The KJV:

The Most Searched For

English Bible Version on Google

By Dr. Peter Van Kleek Jr.

Around here we often make the case that we know what words are God’s words by the Spirit of God moving through the words of God in the hearts of the people of God. More colloquially we look to the average Spirit-filled Christian and not the scholar to tell us what belongs in the Bible and what does not.

For over 150 years the Critical Text/Multiple Version Only position has tried to replace the TR and KJV. They have have co-opted the colleges and universities and have incessantly badgered anyone who claims the KJV is the word of God to the exclusion of all other versions. Yet with all this artillery leveled against the KJV as well as those who hold it, the KJV remain.

In this vein, I asked myself, “What version of the Bible are people in the USA and around the world searching for?” To give us some sense of an answer to this question I went to Google Trends and compared the following terms: KJV, ESV, NIV, and CSB. The time span for these figures stretches over the last year. Here are the results for searches in the USA,

As you can see the blue line (KJV) is far and away the most popular search term among the four in Google. But what about worldwide? Perhaps things will be different there.

No, in fact searches for KJV are more popular worldwide than they are in the USA while the other search terms (ESV, NIV, and CSB) remain virtually unchanged in comparison with the KJV. How can this be given those pesky False Friends? **The Mind Boggles**

But let’s change the search term. Perhaps a more specific term will render different results. Instead of comparing the acronyms let’s compare the actual names of the respective versions i.e., King James Version, English Standard Version, New International Version, and Christian Standard Bible. Our results are as follows:

Nope, things get worse for the modern versions. Have things changed on the worldwide scene? Let’s take a look.

And…no, things have not changed. In short, when using the names of the versions the King James Version is still the most popular term while the other versions when searched for in this way hardly register on the graph by comparison.

In sum, it is quite clear given the evidence above that despite all the work of the CT/MVO academics and those like the so called Textual “Confidence” Collective, the KJV is still far and away the most searched for English version of the Bible in the USA and worldwide when compared to the ESV, NIV, and CSB according to the world’s largest search engine.

Don’t shoot the messenger. I don’t make the rules.