One in five Americans claim to have read the Bible from start to finish, according to new research from US research firm Barna Group.

The study, which surveyed over 1,000 randomly chosen Americans, found well over half of America’s evangelical Christians (61 per cent) say they’ve read the Bible cover to cover, while 18 per cent of people with a faith other than Christianity and 9 per cent with no faith say they’ve done the same.

President of Barna Group, David Kinnaman says that while it should come as no surprise that “so many practicing Christians report reading their primary sacred text from front to back…” the statistics about non-Christians having read the Bible from start to finish is unexpected.

“It suggests Christians should not assume non-Christians are categorically unfamiliar with their sacred scripture,” said Kinnaman.

© Barna Group, 2013.

The research also examined the reading habits of Americans in 2012, analysing readership of some of the most popular books of 2012 in the graph below, based on selected demographics, including ‘Practicing Christian’.

© Barna Group, 2013.

Full research results available here.