Nearly 2 Billion Bible Passages Spread Worldwide in 4 Years

Almost two billion portions of the Bible were distributed worldwide between 2015–2019, according to the latest figures by United Bible Societies. The world population is 7.8 billion.

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One in eight of 1.8 billion Scriptures distributed last year was a Bible. Annual distribution of complete Bibles has increased from more than 34 million in 2015 to nearly 40 million in 2019. Almost a quarter of Bibles distributed in 2019 were digital downloads, compared to 17% digital in 2018. Regions such as Asia, Central and South America, Europe and the Middle East all saw an increase in the number of full Bibles distributed—primarily because more people are using the internet to download Scripture (59% of the world’s population are active internet users).

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• Oceania, which includes countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, tops the list for the largest proportion of full Bibles distributed. Four out of every five Scripture items provided was a full Bible.
• Nearly 3.7 million Scriptures specially designed for children were distributed in 2019, with the largest number (1.27 million) provided in Africa, the continent with the world’s biggest youth population.
• More than 4.5 million booklets for adults learning to read and write were provided in 2019, the majority in Central and South America.
• Bibles with the deuterocanonical books, used by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox communities, were distributed globally; 1.7 million in 2019.

[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, The Bible Table of Contents]

More than 18.3 million full Bibles—46% of the global provision—were distributed in only five countries. Between them, UBS teams serving in Brazil, China, USA, India, and Nigeria distributed one full Bible every two seconds throughout 2019. Brazil topped the list with 7.7 million Bibles distributed. One in five Bibles provided around the world were in Brazil; Sociedade Bíblica do Brasil continues to provide more Scripture than any other on the planet.

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One in five full Bibles provided in 2019 was Spanish, and the overwhelming majority of these were in Central and South America. A further 6.5 million full Bibles were in Portuguese—two-thirds of these were distributed in Brazil. The most widely-spoken language in the world, Mandarin, accounted for 3.5 million Bibles—just under 10% of the global full Bible distribution.

[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Bible Translation Organizations]

The UBS Fellowship continues to be the largest translator and distributor of Scripture on the planet; around 70% of the world’s full Bible translations have been provided by Bible Societies.

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