Central Abbotsford

Over the holidays, I put out the call for you to let me know which five books of the Bible you would bring with you on a desert island, if you could only choose five. I am happy to have received 25 responses to the question from you (okay, 24 plus my own, but I am one of us). Here are the results, and my observations.

There was a clear favourite book among respondents – 19 of you (76%) listed the book of Psalms among your choices. The second most popular book was also the highest-ranked New Testament book: the gospel of John, selected by 64%. The book of beginnings – Genesis – was the only other book that surpassed the 50% mark, with 13 of the 25 respondents choosing the Bible’s first book.

Rounding out the top five books were two theologically-dense New Testament letters – Romans and Hebrews, which each received selections from 36% of respondents. The rest of the top ten books (actually the top 13 because five books were tied) were: Proverbs, Revelation, James, Luke, Acts, Matthew, 1 Peter, and Isaiah.

Here are some of the details of the results that I found interesting:

As mentioned above, John was by far the most popular gospel account. Although Luke and Matthew cracked the top 10, they each only received 4 votes (16%) of the total. Two people chose to bring both Matthew and John, which was the only pair of gospels chosen together. Not a single one of the 25 respondents elected to bring the book of Mark! I suppose if you’re on a desert island, the shortest gospel wasn’t the first choice.

Of the 25 respondents, nobody managed to choose all five of the most popular choices – although five of you (a full 20%) did choose four of the top five responses. None of you had perfectly equal tastes, either – there were no perfect matches of five books out of the responses. You are all truly a unique bunch!

Although most of the more popular choices tended to be longer books (again, if you’re on a desert island, you probably want some more reading material), nobody chose the longest book of the Bible by word count. Bonus points if you know which book that is! (Hint – it’s not Psalms.)

Of the 66 books of the Bible, 26 of them received votes – 11 Old Testament books and 15 from the New Testament. Nobody selected only Old Testament books, or only New Testament books – the closest were three respondents that chose a single OT book (one Genesis, one Psalms, and one Daniel). Otherwise, the split was always 2-3, with 14 people choosing 2 OT books, and 8 choosing 3 of them. Not a single of the 12 minor prophets received a vote, with only Isaiah and Daniel getting votes among the major prophets.

And, considering on a desert island you will be spending ample time under the sun, only two people chose the book that speaks about life under that sun: Ecclesiastes. I also thought it was interesting that those two respondents shared no other books in common with one another!

Finally, in case you didn’t take notes from last year, here are my responses – my five books were all firmly nestled in the majority report (though I didn’t choose Psalms or John): Genesis, Isaiah, Luke, Romans, and Revelation.

Thanks so much for being a part of this! I love to get to know a little bit more about you any way I can.

Until Saturday (Lord willing!),

Eric