How many words are in the Bible? The King James Version contains about 783,137 words, the figure most often cited for the 66-book Protestant Bible. Modern English translations are usually shorter: the NIV has roughly 728,000 words and the ESV about 757,000, because each count depends on the translation, the edition and how words are counted.
Counting the words in the Bible sounds like a question with one answer. It isn't, and the reasons are interesting in their own right. This guide gives the counts for the main English translations and the original languages, explains why they differ, and shows how long each testament and book is.
How many words are in the Bible?
The best-known figure is 783,137 words for the King James Version, along with 3,116,480 letters (The King's Bible). You'll find it repeated in study Bibles, quiz books and websites.
Other careful counts of the same translation come out slightly higher. One comparison of KJV, NIV and ESV texts put the KJV at 790,678 words (Bible Memory Goal), and readers who have run their own counts report totals such as 788,258 and 789,617 (WordCounter.net). Differences of about 1% like these most likely come down to which printing was counted and how the counting tool splits words.
Bible word count by translation
Here are counts for the three translations with published book-by-book figures, plus the original languages. All are for the 66 books of the Protestant canon.
Version | Total words | Old Testament | New Testament |
|---|---|---|---|
King James Version (KJV) | 783,137 to 790,678 | 610,296 | 180,382 |
English Standard Version (ESV) | 756,846 | 581,112 | 175,734 |
New International Version (NIV) | 727,993 | 551,742 | 176,251 |
Hebrew and Greek originals | About 445,000 | 306,757 (Hebrew) | 138,162 (Greek) |
Testament splits for the English versions come from Bible Memory Goal, which uses the 790,678 KJV total. The original-language figures come from Wikipedia's statistics of the Hebrew Bible and a Greek New Testament count cited by NeverThirsty.
Why Bible word counts vary
No two sources agree to the word, and that's expected. Five things change the total:
Translation approach. Some translations follow the original wording closely; others aim to express the meaning in natural modern English, and translators often convey the same meaning in fewer words (Read. Engage. Apply.).
The underlying text. Translators work from different editions of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Some verses found in the KJV are placed in footnotes in several modern translations (Wikipedia), which removes them from the main word count.
The edition and printing. Different printings of the same translation can differ slightly, which is one reason KJV counts range from 783,137 to over 790,000.
What counts as a word. Hyphenated names, possessives and numbers can be counted as one word or two, depending on the tool.
Which books are included. Catholic Bibles have 73 books and Protestant Bibles 66 (Wikipedia), so a Catholic edition is longer. Eastern Orthodox canons are larger again.
None of this means one number is right and the others wrong. It just means that a Bible word count is always a count of a particular edition, and it's worth saying which one when you quote it.
How many words are in the Old and New Testament?
The Old Testament is by far the larger part. In the King James Version it has about 610,000 words across 39 books, and the New Testament about 180,000 words across 27 books. Put another way, the Old Testament makes up a little over three quarters of the Bible's text.
Interestingly, the gap between translations is mostly in the Old Testament. The NIV's New Testament is within about 4,100 words of the KJV's, while its Old Testament is about 58,500 words shorter.
How many words are in the original Hebrew and Greek?
The Hebrew Bible has about 306,757 words, of which the Torah, the first five books, accounts for 79,980 (Wikipedia). The Greek New Testament has about 138,162 words, built from 5,437 different words (NeverThirsty). Together that's roughly 445,000 words, far fewer than any English translation.
Part of the reason is grammar. In Hebrew, short words such as "and", "the", "in" and "to" are written as prefixes joined to the next word (Prefixes in Hebrew), so "and the king" is a single written word. Counting methods that split those prefixes off produce much bigger totals: a count based on the Lexham Hebrew Bible and the Nestle-Aland Greek text puts the originals at more than 600,000 words (OverviewBible).
How many pages are in the Bible?
There's no single page count, because it depends on the edition, the font size, the paper and whether the Bible includes study notes. Most printed Bibles run roughly 1,000 to 2,000 pages: compact and thinline editions sit at the low end, study Bibles with commentary at the high end.
Word count gives a steadier comparison. At about 500 words per page, the usual figure for 12-point single-spaced text, the King James Version's 783,137 words would fill about 1,570 pages, or about 3,130 pages double spaced. That's the same arithmetic our Words Per Page Calculator uses for any document.
How many books, chapters and verses are in the Bible?
The Protestant Bible has 66 books. In the King James Version those books contain 1,189 chapters and 31,102 verses (The King's Bible).
Part | Books | Chapters | Verses |
|---|---|---|---|
Old Testament | 39 | 929 | 23,145 |
New Testament | 27 | 260 | 7,957 |
Whole Bible (KJV) | 66 | 1,189 | 31,102 |
The chapter and verse numbers weren't part of the original texts. Modern chapter divisions follow a system devised by Archbishop Stephen Langton in the early 1200s, and Robert Estienne added numbered verses to the New Testament in his 1551 Greek edition. The first English Bible to use both was the Geneva Bible of 1560 (Wikipedia).
