<\/p>\n
Just shy of half of Americans have read at least 50% of the Bible, but only a quarter qualify as \u201cactive\u201d Scripture readers, according to just-released data.<\/p>\n
The American Bible Society surveyed 2,649 U.S. adults from Jan. 8-27 and found 48% of Americans said they have read half the Bible or more, including 17% who said they\u2019ve read the entire Bible. Another 17% said they\u2019ve read most of the Bible and 14% said they\u2019ve read about half the Scriptures.<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Thirty-five percent of respondents said they have read \u201ca little\u201d of the Bible, while 7% admitted they are \u201cnot sure\u201d how much of Scripture they have read.<\/p>\n The new data suggests the 2025 spike in Bible reading has subsided.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we saw an uptick in Bible reading in the United States, Bible sales increased, [and] we heard discussions about revival,\u201d John Farquhar Plake, editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series for the American Bible Society, said in a statement. \u201cBut this year, Bible use and Scripture engagement have generally returned to 2024 levels.\u201d<\/p>\n It should be noted the ABS describes \u201cactive Bible users\u201d as those who \u201cuse Scripture at least once per week,\u201d outside of church services, while classifying \u201coccasional Bible users\u201d as those who read the Bible three to four times a year.<\/p>\n A plurality of Americans (42%) never use the Bible, with 13% using it less than once a year and another 7% said they read Scripture once or twice per year.<\/p>\n U.S. adults curious about the Bible \u2014 those often considered to be part of the \u201cmovable middle\u201d \u2014\u00a0make up about 28% of the population, an uptick of about 9 million since 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cThough Scripture engagement has come back down, the number of Americans who are interested in and open to the Bible has swelled by 9 million people over the last two years,\u201d Plake said. \u201cBible Curious Americans tell us that they would welcome someone to guide them through the complexity of the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just shy of half of Americans have read at least 50% of the Bible, but only a quarter qualify as \u201cactive\u201d Scripture readers, according to just-released data. The American Bible Society surveyed 2,649 U.S. adults from Jan. 8-27 and found 48% of Americans said they have read half the Bible or more, including 17% who<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[972,45,1234,1560,9019,1109],"class_list":{"0":"post-27288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-americans","9":"tag-bible","10":"tag-heres","11":"tag-read","12":"tag-readers","13":"tag-scripture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}