What can you say that the Bible became bestselling book in secular Norway in 2012?

That's how much of a desire there is for God's word!

The Associated Press credits a marketing campaign by Norway's Bible Society for at least part of the Bible's popularity there: The society "promoted the new translation like a pop fiction novel, stirring anticipation by giving out teasers of biblical stories before its release," and "targeted teenagers with pink leather or denim covers, and adults with bridal or sophisticated literary covers." A popular six-hour play called Bibelen ("Bible" in Norwegian) just closed in Oslo after a successful three-month run.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/06/189...

Apparently its due to aggressive marketing

It's an interesting article but the 160,000 Bibles purchased equates to around 4% of Norway's population -- in other words, not significant.''

Edit:

Realistically, this article does not present a good, objective analysis of book sales nor does it attempt to normalize book sales across demographics. It simply throws out a "big" number and ignores all other factors. For example, it does not address used book sales, take in to account organizations that buy relatively large numbers of books like libraries or churches,and does not compare book sales to any other sources of information like the internet or usages of libraries.

Simply it is nothing than the logical fallacy of "ad populum" or an appeal to numbers.

The USA is a secular country too and they sell a heck of a lot more bibles than Norway. But let's find out exactly is doing the buying. Many (maybe most) Bible sales are to churches and church groups, not individual people.

Hardly that much of a surprise. It's a new edition in Norwegian, and that resulted in 160,000 sales. Think of the number that went to libraries or ended up as gifts. Including them, that's the sales total for the entire country plus sales from expatriates in other countries. In other words, less than one person in thirty rushed out to get a copy during the year. Not that big a deal.

for a while there the Bible was really selling a lot in Minnesota.

People liked reading about St. Paul.

But it didn't have much about Minneapolis, so the sales kind of fell off when that came out, ya know.

I want to see their source. Making a claim and backing it up are two different things.

That being said, Justin Bieber's book probably didn't add stiff competition there...

the bible has always been the bestselling book in many places.

The Bible has been taught as literature for decades.

Because the education and intellect of non Christians means they can use notepads, tablets, Kindle and so many other devices to read and study!

Seems Christians must be stuck in the past!

The bible remains the most stolen book in the world so what does that say about Christian morals?!

First off, there are MANY public institutions that would have bought the new edition of the Bible, such as libraries, churches and schools. Note that most churches are owned by the (former) State church in Norway, and are paid for by the government. Almost all schools are public schools, but they have classes on religion. They provide the books for the classes, and would buy new class sets of the Bible.

In addition to this there have been a heavy marketing campaign in order to get congregations to buy new bibles, and quite a few bibles have probably been bought as gifts. In many cases even atheists can end up with a bible as a gift or a handout from various sources. I have gotten several bibles in such a manner through the years.

Finally there are plenty of people that want to own a bible even though they are not Christian. It's an important work in a literary, cultural and historical perspective.

In conclusion the bible sales of a new and hyped edition of the Bible isn't indicative of state of Christianity in Norway. It's more reliable to look at the church attendance figures and on polls where people are asked to identify their beliefs.