How Many Translations Are There?
The Bible is now printed in 310 languages. Most of us are not even aware that the world has that many languages. But that is not all. The New Testament is printed in an additional 695 languages. And at least one book of the Bible, usually one of the Gospels, has been translated and published in another 902 languages. With these 1,907 languages, 97 percent of the world’s population has at least one book of the Bible to read. Most of these translations have been done in the last thirty years. The surge in Bible translation started in the last century. At that time, the major Christian churches did most of their own translating, with little cooperation among themselves. In this century, a much more cooperative effort to publish and distribute Bible translations has developed. Furthermore, the trend has been to have native speakers be the translators. Today, the largest Bible-promoting organization is the American Bible Society. Though not the oldest society, it counts over a million contr
