Holy Bible sales are soaring in the UK with publishers crediting the increasing spirituality of Gen Z as driving the revival of interest in the ancient text.
The Times reports there was an increase of 87 percent between 2019 and 2024 — from £2.69 million to £5.02 million — over five years, according to figures compiled by SPCK Group, the Christian publishers, using transaction information from Nielsen Book Data.
Nielsen said sales of its broader category of “Bibles and liturgy” climbed from £7 million in 2019 to £8.1 million in 2024, up from just £5 million in 2008.
While generally sales of fiction works are increasing, those of non-fiction books have been declining: Nielsen recorded a six percent fall from 2023 to 2024. The Times report added:
The Bible Society said that its 2018 volume Good News Bible — The Youth Edition, was “by far our most popular”, with sales almost doubling since 2021.
It has extra explanations to help readers decipher the meaning of important Bible passages and also includes infographics and space for writing notes.
The boost has been attributed to a fall in atheism and revitalised marketing and designs.
Sam Richardson, chief executive of SPCK, told the outlet the sales figures showed “we are at the centre of a significant cultural shift regarding matters of faith and religion”.
Related: Charles III Takes Coronation Oath on Holy Bible, Is Crowned King
“Atheism, once considered by modern society to be the view of most rational adults, no longer seems to carry the same weight or appeal,” he said. “Young people — Gen Z, in particular — are statistically far less likely to identify as atheists than their parents.”
Sales figures indicate the most popular editions of the Holy Bible are the New International version and the Good News Bible, more so than the King James Bible.
The latest boost comes even as the holy text is under public threat.
As Breitbart News reported, Scottish film star Brian Cox, who played the odious billionaire media mogul Logan Roy in the HBO hit series Succession, in May last year described the Holy Bible as “one of the worst books ever.”
Let us know how that works out for you in 60 years. https://t.co/m4FkO9Mkxh
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 2, 2024
“It is not the truth, it’s a mythology,” he said. “We’ve created that idea of God, and we’ve created it as a control issue, and it’s also a patriarchal issue… and it’s essentially patriarchal — we haven’t given enough scope to the matriarchy.”
Humans “simply haven’t evolved” to the point where we look inside ourselves to deal with our problems rather than trying to solve them with religion, the actor contended.
