Bible Numbers and Statistics

Some numbers and statistics taken from careful analysis of the Bible both Old and New Testament including figures on the words, verses, and so forth.

Super Bible Statistics

Herewith some of the Bible statistics produced by Dr. Thomas Hartwell Horne:

Old Testament New Testament Total

Books 39 27 66

Chapters 929 260 1,189

Verses 23,214 7,959 31,173

Words 593,493 181,253 774,746

Letters 2,728,100 838,380 3,566,480

The Apocrypha

Books 14

Chapters 183

Verses 6,031

Words 125,185

Letters 1,063,876

Now, within the shape of a typographical tree, Dr. Horne summed up his findings, and then added some mindboggling information about the Bible:

The longest chapter or its equivalent is the 119th Psalm; the shortest is the 117th Psalm. The 117th is also the midpoint of the Bible [by word count].

The middle verse of the Bible is the 8th verse of the 118th Psalm.

The longest name is in the 8th chapter of Isaiah. [Ed.: Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 2nd son of Isaiah.]

The word "and" occurs 46,277 times; the word "Lord" 1,855 times.

The 37th chapter of Isaiah and the 19th chapter of II Kings are alike.

The longest verse is the 9th verse of the 8th chapter of Esther; the shortest verse is the 35th of the 11th chapter of John. [Ed.: Longest verse is 90 words, describes Persian Empire; shortest verse is 2 words, "Jesus wept."]

The finest piece of reading is the 26th chapter of Acts.

The name of God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther. It contains knowledge, wisdom, holiness, and love.

Dr. Horne may have been the 1st, but he certainly was not the last to attempt a statistical breakdown of the Bible. According to William S. Walsh, in his Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1892, an anonymous "religious enthusiast ... produced this astonishing monument of misapplied industry" (the countdown differing slightly from Dr. Horne's):

The words of the Bible contain 3,586,589 letters.

The word "and" occurs 46,227 times, the word "reverend" but once, "girl" but once, in 3rd chapter and 3rd verse of Joel; the words "everlasting fire" but twice, and "everlasting punishment" but once.

The 21st verse of the 7th chapter of Ezra contains all the letters in the English alphabet, except the letter J.

The 8th, 15th, 21st, and 31st verses of the 107th Psalm are alike.

Each verse of the 136th Psalm ends alike.

The anonymous statistician tallied 773,692 words in the King James version of the Bible as compared with Dr. Horne's 774,746 words. The discrepancy may be due to counting a hyphenated word variously as one word or 2.

While the anonymous statistician found 3,586,589 letters in the King James Version as against Dr. Horne's 3,566,480, 2 other number freaks, counting independently, came up with 3,586,489 letters and 3,567,180 letters respectively.

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