---
title: "How long to read the Bible? about 55 hours"
description: "The Bible takes about 55 hours — 783,137 words in the King James Version. What that assumes, how it breaks down, and how long at a realistic pace."
url: https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-bible/
site: "At One Place"
---

# How long does it take to read the Bible?

**How long to read the Bible: about 55 hours**

783,137 words in the King James Version

The King James Bible is 783,137 words and takes about 55 hours to read silently — a little over two days. Read aloud at 183 words per minute it takes about 71 hours, which matches the long-quoted "70 hours 40 minutes at pulpit rate" figure closely enough to corroborate it. The Old Testament is more than three times the New: 602,587 words against 180,550. A common one-year reading plan works out at about nine minutes a day.

## The numbers

- **Total:** 2 days 6 hours
- **In hours:** 54.8 hours
- **Non-stop:** 2.3 days without sleeping
- **Covers:** 783,137 words in the King James Version
- **At a realistic pace:** a chapter a day
- **That works out as:** about 366 days

## What this assumes

783,137 words at 238 words per minute for silent reading. The King James Version without the Apocrypha; including it the total is nearer 788,000 words. Other translations differ by several percent.

## Broken down

| Part | Time | Detail |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Old Testament | 42 hours 12 minutes | 602,587 words |
| New Testament | 12 hours 39 minutes | 180,550 words |

> The frequently quoted 70 hours 40 minutes read-aloud figure traces to Roy Zuck's Speaker's Quote Book (1997) and is a homiletics estimate, not a measurement. It agrees closely with the arithmetic at 183 words per minute.

## Other books

| What | How long |
| --- | --- |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | about 5 hours 23 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | about 18 hours |
| The Hobbit | about 6 hours 39 minutes |
| War and Peace | about 40 hours |
| Infinite Jest | about 40 hours |
| Moby-Dick | about 15 hours |
| Ulysses | about 19 hours |
| Dune | about 13 hours |
| Pride and Prejudice | about 8 hours 33 minutes |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | about 6 hours 14 minutes |
| The Great Gatsby | about 3 hours 18 minutes |
| Animal Farm | about 2 hours 6 minutes |
| It | about 31 hours |
| The complete works of Shakespeare | about 59 hours |
| The complete Sherlock Holmes | about 72 hours as an audiobook |
| All of English Wikipedia | about 41 years |

## Common questions

### How long does it take to read the Bible?

about 55 hours — 783,137 words in the King James Version.

### What does that assume?

783,137 words at 238 words per minute for silent reading. The King James Version without the Apocrypha; including it the total is nearer 788,000 words. Other translations differ by several percent.

### How long at a realistic pace?

a chapter a day — about 366 days.

## Related pages

- [How long to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-philosophers-stone/)
- [How long to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-order-of-the-phoenix/)
- [How long to read The Hobbit?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-hobbit/)
- [How long to read War and Peace?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/war-and-peace/)
- [How long to read Infinite Jest?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/infinite-jest/)
- [How long to read Moby-Dick?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/moby-dick/)
- [How long to read Ulysses?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/ulysses/)
- [How long to read Dune?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/dune/)
- [How long to read the Harry Potter series?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-series/)
- [How long to watch Friends?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/friends/)
- [How long to watch One Piece?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/one-piece/)
- [How long to watch The Simpsons?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-simpsons/)
- [How long to watch The Office (US)?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-office-us/)
- [How long to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/marvel-cinematic-universe/)

## Sources

- Calculated on this page — At One Place (/about/)