There are some variations between versions with includedexcluded text and verses, however, for the purpose of establishing the relative lengths of each book, these counts are. However, there are averages and rough word counts expected by publishers. David brackett sent in a better method for remembering the number of books in the bible. What was the word, and what new name was this bible given throughtout modern history, and why. Logos uses a feature called word list to count words. Martin luther felt that seven of the books accepted as part of the old testament at the time were not quite up to scratch since the 90 ad jewish council of jamnia had rejected them.
For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Ive compiled a list of each book of the bible ranked according to word count and how long they take to read based on a slow readers speed of 100 words per minute. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Sep 04, 20 match frequency relative to book word count. A step up from picture books, these are for kids who have just started reading by themselves. The website open thou mine eyes lists the new international version as having a word count of either 727,969 words or 726,109 words, the english standard version having 757,439 words and the new american standard bible 782,815 words. Special thanks go to logos bible software for making determining the. Oct 18, 2017 to find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. These two letters begin the hebrew words open patuach and closed sagoor, and are. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. Traditionally, artamene ou le grand cyrus, has been considered the longest novel, but has lately been surpassed by at least one novel, or two depending on the criterion used to determine length. For more detail and discussion of the comparison method, please see the measuring homestuck thread, where notegbert explains. Psalms is a long book, for sure, but its psalms are pretty short for the most part. But when measuring by hebrew word count, the longest book in the old testament is jeremiah with approximately 33,000 words in the original.
The most popular book of all time christian universities. Bible concordance all words in the king james version. Aug 05, 2019 he used the 270,000word memoir as an example because 1 memoirs are close to impossible to traditionally publish, so a word count that long wont get past the agent, and 2 its very, very hard to sell a memoir even through selfpublishing, let alone at that word count. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. I used logos bible software to find out which books are the longest, by original word count. I built one logos word list like this for every single book of the bible.
From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. Interestingly enough, the word count for the greek new testament is 8,020 depending on which edition one is using. While there is a part of me that applauds someone for being able to write this many words on a single topic, another part of me is asking what was this author thinking. Combining this with my figures and existing word count, the adjusted count for homestuck is currently 58808 words. A breakdown of the total number of books, chapters verses and words found in the king james version of the holy bible.
Have you ever wondered what the longest and shortest books of the bible are. The bible is a compilation of many shorter books written at different times by a variety of authors. Amazing how much more one can say with fewer words in koine greek. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Books of the bible list order complete new and old testament. Book title chapter count verse count word count 1 genesis 50 1,533 38,262 2 exodus 40 1,2 32,685 3 leviticus 27 859 24,541 4. Of course, figures differ depending on which publisher you ask, so the following figures are merely approximations derived from various sources. That left me with 66 logos word lists, each giving me every originallanguage word in a given book of the bible. The fourth longest book of the bible is ezekiel with 29,918 words. Many books and websites list faulty statistics on the king james bible. Word counts on every book of the bible from longest to shortest 1 jeremiah 33,002 2 genesis 32,046 3 psalms 30,147 4 ezekiel 29,918 5 exodus 25,957 6 isaiah 25,608 7 numbers 25,048 8 deuteronomy 23,008 9. There are 1168 pages of small type, equating to 46 lines per full page, with on average around 14 words per line giving around 600 words per full page. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Religion quiz bible books by word count kjv random religion or book quiz can you correctly order the books of the king james bible from most to least words.
Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. In 2016s list, ron chernows 816page alexander hamilton managed to crack the top spot. Please avail yourself of other areas of the bills bible basics website. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. The word count 788,280 is based on the kjv and seems to be almost exactly as wed expect see our page on how many words in the bible for more information on this. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Whether youre just curious about how many words are in these books or youre writing a book and want to compare the length of your novel to these famous tomes, then read on to find the word counts of famous books and series. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916.
That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. The most popular book of all time christian universities online. In english bibles, the number of hits is the same as the number of words. How can the books of the bible be listed from shortest to longest.
Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Aug 03, 2017 there are no hardandfast rules when it comes to what word count a novel in a particular genre should be. Even though psalms has more contributors than any other book of the bible, it turns out that two other books are much longer than psalms. How many words in each book of the bible the holy word. All words in the bible with links to the verses in which they occur in the king james version. However when it comes to verses, words and letters, there are a wide variety of numbers floating around. Sticking with the english, the total word count of the four gospels matthew, mark, luke, john is 83,898. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common.
But, if we are counting the number of words, do we count the english words or the hebrewgreek words. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. The longest chapter in the bible is psalm 119, and the middle and shortest. The main idea is that the old testament has 593,493 words and the new testament has 181,253 words. With a word list, we can easily discover the number of times a biblical writer used a given word. The answer is thirtynine books in the old testament and twentynine books in the new.
