The most commonly cited total is 31,102 verses in the Bible in the standard 66-book Protestant canon (like the King James Version), with 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New Testament.

However, there are a few important nuances.

Quick Scoop

  • Short answer: About 31,102 verses in the usual Protestant Bible.
  • Old Testament: Around 23,145 verses.
  • New Testament: Around 7,957 verses.
  • Chapters total: About 1,189 chapters in the 66-book Bible.
  • These counts are exact for the traditional KJV, but can vary slightly in other translations and in Catholic or Orthodox canons because of different books and verse divisions.

Think of it like “same story, slightly different dividing lines.” The text is largely the same, but the way it’s sliced into verses can change.

Why the Number Isn’t Always the Same

Different Bibles can report slightly different verse counts because:

  • Different canons:
    • Protestant Bibles: 66 books (the usual 31,102-verse count).
* Catholic Bibles: include Deuterocanonical books, so more chapters and verses.
* Orthodox Bibles: often use the Septuagint-based Old Testament, with some different book/verse structures.
  • Verse-numbering differences:
    • Some modern translations merge or split verses differently for clarity or accuracy.
    • In a few places, verse numbers are skipped in versions like NIV or ESV (often because of text-critical decisions and footnoted verses), which can make the numbering look uneven even if the content is explained in notes.
  • Historical additions:
    • Chapter divisions were added in the 13th century (commonly attributed to Cardinal Hugo de S. Caro).
* Verse numbers were added in the **16th century** (often credited to Robertus Stephanus around 1551).

* That means the original biblical manuscripts had no numbers at all; they’re a later navigation tool.

Old vs New Testament Verse Counts

Here is the classic breakdown for the 66-book Protestant Bible (as in KJV and many reference tables):

Section Chapters Verses Share of Total
Old Testament 929 23,145 About 74%
New Testament 260 7,957 About 26%
Total Bible 1,189 31,102 100%
These totals are consistently given in Bible statistics sites and verse-count tables focused on the KJV or closely aligned Protestant editions.

A Few Fun Extras (Context)

  • A widely used reference table notes that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter with 176 verses.
  • The overall verse count is often used in Bible-reading plans and memorization goals , which is why you see that 31,102 figure repeated across multiple study/verse-memorization sites.
  • Some guides explicitly tell people: “If someone asks ‘how many verses are in the Bible?’ the safe simple answer is: 31,102 in a standard Protestant/KJV-type Bible —but always ask, ‘Which Bible?’ first.”

Bottom Line

If you just need a straightforward number for “how many verses are in the Bible,” the standard answer people use is:

There are 31,102 verses in the Bible in the usual 66-book Protestant canon (like the KJV): 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New Testament.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.