Predictions That Have Failed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 11, 1915

Predictions That Have Failed

Facts About the Circulation of the Bible

Compiled From Official Reports

The Bible is an exploded book.—Voltaire.

In ten years [25 years ago] the Bible will not be read.—R. G. Ingersoll.

Here are some facts about the Bible and its circulation,—facts which demonstrate that both Voltaire and Ingersoll were mistaken, and that their predictions have failed completely:—

Twenty-seven Bible societies are printing the Bible: two in the United States, three in Great Britain, and twenty-two on the European continent. More copies of the Bible are sold annually than of any other one hundred books combined.

Every year there are printed 17,000,000 Protestant Bibles, Testaments, and portions, in more than 500 languages. Of these Bibles 10,000,000 are published by the Bible societies and sold below cost. The remaining 7,000,000 are sold commercially.

The British and Foreign Bible Society was organized in London, England, on March 7, 1804, and from its foundation in that year to the end of its one hundred and second year, in March, 1907, the society had issued 283,931,769 copies of the Scriptures, complete or in part, in 390 different languages and dialects. In 1912 it had printed 227,150,770 copies and portions of Scripture. At present it prints over 8,000,000 Bibles a year, in 400 languages.

The Oxford Press of England, one of the oldest Bible houses, issues 20,000 Bibles a week, 1,040,000 a year.

The American Bible Society was organized in 1816, and up to 1912 had issued 96,119,105 Bibles, Testaments, and portions, in 116 languages.

Other Bible societies have issued between 60,000,000 and 70,000,000 Bibles, while private publishers in Great Britain and the United States and elsewhere have increased these by scores of millions.

The following figures show that there has been a steady growth in the circulation of the Bible, and that Voltaire's prediction was but a figment of his own mind; and notwithstanding Ingersoll's statement, the Bible is the most real book in the world today.

The American Bible Society has this record of its God-given work in the distribution of Bibles and Testaments:—


In the first year	6,410 copies
" tenth year	67,134 "
" twentieth year	221,694 "
" thirtieth year	483,873 "
" fortieth year	668,265 "
" fiftieth year	1,150,528 "
" sixtieth year	850,470 "
" seventieth year	1,437,440 "
" eightieth year	1,750,283 "
" ninetieth year	2,236,755 "
" ninety-seventh year	4,049,610 "

In the first ten years the society issued 439,580 copies; in the ninth decade 773,684.

The increase in issues of the American Society during its ninety-sixth year is 459,749 volumes over the total issues of the ninety-fifth year.

The total issues of 1911 are almost twice the issue of 1906, those of 1911 being 3,691,201 volumes.

In 1913 the total issues of the American Bible Society in English and other languages amounted to 4,049,610 volumes, which is more than twice the issues of five years ago.

Every country in the world, with the exception of Tibet, Afghanistan, and some of the Mohammedan states of North Africa, is now open to the circulation of the Bible.