What Are the Most Popular Verses in the Bible?
Running a Bible search website means that we collect a lot of raw data about what verses people are looking at. A few months ago we crunched the numbers and came up with some stats that you might find interesting.
Searches for specific passages comprise about 90% of queries on the ESV site; word searches account for only about 10% of queries.
Query Distribution
The below chart shows all the verses in the Bible plotted against how many times people see each verse. Note the spikes around John 1, 1 Corinthians 13, Genesis 1, and Romans 1.
Romans Query Distribution
The above chart can appear a little overwhelming. Below is a breakdown for Romans in which you can clearly see that certain chapters (1, 3, 8, 12) and verses (8:28, 1:16, 3:23, 12:2) stand out over others.
Chapter Popularity
Prefer to see things at the chapter level? The below chart shows the number of times that people have seen each chapter in the Bible. You can see peaks at Romans 8, Matthew 5, John 1, and Genesis 1. Conversely, you can see valleys at Ezekiel 15, Psalm 134, Jeremiah 47, and Psalm 114.
Chapters Seen in Their Entirety
The below chart shows what percentage of the time a chapter is viewed in its entirety, as compared to just seeing a few verses from the chapter. The data range from high (85% of people see Psalm 1 in its entirety) to low (11% of people see Jeremiah 29 in its entirety; almost everyone just looks at Jeremiah 29:11).
Book Popularity
This last chart shows how popular each book is when controlling for the book’s length (the Psalms get more views than Jude in part because it’s a much longer book). The most popular books by this measure are Ephesians, Philippians, and Romans. The least popular books are Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Hosea.
Most Popular Verses
So, what are the most-viewed verses in the ESV? Here are the most popular verses (including complete chapter views):
- John 1:1, 1:13, 1:12, 1:14, 1:3, and the rest of John 1 dominate the list
- 1 Corinthians 13:4, 13:13 and the rest of 1 Corinthians 13.
- Genesis 1:26, Genesis 1:1, and the rest of Genesis 1
- Romans 1:16 and the rest of Romans 1.
- John 3:16
Here are the most popular verses excluding complete-chapter views, which should give a better sense of popular verses:
- John 3:16
- Proverbs 31:10 and following. We speculate that these verses appear because people often only look at part of this chapter.
- Matthew 5:27-30, concerning adultery. Verse 30 is the most popular of the four verses.
- Romans 8:28
- Romans 3:23
- Genesis 24:27
What are the least-viewed verses? Not surprisingly, they’re pretty obscure. At the time of our analysis, no one had looked at the following verses except as part of their complete chapters. (We’re introducing statistical noise by linking to them here.)
- Numbers 31:25
- Joshua 15:24, 15:40, 15:42, 15:50
- 1 Samuel 30:28
- 1 Chronicles 8:37
- Ezekiel 22:17
Methodology
Some of the above charts include “complete chapter views.” We separated out queries that looked at partial chapters and queries that looked at complete chapters to minimize noise if a chapter were particularly popular.
Download the Excel file (6.6MB) containing the data and charts (including some we don’t show here) and do some exploring yourself.
December 21st, 2005 at 11:07 am
[...] The ESV Bible blog offers a glimpse into which chapters and verses get viewed most often through their website. Spoiler: John 3:16 ain’t #1. [...]
December 21st, 2005 at 2:45 pm
[...] The ESV Blog reports on their research into what the most popular verses in the Bible are. They use their Bible search website data to come up with the result and have blogged it here. [...]
December 26th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
[...] The ESV Bible Blog has posted the results of some number crunching based on searches that have been run for specific words and verses. The results show a definite preference for the books of the New Testament: [...]
December 31st, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Bible Searching
The ESV blog posts some statistics (with nice graphics) of which passages have gotten the most searches and views at their site. Some of it’s pretty interesting. What’s sad is that Jeremiah 29, a wonderful chapter, gets viewed pretty much…
January 3rd, 2006 at 9:18 pm
[...] Although I am pretty much a HCS Bible guy I do have a quite a bit of respect for the English Standard Version. With that said, did you know there is an ESV Blog. Well up until a few moments ago I didn’t. This is a link to a post I found interesting discussing the Most Popular Verses in The Bible. Although it is very interesting, it is of course biased toward the individuals that use the ESV. It is no surprise that in nearly all divisions Romans 8 is in the list if not topping it. [...]
January 18th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Yesterday i got a copy of the New Testament Index by Robert G. Bratcher. This slim volume (only 37 pages) is nothing more than what the title suggests: “a guide in locating passages in the New Testament dealing with a wide range of
January 18th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
What Are the Most Popular Verses in the Bible?
January 18th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
The ESV Bible Blog has the statistics of how people search the Bible. If you’re keen, you can download a 6Mb Excel file of the data and charts.
January 18th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
From the ESV Bible Blog:. Running a Bible search website means that we collect a lot of raw data about what verses people are looking at. A few months ago we crunched the numbers and came up with some stats that you might find
January 18th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
The ESV Bible site has a on-line ESV translation, search, and other goodies for looking at the ESV Bible. They also keep track of what people look at. If you’re curious about what is read check it out at the ESV Bible Blog.