshoot religious movements, the cur-
rent 27 books of the New Testament were
formally canonized in the Third Synod
of Carthage. By 500 A.D., they had been
translated into multiple languages, includ-
ing an Egyptian version, a Coptic version,
an Ethiopic translation, and an Armenian
version. John Wycliffe produced the first
hand-written, English-language Bible
manuscripts in the 1380s.
A Brief History
Even with multiple translations available online, people still prefer holding a Bible in their hands.
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Bible Trends + + + +
continued from page 24
“Versions that have modern language
and are easy to understand are doing
very well. Many newer translations are
very true to the original texts while
being transcribed in a way that we
communicate without archaic termi-
nology that we don’t use or under-
stand today.”
Communicating in a way that ap-
peals to contemporary readers is im-
portant, but that doesn’t mean retail-
ers should expect to see “friend” re-
placed with “BFF.”
“Certain idioms and slang in cur-
rent English may not fit the serious
matters that the Bible talks about …
Moreover, translators should avoid
using idioms that might quickly dis-
appear from the language: by the time
a translation is published, the trans-
lator’s ‘hip’ idiom might sound quite
outdated,” says Douglas Moo, chair of
the committee on Bible translation for
the NIV.
Associate Bible Publisher for
Zondervan Bibles Melinda Bou-
ma says academic discoveries as well
as changes in the language influence
translations. “We continue to invest in
the resources and academics that sup-
port the [NIV].”
Because Bible translation projects
need people with skills in a number
of disciplines, Hood feels a team ap-
proach is essential. “Expertise in the-
ology, language, local culture, project
The church is well-served by having Bibles available to them from multiple transla-
tion approaches.
The church is well-served by having Bibles available to them from multiple transla-
The CBA Best-Seller and category top-seller lists, includ-
ing best-selling Bibles, are available at cbanews.org/
category/bestsellers and in CBA Retailers+Resources.
• NIV“The NIV is the version that pio-
neered and set the standard in the 20th
century for a translation philosophy
that can be described like this: creat-
ing a translation that simultaneously
enables readers or listeners to hear the
Bible as it was originally written and
understand the Bible as it was originally intended.”—
Hans Combrink, VP of global translations, Biblica
• NLT“The Bible translation committee
of the NLT has been committed from
the beginning to provide a reliable
translation from the best available
original texts into the natural English
we speak in America today. The goal
was to create a translation that spoke
in the heart language of the reader. Since its publica-
tion, these translation principles have extended to
Spanish, German, Afrikaans, Chinese, and the soon-
to-be-released Portuguese editions.”—Blaine Smith,
associate publisher, Bibles, Tyndale House
• ESV“The ESV was created out of the
conviction that there was a need in the
evangelical church to have an essen-
tially literal, word-for-word translation
of the Bible in the classic stream of the
King James Bible. The RSV had been
fitting this need in the latter half of the
20th
century, but there was a certain theological bias
reflected in the translation of some key verses. The
ESV was executed for the sake of providing a Bible
maximally transparent to the original languages yet
also dignified in style, suitable for personal and public
reading, useful for close study, and ideal for memo-
rization. I should add that overarching the decision
to produce the ESV was Crossway’s conviction that
this was an unignorable calling from God to serve the
church in this way.”—Dane Ortlund, executive VP of
Bible Publishing/Bible Publisher, Crossway
• HCSB“The goals of this translation are
to provide English-speaking people
across the world with an accurate, read-
able Bible in contemporary English; to
equip serious Bible students with an
accurate translation for personal study,
private devotions, and memorization;
to give those who love God’s Word a text that has
numerous reader helps, is visually attractive on the
page, and is appealing when heard; to affirm the au-
thority of Scripture as God’s Word and to champion its
absolute truth against social or cultural agendas that
would compromise its accuracy.”—Introduction to
the Holman Christian Standard Bible
Top Translations
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03.16 | CBA Retailers+Resources 27The Official Magazine of CBA
management, and technology is required to
produce a Bible translation.”
