A Little Bit of Social Science - Network Chart of what people buy with a Study Bible
Two possibly competing Study Bibles have been published recently (i.e. within the last couple of months). One is the New Living Translation Study Bible from Tyndale. And the other is the English Standard Version Study Bible from Crossway. The English Standard Version (ESV) is marketed in two ways: 1) apparant from its name it wants to be the English Standard like the King James was for generations so it is marketed as an authority 2) and because it makes claims to authority it situates itself as the natural update/extension of the KJV, RSV and NRSV. The New Living Translation (NLT) markets itself by the tagline - The Truth Made Clear. What that means is it appeals to: 1) a desire to be understood and 2) a sense of dissatisfaction with older phaseology - i.e. what the ESV trumpets. beyond the translation the study materials in the “study bible” are written from a broadly american evangelical background. What that means is typically a strong respect for the Bible as we have it as the Word of God. What it also means is typically a slight arminian reformed theology - the sacraments are lightly considered and a strong emphasis on a holy life and the Bible as the guide book.
[Disclosure - the LCMS in which I serve has bought completely into the ESV and we use it for our lectionary readings. I have personally been using the NLT Study Bible recently since the CPH NIV Study bible which has been my main version for about 10 years is being phased out.]
What all of that did was make me interested in a few of questions: 1) Who actually buys study bibles, 2) does the translation chosen signal something about the person and 3) how could I get some of that data? As luck would have it, Amazon is an incredibly source for data. In attempting to increase sales, Amazon posts books that others who bought the book you are looking at also bought. The methodology was to start with the NLT Study Bible and take the first six “also bought” books. I would then look at each of those six books and look at the “also bought” list for each. I repeated with the ESV study bible. What emerges are clouds of books. The picture above is my interpretaion of that cloud.
Some interesting observations from this in trying to qualitatively answer those first two questions. First and probably most importantly it seems like Christians are the people buying both bibles. Only one of the books in the cloud (in red - Story of Edgar Sawtelle) could be considered something that gets a wide read. In one way that would seem to work for the ESV marketing strategy. If the only buyers are those already familiar then the one marketing as a continuation has a good strategy. But that would also further seal the community off.
I’ve grouped the cloud into four smaller clouds and highlighted the entry point books. I’ve labled those groups as doctrine, interpersonal, Apologetics/evangelism and ideas. Not having read all the books, this is highly dependent upon the reviews, but roughly what I mean is as follows:
1) The Doctrine books are interested primarily in saying this is what the church says the bible says in propositional form. The orange book in here is the most questionable. It is not really connected to the rest, but the idea of recapturing the Christian Faith presumes there is something that defines that faith.
2) The interpersonal are all grouped around a work of fiction. What I saw in these was more of a focus on people vs. information. The focus would be on emotions and individual reactions (like not wanting to go to church) than ideas or causes.
3) The apologetics/evangelism section contains books that are all about defending and spreading the gospel to others.
4) The ideas for lack of a better term are by “big name thinkers” or have novel and or large ideas.
What was very interesting is that buyers of the NLT study bible also bought two other bibles - both the ESV and the apologetics bible. The NLT readers are also connectors to others. They have the most connections in the Apologetics grouping, but they connect directly to all four clouds. The ESV buyers on the contrary have no direct connections to the ideas group and do not buy any other bibles. They also have 4 of 6 direct connections to the doctrine cloud.
Ultimately looking at these clouds I would make two statements. 1) The bibles are not really competitors. Buyers of the ESV would not buy the NLT. Buyers of the NLT might also buy the ESV. 2) Buyers of the ESV are heavily turned in on their own world while buyers of the NLT are actively looking for the means of communicating outside of the echo chamber. Especially disturbing is the ESV connections lack of reach into the ideas section. Wright (and this cloud) is an important source for the others. The other clouds pay attention to him. The fact that the ESV readers look to doctrine but not to ideas says something.
I’ll think more about this. I’d love any comments people might have on this (i.e. Parson you’re full of it, you are in the tank for that version you’ve been reading, your groupings are way off, or great insights.)
