Joan Begitschke, director of marketing for Tyndale, said that in the short time since its release, "The Book" has become the third-best-selling edition, after the King James and the New International Version. "The Book" has clear print, a single-column format and an index of basic themes and "Great Bible Stories" to help readers get the basics quickly and easily. In March, Tyndale launched an edition simply called "The Book," the fruit of a seven-year project by 90 scholars to render the Bible into "understandable English." "I have a hard time with it," Dzurovcik said. Even pastors find the Shakespearean-era language tough slogging. Little wonder: Most of the time, people read the King James Version, still the favorite Bible by a 5-to-1 ratio even though its phrasing is as impenetrable as it is gorgeous. The other big obstacles seem to be the daunting size of the Bible and its dense language.Ī large majority-80 percent-say the Bible is confusing. Bush, who famously cited Jesus as his favorite political philosopher, also cited Franklin's adage as the Christian basis for his policy of "compassionate conservatism."Īccording to a survey by Tyndale House Publishers, 64 percent of Americans don't read the Bible because they're too busy. The poll also found that 80 percent of born-again Christians believe it is the Bible that says, "God helps them that help themselves."Īctually, Ben Franklin said that. For example, despite the talk about how important the Ten Commandments are to the moral health of American society, six out of 10 Americans can't name half of them, much less in order.Ī 1997 Barna Organization poll found that 12 percent of Christians think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. The evidence from Gallup and several other surveys, many by publishing houses, makes that clear. Worse, Gallup said, the percentage of people with a college education has more than tripled since 1935 "but the level of biblical knowledge appears to have hardly budged." Gallup, the nation's foremost pollster on religion, has put it: "We revere the Bible, but we don't read it." "The Bible is the best-selling, least read and least understood book." "Biblical illiteracy is rampant even though so many people seem to be getting into the Word," Dzurovcik said, using a popular term for the Christian Scriptures. They say that compared with a generation ago, they have to spend far more time explaining common Bible stories to listeners, instead of teaching about what the stories mean for their lives. Last month, another Gallup Poll showed that the number of people who read the Bible at least occasionally has dropped to 59 percent from 73 percent in the 1980s.Īnd that makes things tougher for pastors. Although polls show that a sturdy minority of Christians, perhaps 15 percent, participate in Bible studies and that at least 20 million Bibles are sold each year, in addition to tens of millions that are distributed free, Bible reading is declining. Dzurovcik, a pastor for 28 years, recently made his own small effort to encourage Bible reading, posting this adage on the church's sign: "A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to a person that isn't."īut such persons are growing rarer. Andy Dzurovcik, of Faith Lutheran Church in Clark, N.J. "It's the real dumbing down of America, in that sense," said the Rev. The Bible, it seems, is the book that everyone wants to read but few do. One Gallup survey, for example, shows that fewer than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis), only one-third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (many named Billy Graham, not Jesus), and one-quarter do not know what is celebrated on Easter (the Resurrection, the foundational event of Christianity). It is also widely and frequently hailed as the underpinning of American values.Īnd yet even as the nation painstakingly closes the book on an election in which the candidates quoted the Bible as often as their party platforms to woo voters, Americans are showing themselves to be remarkably ignorant of biblical basics. It is the Bible, also known as "the Good Book," and it remains unrivaled as the world's all-time bestseller. Two-thirds say it holds the answers to the basic questions of life, and the next president-whoever he is-will take a solemn oath on it, eventually. About 92 percent of Americans own at least one, and the average household has three.
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