Bible translations can be mapped on a
“continuum ranging from a focus on the
source language and culture of the ancient
world to a focus on the target language and
culture of the modern reader, with many
variations in between,” says Hans Combrink,
VP of global translations at Biblica. “The cul-
tural and temporal gap between the world of
the biblical text and the world of the reader
necessitates a thorough understanding of the
original cultural context of the biblical world
as well as the cultural context of the modern
reader.”
The Bible and New Versions
Publishers consider many factors when de-
ciding to produce a new Bible version, in-
cluding what has been selling, “input from
consumers, the publishers, sales or customer
service staff, and research of trends in the
market,” says Armstrong.
Serving the church “trumps and controls
other motives” when creating a Bible, says
Ortlund.
“When Bible publication done in service
to the church begins to morph into prolif-
eration of niche Bibles, questions should be
asked about what’s driving such prolifera-
tion,” he says. “At the same time, it’s wonder-
ful to be able to provide meaningful helps
for specific target audiences to understand
the Bible better and engage the heart more
deeply.”
“We’re constantly looking for ways to
make Scripture accessible in a fresh way,”
says Tyndale’s Smith. “Sometimes this means
adding extra-biblical content in the form of
devotions or study notes and helps. In every
case we’re looking to point the reader back
to Scripture.
“Our development process begins with an
overview of the Bible category and searching
for unmet needs. Life events, level of spiri-
tual maturity, and demographic/psycho-
graphic trends all play a part in evaluating
whether a concept will be accepted by retail-
ers,” he says.
Bouma notes that Zondervan’s NIV Beau-
tiful Word Bible and the NIV Cultural Back-
grounds Study Bible, releasing in August, are
examples of how new Bibles can be “very
different in nature [while] both illuminate
God’s Word.”
“People who grew up with one version,
such as the KJV, love it and that’s great,” says
Lockhart. “Other people may want a more
modern feel. People have different needs in
different seasons of life.”
Glenn Paauw, VP of Bible engagement at
Biblica, believes the current trend of narra-
tive Bibles is important in seeing the “big
story” of the Bible.
“Because people think of their lives in
terms of stories, it’s a tremendous gift …
that God has presented His revelation as the
true story of the world,” he says. “It gives us a
place to find the real meaning of our lives—
we’re meant to fit into God’s greater drama.
We’ve had plenty of piecemeal reading of
little bits of the Bible. It’s essential that we
come to know, to understand, and then to
enter into this saving narrative.”
Ortlund notes the emergence of journal-
ing Bibles last year and the growing popular-
ity of reader’s editions that strip out chapter
and verse numbers and headings.
“Another trend that we’ve observed inter-
nationally … is a hunger for sound teaching
materials such as study Bibles, and even an
increasing desire for word-for-word transla-
tion that is transparent to the original text
and also conducive to translation into their
own regional languages,” he says.
“Wherever Christians are growing in their
faith,” he adds, “they want the Bible itself, in
a trusted translation, giving them the very
words of God.” R+R
With more than 20 years in magazine and book
publishing, Lora Schrock is the owner of Edito-
rial Answers, LLC, www.editorialanswers.com.
Niche Bibles can help specific audiences understand the Bible better and engage the heart more
deeply.
Niche Bibles can help specific audiences understand the Bible better and engage the heart more
About the Bible Chart
With so many Bible translations available,
remembering the differentiating features
of each can be challenging. The CBA
Retailers+Resources chart provides a quick
overview and visual of the primary trans-
lations used in the CBA market.
Formal equivalence and dynamic (or
functional) equivalence are the two pri-
mary classifications on opposite ends of
the translation continuum, with Bibles
falling all along the line and many having
elements of both. Formal equivalence—
also called word-for-word or form-based
translation—stresses an accurate transla-
tion of the words and structures of the
original languages. Dynamic equiva-
lence—also called thought-for-thought or
meaning-based translation—emphasizes
the meaning and concepts of the original
languages. A paraphrase can be either
a rewording of an existing translation in
the same language (e.g., The Living Bible)
or a free translation (e.g., The Message).
For more information, see each transla-
tion’s preface. Reading level indicates the
text’s approximate grade level (year and
month). Year released refers to the com-
plete Bible, unless indicated otherwise.
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