The Bible is the most translated and most printed book in history
Whole or in part, the Bible has reached thousands of languages and billions of copies - a scale no other book approaches.
No book has been rendered into more languages than the Bible. By the late 20th century the complete Bible existed in more than 250 languages, with portions published in over 1,300 more - and the count has climbed steadily since.
Translation organisations track the progress closely. As of 2025, the full Bible had been translated into roughly 800 languages, the New Testament into around 1,800 more, and smaller portions into some 1,500 beyond that.
The best-selling book of all time is the Christian Bible, with an estimated 5 to 7 billion copies printed.
That distribution is unmatched. The work that standardised European printing - the Gutenberg Bible - was scripture, and presses have never stopped: some modern plants print tens of thousands of copies a day.
Sources & references
3 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 3 independent sources.
