01 November 2007

Most Popular Bible Verses (Jeremiah 19:9 didn't make the list)

What a great idea, eh? Take the 31,101 or so verses in the Bible and rank them by popularity. That's what TopVerses.com did, and guess what verse was number one.

That's right.

But none of my favorite verses made it on the top 10 or even the top 1000 verses. (Although Malachi 2:3 was the 9th most popular verse in Malachi and the top verse in Malachi 2.)

I guess there are some verses that Bible believers just don't like very much. Take Jeremiah 19:9, for example.

And I [God] will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend.

This is clearly a verse that God feels strongly about. Yet it's ranked 21,875!

I'll bet that really ticks God off. (Maybe he'll force believers to eat each other.)

14 comments:

Lieflieverliefste said...

Shouldn't John 3:16 read: "For God so loved whosoever believes in him,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that they should not perish, but have everlasting life." ?

The original looks a fallacy. They better make a website where you can vote for verses-corrections like this one I suggest.

Jason said...

No, the verse shouldn't be read like that. It's fine as it is.

Anon said...

The talking donkey (Numbers 22:28) only made 13362th?!? That's one of my favorite parts!

Ritchie Annand said...

That talking donkey story - that just baffles me.

It sure makes it look like God said "go with these men" (22:20), then gets pissed off when he did (22:22), and when the big reveal comes, the angel, who by all accounts was going to KILL him (22:33) if the donkey hadn't stopped, just reiterates the instructions (22:35)!?

Ouch, my head!

sattvicwarrior said...

god did that to FOOL you . he REALLY ate TOFU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

angelsdepart said...

Ha ha ha

This is a really funny post. I read somewhere that the Bible discusses unicorns. Where did that rank?

Anon said...

Angelsdepart, the word unicorn doesn't appear anywhere in TopVerses. So I looked into it, and the unicorn from Job 39:9 from was magically (divinely?) changed into an ox in the version on TopVerses. It ranked 13844th, just a little lower than the talking donkey. Now if they had kept it as a unicorn, I bet it would have gotten more votes.

b-nimble, I also tried to understand this and couldn't. I guess stories with talking donkeys don't have to make sense. :-)

Brucker said...

Where the hell did you get that picture, Steve?

So I was looking at the verse to see how soon a verse I figured you might like comes up, and the first surprise of the list was #26:

John 3:1 "Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews."

What? That's in the top 50?

But if you're looking for a verse with a bit of cruelty or absurdity, Romans 5:12 made it to #36 with:

"Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned."

Not particularly pleasant...

Overall, the thing seems awfully arbitrary. Although it doesn't explain in great detail how it was compiled, it's obvious the compiler only took it from Christian sources. The most popular Bible verse for Jews would surely be Deuteronomy 6:4, which comes in 51st, and atheists most likely favor Matthew 7:1, which comes in 179th.

Anonymous said...

Rom.8:29-30
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

This goes to show that God has allowed the death and destruction to happen in order to punish evil doers and to test the faith of those he has chosen to believe in him..

Anon said...

I also noticed a typo on the TopVerses website. At the top left of the site, it says "Welcome to the home of the sorted Bible." Obviously, they meant "Welcome to the home of the sordid Bible." ...

Anonymous said...

Jeremiah 19:9 is one of my favorites too. Here's a comic I made about it...

Let's play Bible Jeopardy!!!

Steve Wells said...

"Where the hell did you get that picture, Steve?"

From a Google image search of John 3:16. Seek and ye shall find.

So you think the rankings are arbitrary, Brucker? It's just a coincidence that the few verses believers like are highly ranked and most of the ones highlighted at the SAB have 4 or 5 digit rankings.

It's no surprise that John 3:1 is ranked in the top 26. Born again Christians love the Nicodemus story and the story begins with John 3:1. You have to start with it to get to 3:3 -- "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

And Romans 5:12 is also a favorite. It's silly and disgusting, but believers love it anyway.

Brucker said...

What I'm saying is that they obviously only asked Christians, and I'm not sure even among them what makes for "popular".

Unknown said...

Why do atheists have a hard time with severity? Why do they think God would be different from a parent? Do you reward your child for kicking the neighbor's son in the balls or choose something more appropriate?