100 Fun Facts About Bible

What is the first book of the Bible?

Genesis is the first book of the Bible; its Hebrew title, Bereshit, is simply its opening word, 'In the beginning', and the Greek name Genesis means 'origin'.

How many days did God take to create the world according to Genesis?

According to Genesis 1, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. The six days of creation are foundational to the biblical narrative.

Who built the ark to survive the great flood?

Noah built the ark at God's command in Genesis 6–9; scholars generally see the story as adapted from older Mesopotamian flood traditions, especially the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Who parted the Red Sea?

Moses stretched out his hand and the sea divided in Exodus 14; the Hebrew name Yam Suph literally means 'sea of reeds', fuelling a long debate over which body of water was meant.

What were the names of the first man and woman according to the Bible?

Their names are telling: adam is Hebrew for 'man' or 'humankind', while Eve is linked to the word for 'living'.

Which disciple betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver?

Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus; only Matthew's Gospel gives the price of thirty pieces of silver, and Matthew has Judas fling the coins back into the temple before hanging himself.

How many books are in the Bible (Protestant canon)?

The Protestant canon has 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New; Catholic Bibles run to 73 because they include deuterocanonical books such as Tobit and Maccabees.

What is the last book of the Bible?

Revelation closes the New Testament; it was among the last books accepted into the canon and was absent from the original Syriac Peshitta used by the Church of the East.

Which giant did David defeat with a sling and a stone?

David defeated the Philistine giant Goliath with a sling and a single stone, as told in 1 Samuel 17. This victory made David a hero in Israel.

In which city was Jesus born?

Bethlehem, on which Matthew and Luke agree; they differ on why the family was there—Matthew implies Joseph already lived there, while Luke has them travel from Nazareth for a census.

What are the four Gospels in the New Testament?

Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptics because they share so much material; John stands apart in structure and content.

Who was swallowed by a great fish and spent three days inside it?

The prophet Jonah was swallowed by a great fish (often depicted as a whale) after fleeing from God's command to preach to Nineveh. He spent three days and nights inside before being vomited onto dry land.

What is the shortest verse in the Bible (King James Version)?

John 11:35, 'Jesus wept,' is the shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible; it describes Jesus weeping at a friend's tomb in Bethany.

Which Old Testament figure was tested by God and lost everything but remained faithful?

Job lost his children, wealth and health yet refused to curse God; the test was proposed by 'the satan', the Adversary, who claimed Job served God only because God protected him.

What was the first miracle Jesus performed according to the Gospel of John?

Turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana, at his mother's prompting, is what John calls the first of Jesus' 'signs'.

How many plagues did God send upon Egypt?

There are 10, yet Exodus never actually states the total; Psalms 78 and 105 seem to list only seven or eight, in a different order.

Who wrote most of the epistles (letters) in the New Testament?

Paul: thirteen of the 21 New Testament letters carry his name, though most scholars think he wrote seven and that the pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus are by later hands.

What is the Ten Commandments also known as?

The Decalogue, from the Greek for 'ten words', matching the Hebrew 'Ten Words'; the text appears in Exodus 20 and again in Deuteronomy 5.

Which river was Jesus baptized in?

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, as recorded in Matthew 3:13-17. After his baptism, the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove.

Who was the first king of Israel?

Saul, whose name means 'asked for'; the people had demanded a king from the prophet Samuel, who anointed Saul but later turned against him.

What did God create on the first day according to Genesis?

Light comes first, with day and night separated; the sky follows on day two, Earth, seas and vegetation on day three, and the Sun and Moon only on day four.

Which apostle is known as 'the doubter' for questioning Jesus' resurrection?

Thomas, also called Didymus, is known as 'Doubting Thomas' because he refused to believe Jesus had risen until he could see and touch the wounds himself (John 20:24-29).

What is the longest book of the Bible by number of chapters?

Psalms, with 150 chapters, is the longest; the poems are grouped into five books, each ending with a doxology, and 73 carry superscriptions naming David.

Who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams about seven fat cows and seven thin cows?

Joseph; the cows foretold seven years of plenty followed by seven of famine, and Pharaoh rewarded Joseph with the post of second-in-command of Egypt (Genesis 41).

What are the Beatitudes?

The Beatitudes are the blessings opening the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5; Luke's shorter version, delivered on a plain, pairs four blessings with four woes, and the name comes from beatus, Latin for 'blessed'.

Which Old Testament prophet was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire?

The prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind with a chariot of fire and horses of fire, as described in 2 Kings 2:11. His servant Elisha witnessed this event.

What is the Pentateuch?

