Thomas Nelson launches versions of Scriptures, while thousands download free TNIV and ESV

Bible publishers are ramping up their efforts to spread the word about new Bibles and promotional strategies by using new technology.

To launch The Expanded Bible in August, its new Bible version, Thomas Nelson has offered a free PDF of the entire New Testament on its Web site. Since early May when the promotion began, the publisher has reported that more than 2,000 copies have been downloaded.

In April, Zondervan ran a promotion offering a free download of Today’s New International Version (TNIV) on Amazon.com and saw more than 19,000 downloads in May. Compatible with Amazon’s Kindle book reader, the digital TNIV has risen to No. 36 on the Amazon Kindle charts, followed at No. 37 by Crossway Books & Bibles’ English Standard Version Bible—also a free download. More than 4,000 free copies of Baker Publishing Group’s God’s Word Translation were downloaded on Kindle.

Crossway has also promoted its ESV (English Standard Version) Study Bible with a special price of $9.99 in the Kindle store, garnering sales of nearly a thousand. The publisher has also given away the ESV translation, which hit No. 1 on the Amazon Kindle list with downloads from more than 48,000 users.

“The ESV and ESV Study Bible exemplifies Crossway’s desire to make our content available in the channels that people desire to access our content, including most electronic forms,” Geoff Dennis, executive vice president, sales and marketing, told Christian Retailing.

Customers purchasing a copy of the ESV Bible were also given access to the online edition. Out of the nearly 225,000 copies the Bible sold, more than 65,000 users have registered for and used the online version, Dennis said.

Meanwhile, Thomas Nelson’s The American Patriot’s Bible—which released in May with its own Web page that included a sneak preview, video, news and online referrals—has been the source of some controversy. The special-interest Bible—which incorporates articles of American history and national landmarks—was criticized in an online editorial written by Gregory Boyd, author of The Myth of a Christian Nation (Zondervan).

Writing at the Christianity Today Web site, Boyd said he was “appalled” by the new Bible because of “selective, idealized” American history being given “divine authority by weaving it into the biblical narrative.”

“Every special-interest Bible imposes a certain agenda to some degree that colors the Word, but The Patriot’s Bible takes this ‘coloring to a whole new level,” he wrote. “The text of the Bible is merely used as an excuse to further the patriotic agenda of the commentators.”

Nelson responded to the review with an editorial by the Bible’s editor, Richard G. Lee, who said that The Patriot’s Bible’s “clear purpose is to present the ‘strong cord’ of the Bible’s influence that runs through the fabric of our nation’s past and present.”

“Our great nation has not used the Bible to form some system of ‘nationalism’ and ‘superior isolationism,’ but rather our founding fathers learned from its teaching the principles, values and ethics of law, government and proper social order,” Lee added.

Despite the criticism, the Bible was “doing extremely well,” according to Wayne Hastings, senior vice president and publisher of Thomas Nelson’s Bible Group.