Then take 3 x 9 27, the number of books in the new testament. Atlas shrugged is it true that the word count for atlas. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. How to do a word study christian research institute. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. Overwriting drags down a narrative, turns off prospective agentspublishersreaders, and can cause professional services to become prohibitively expensive.
Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. Bible software to find out which books are the longest, by original word count. Now lets count the words in these two middle verses. Perhaps we can get an idea, by comparing word counts. Most resources claim that the book of psalms is the longest book in the old. Basically, instead of applying a formula for word count, we apply the final format and see what results. Select your desired bible from the bible dropdown list c. King james version bible breakdown books, chapters. He used the 270,000word memoir as an example because 1 memoirs are close to impossible to traditionally publish, so a word count that long wont get past the agent, and 2 its very, very hard to sell a memoir even through selfpublishing, let alone at that word count. Unsurprisingly, the most popular book of all time has an interesting history. You can also enter any appropriate reference to get a word count on a range of books, chapters, or verses.
If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. The word count 788,280 is based on the kjv and seems to be almost exactly as wed. Heres a list of the ten longest books of the bible. I referenced the lexham hebrew bible for ot books and the na27 for nt books, and heres what i got. The bible is more than 600,000 words long in its original. Word counts on every book of the bible from longest to shortest 1 jeremiah 33002 2 genesis 32046 3 psalms 30147 4.
Then they tell you to count the words in this middle verse. Word count tool is a word counter that provides an extensive statistics about the word count, character count, the number of characters without spaces. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Middle grade is from 20,000 55,000, depending on the subject matter and age range, and the word count of these books has been trending up in recent years. It can be helpful for us to realize just how much time reading the bible actual takes.
When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. What are the longest and shortest books of the bible. The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging. If you count the letters of old testament there are three letters in old and nine in testament. This last one is really good for gauging where a topic is most emphasized in scripture. Type a passage, like acts 1, in the reference box that appears under add lemmas from selected bible d. How can the books of the bible be listed from shortest to. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you. But each bible will have a different number of verses and words as the. Aug 23, 2016 the second longest word in the bible is chushanrishathaim 17 letters. A marvellous source of information for linguists and bible students.
Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. I use amazons data feeds to come up with the calculation. Jeremiah 33,002 words genesis 32,046 words psalms 30,147 words ezekiel 29,918 words. Give the word list a name that identifies it with the passage of scripture being examined, such as 1 john words. Almost half the books in the bible take less than a halfhour to read. How many chapters, verses, and words are in the bible. Ive been researching the word countspages of ya novels to make sure im not under or over. The following list shows the most popular words in the bible ranked by order of frequency occurrence. The ten longest books in the old testament, in the original hebrew used in the masoretic texts are.
This isnt to say that long books are no longer succeeding. Look no further than psalms, a book that also includes the longest chapter in the bible. This is going by word count in the original languages not any english translation of the bible. Luke has fewer chapters than matthew but actually longer than that. Of course the number of books 66 and chapters 1,189 are fairly easy to count. Psalms is often said to be the longest book in the bible because it has the most chapters, but a better indication of actual length is the number of words. The middle verse of the bible is the 8th verse of the 118th psalm. The kjv bible breakdown by books, chapters, verses and word counts click or tap icons to share. Not too many people know that there are 774,746 total words in the holy book called the bible.
This tool also reports the number of syllables, monosyllabic words, polysyllabic words, sentences, paragraphs, unique words, short words, long words. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. The longest book of the new testament, and the twelfth longest book of the entire bible, is the gospel of luke with 19,482 greek words. With thousands of translations, over forty original authors, and a two millennium history, lets take a look at the trails, tribulations, changes, and status of the worlds most popular book. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page count leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. I ignored common words like the, he, it, and, thee, ye, etc i checked these words on the bible word search function at. Word count tool this tool also reports the number of syllables, monosyllabic words, polysyllabic words, sentences, paragraphs, unique words, short words, long words. We can see that the book of galatians has a very heavy emphasis on the subject of justification, and that out of the whole bible it uses the words the most proportionally. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages.
The catholic bible has an even higher word count because it has seven books more than the protestant bible. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Famous book series and novel word counts count words and. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. They are short books, usually with a lot of illustrations. The omission of a somewhat morally important word discovered in a new version of the bible caused a certain godfearing king to fine the incompetant printers. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876.
The bible was stripped, sorted and ranked, giving an accurate word count list. The 117th is also the midpoint of the bible by word count. However, the drop in the overall average length of bestsellers over the last 7 years points to a marked. Hi michael, just looked at my penguin classics paper back version and although it doesnt give word count i can give you a guessitmate. In the meantime, overwriting to the point that your draft exceeds typical word count ranges is a common issue and those widelyaccepted ranges arent completely arbitrary. For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it.
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