That's why verse counts vary slightly too. Jewish editions of the Hebrew Bible number some Psalm headings as verses, giving them more verses than Christian editions of the same text.
Longest and shortest books of the Bible
By word count in the King James Version, Psalms is the longest book at about 43,700 words, just ahead of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The shortest is 3 John, at 294 words, with 2 John close behind at 298 (Bible Memory Goal).
The ranking shifts with the translation. In the NIV and ESV, 2 John comes out shorter than 3 John, at 302 and 300 words. In the original languages, Jeremiah is the longest book (33,002 words) and 3 John the shortest (219 words) (OverviewBible). Other short books include Philemon (430 words in the KJV), Jude (608) and Obadiah (669), the shortest book in the Old Testament.
Longest and shortest verses and chapters
Longest chapter: Psalm 119, with 176 verses.
Shortest chapter: Psalm 117, just two verses.
Longest verse: Esther 8:9, at 78 words in the KJV.
Shortest verse: John 11:35, "Jesus wept", two words in the KJV.
All four come from The King's Bible. The same source counts 12,143 different English words in the KJV. On average a KJV verse is about 25 words long.
How long does it take to read the Bible?
Adults read non-fiction silently at about 238 words per minute on average (Brysbaert, 2019). At that pace the King James Version takes about 55 hours. Read aloud, it takes much longer.
Version | Silent reading (238 wpm) | Read aloud (155 wpm) | Per day for one year |
|---|---|---|---|
KJV (783,137 words) | 54.8 hours | 84.2 hours | About 9 minutes |
ESV (756,846 words) | 53.0 hours | 81.4 hours | About 9 minutes |
NIV (727,993 words) | 51.0 hours | 78.3 hours | About 8.5 minutes |
Professional recordings are faster than an average reader aloud. Alexander Scourby's well-known narration of the complete KJV runs to 72 hours (Scourby Bible), which works out to about 181 words per minute.
If you're planning to read through the Bible in a year, the arithmetic is kind: 1,189 chapters over 365 days is just over three chapters, or about 2,150 words, a day. For more on how reading speed turns into time, see how long it takes to read 1,000 words.
How does the Bible compare with other books?
At around 783,000 words, the King James Bible is as long as eight to eleven typical novels, which usually run 70,000 to 100,000 words (see our guide to how many words are in a novel). Printed in a standard manuscript layout of about 500 words per single-spaced page, it would fill roughly 1,570 pages. Real Bibles fit it into fewer, using thin paper, small type and two columns; the Words Per Page calculator shows how font and spacing change a page count.
Want to count a passage yourself, such as a chapter you're memorizing or a reading for a service? Paste it into the Word Counter to get the word count, reading time and speaking time instantly. Nothing you paste leaves your browser.
Frequently asked questions
How many words are in the King James Bible?
About 783,137 words, the most widely cited count for the 66-book King James Version. Other counts of different printings range up to about 790,000 words.
How many words are in the NIV Bible?
About 728,000 words (727,993 in one book-by-book count). It is shorter than the KJV because it uses more compact modern English.
How many words are in the New Testament?
About 180,000 words in the King James Version and around 176,000 in the NIV and ESV. The Greek original has about 138,000 words.
What is the longest book in the Bible?
Psalms, with about 43,700 words and 150 chapters in the King James Version. In the original languages, Jeremiah has the most words.
What is the shortest book in the Bible?
3 John, with 294 words in the King James Version. In some modern translations, such as the NIV and ESV, 2 John is slightly shorter.
How many verses are in the Bible?
31,102 verses in the King James Version: 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New Testament. Verse counts vary slightly between translations.
How long does it take to read the whole Bible?
About 55 hours at an average silent reading speed of 238 words per minute. Reading about 9 minutes a day gets you through it in a year.
What is the shortest verse in the Bible?
John 11:35, "Jesus wept", which is two words in the King James Version.
How many pages are in the Bible?
Most printed Bibles have about 1,000 to 2,000 pages, depending on the edition, font size and study notes. In a word processor, the KJV's 783,137 words would fill about 1,570 single-spaced pages.
Sources
The King's Bible. King James Bible Facts and Statistics.
Bible Memory Goal. How Many Words are in the Bible? Full Comparison.
WordCounter.net. How Many Words Are There in the Bible?. 2015.
Wikipedia. Statistics of the Hebrew Bible.
NeverThirsty. How many words are in the Greek New Testament?.
OverviewBible. How long are the books of the Bible? (Word count chart).
Wikipedia. Prefixes in Hebrew.
Wikipedia. Biblical canon.
Wikipedia. Chapters and verses of the Bible.
Wikipedia. List of New Testament verses not included in modern English translations.
Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109.
Scourby Bible Media. Scourby Bible App.
Read. Engage. Apply. Did the NIV Delete 64,575 Words?.
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