Saturday 12 November 2011

Bible reading level

Below are listed several Bible versions and their reading age level.

Version
Age
The King James VersionKJV19
Young's Literal TranslationYLT18
The American Standard VersionASV17
Douay Rheims DR17
The New American Standard Bible, 1977NASB16
The Amplified BibleAmp16
The Revised Standard VersionRSV16
The New American Standard Bible, 1995 UpdateNASB95, NASU15
The New Revised Standard Version NRSV15
The English Standard VersionESV15
The Weymouth New Testament15
The Philips New Testament14
The New English Bible NEB13
The New Jerusalem BibleNJB13
The New King James VersionNKJV13
The New International VersionNIV13
Today's New International VersionTNIV13
The Holman Christian Standard BibleHCSB13
The Living BibleLB13
The Jewish New Testament13
The World English Bible WEB12
The New American BibleNAB12
The Common English Bible CEB12
Today's English VersionTEV12
The New English Translation NET12
The New Living TranslationNLT11
The Revised English BibleREB11
The Message10
God's WordGW10
The Contemporary English Version CEV10
The New Century VersionNCV9
The New International Reader's VersionNIrV8
International Children's BibleICB8
The Bible in Basic EnglishBBE?

This list was compiled from a range of sites: here, here, here, here, and here. I also ran Genesis 1 in a few versions thru a Flesch-Kincaid reading calculator (which assesses words and syllables per sentence but not complexity of syntax). I have given the reading age level rather than the grade/ year level as the latter differ thru-out English speaking countries. Age level is for English as first language, and I am aware that established reading levels may underestimate true average ability when children are taught well.

Because this list was compiled from several sources, and estimated reading level is somewhat subjective, various Bibles may be rated mildly incorrectly compared to others. For example the ICB became the NCV and I am not certain how much they differ (if at all) and whether they warrant different age levels.

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