First of all, thank you to those that took the survey. This blog is relatively new, so I'm pleased with the steady growth in traffic and interaction on different posts.
Over the last year of so, I have taught middle school kids and occasionally adults. In the past, I have primarily used the NIV as my translation of choice. But during this last year, I have used a number of translations. While the English Standard Version (ESV) has become my go to version, I enjoy using youversion.com and switching versions on a particular passage. This helps me better understand the verse or section.
My primary purpose for the survey was to see what others use and why. Now I'm going to share that with you in a few posts. Today, I'll share with you the raw results for respondent's favorite version and second favorite version. In future posts, I will also share why people chose certain translations, which versions were preferred by which sex, etc.
As I said, this blog is new, so I only had 35 people take the survey. Out of those 35, here are the raw totals.
| Version | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1522 Geneva Version | 1 | 2.86 |
| Amplified Bible (AMP) | 1 | 2.86 |
| Contemporary English Version (CEV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| English Standard Version (ESV) | 7 | 20.00 |
| Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) | 3 | 8.57 |
| King James Version (KJV) | 2 | 5.71 |
| Message (MSG) | 1 | 2.86 |
| New American Standard Bible (NASB) | 1 | 2.86 |
| New Century Version (NCV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| New International Version (NIV) | 6 | 17.14 |
| New King James Version (NKJV) | 3 | 8.57 |
| New Living Translation (NLT) | 8 | 22.86 |
| New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) | 1 | 2.86 |
| Revised Standard Version (RSV) | 1 | 2.86 |
In addition to the versions listed in the original survey, respondents added the following versions as their preferred version:
- 1522 Geneva Version
- Amplified Bible (AMP)
- New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
- Revised Standard Version (RSV)
What I found interesting was that there was no clear "runaway" winner. There were a number of strong favorites. What I did find surprising – to me at least – was that the New Living Translation (NLT) was the #1 translation. One thing I believe is important to point out is that I did see quite a number of hits to the blog from Tyndale House Publishing which publishes the NLT. This is not to taint the #1 ranking, but just to be transparent. I didn't see any traffic from other publisher domains to the survey.
Actually, I expected the NIV to come in as #1, but it still came in at #3. My favorite, the ESV, came in at #2.
Now, on to the SECOND favorite translation. A few people skipped this question, so there aren't as many respondents. Also, I should have had a question for people to enter their preferred version instead of an "Other" entry.
| Version | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1522 Geneva Version | 0 | 0.00 |
| Amplified Bible (AMP) | 0 | 0.00 |
| Contemporary English Version (CEV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| English Standard Version (ESV) | 3 | 8.57 |
| Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) | 2 | 5.71 |
| King James Version (KJV) | 2 | 5.71 |
| Message | 1 | 2.86 |
| New American Standard Bible (NASB) | 1 | 2.86 |
| New Century Version (NCV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| New International Version (NIV) | 16 | 45.71 |
| New King James Version (NKJV) | 4 | 11.43 |
| New Living Translation (NLT) | 2 | 5.71 |
| New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| Revised Standard Version (RSV) | 0 | 0.00 |
| Other | 1 | 2.86 |
Results for the Second Favorite version were quite a bit different. The clear winner in this category was the New International Version (NIV) with 45.71% of the vote.
After looking at the results, was there anything that surprised you? What comments do you have?