The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy; the name is Greek for 'five scrolls', and Jewish tradition calls them the Torah, or Five Books of Moses.

In the Book of Ruth, who is told 'Wherever you go, I will go'?

Naomi; her daughter-in-law Ruth refused to abandon her widowed mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16), and that loyalty led to marriage with Boaz and a place in King David's family tree.

How many apostles did Jesus choose?

The number mirrors the twelve tribes of Israel; after the betrayer's death, Matthias was chosen by lot to restore the count.

What parable tells of a son who squanders his inheritance and returns home?

The Prodigal Son, told in Luke 15; asking for the inheritance early was, to many commentators, tantamount to wishing the father dead, which makes the welcome home all the more striking.

On which mountain were the Ten Commandments received from God, according to Exodus?

Mount Sinai, which Exodus also calls Horeb; its exact location is disputed, and the traditional candidate is Jabal Musa in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Which king of Israel was known for his great wisdom?

Solomon; offered anything by God in a dream at Gibeon, he asked for a discerning heart (1 Kings 3), and his judgment between two women claiming the same baby became proverbial.

Which tree in the Garden of Eden bore the forbidden fruit?

The fruit is never identified; Jewish sources have proposed a fig, a grape vine, wheat and an etrog, and the apple idea came from a Latin pun on malum.

Who was thrown into a den of lions but survived?

Daniel; jealous rivals had tricked King Darius into decreeing that for thirty days no one could pray to any god or man but the king, and Daniel kept praying (Daniel 6).

What event does Easter celebrate in Christianity?

Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion; its date moves each year because it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox.

Which book of the Bible contains the phrase 'For everything there is a season'?

Ecclesiastes 3:1; Pete Seeger set the passage to music almost word for word, and the Byrds took 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' to number one in the US in 1965.

After the flood, what sign did God set in the sky as a covenant never to flood the earth again?

The rainbow (Genesis 9:13); the covenant is made not just with the ark's survivors but with 'every living creature of all flesh'.

Who was the mother of Jesus?

Mary; Luke has the angel Gabriel announce the birth to her, and the Quran devotes an entire chapter, Maryam, to her, the only woman it names.

What did Jesus feed 5,000 people with?

Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, as recorded in all four Gospels (e.g., Matthew 14:13-21). This is the only miracle besides the resurrection recorded in all four Gospels.

What language was most of the Old Testament originally written in?

Hebrew, with only a handful of Aramaic passages as exceptions; Aramaic had become the everyday language of many Jews after the Babylonian exile.

What happened on the Day of Pentecost?

The Holy Spirit came upon the apostles (Acts 2): a rushing wind and tongues as of fire, after which they spoke in other languages; the name comes from the Greek for 'fiftieth' day.

Who was Abraham's wife who gave birth to Isaac in her old age?

Sarah was Abraham's wife who miraculously gave birth to Isaac at age 90, as promised by God (Genesis 21:1-7). Her name was changed from Sarai to Sarah, meaning 'princess.'

Which structure did David's son and successor build in Jerusalem, according to 1 Kings?

The First Temple, built by Solomon; it housed the Ark of the Covenant until the Babylonians destroyed it in 587 BCE, and the Second Temple later rose on the same site.

Which parable teaches about helping a stranger regardless of their background?

The Good Samaritan (Luke 10); Samaritans and Jews were bitter rivals, which is the sting of the story: a priest and a Levite walk past, and it is the outsider who stops to help.

Which three men were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's furnace for refusing to bow to his golden image?

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3); they walked out unsinged, and the king saw a fourth figure in the flames with them; Daniel himself is absent from the chapter.

How many days and nights did Jesus fast in the wilderness before being tempted?

The span deliberately echoes the forty-day fasts of Elijah and Moses in the Old Testament, and it is the origin of the forty days of Lent.

Which book contains the famous 'Armor of God' passage?

Ephesians 6:10–17 kits out the believer with the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, helmet of salvation and sword of the Spirit.

What was Samson's source of strength?

His hair, never cut under his Nazirite vow; Delilah, paid by Philistine officials, had it shaved while he slept, and the Philistines then blinded him and set him to milling grain at Gaza (Judges 16).

What did the wise men bring as gifts to the baby Jesus?

The wise men (Magi) brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:11). Gold symbolized kingship, frankincense symbolized divinity, and myrrh symbolized his future suffering and death.

Who denied knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crowed?

All four Gospels record the prediction at the Last Supper; Luke adds that Jesus turned and looked at him as the bird crowed, and he went out and wept.

Which short chief tax collector of Jericho climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus?

Zacchaeus was called down by name and Jesus invited himself to dinner, after which he promised half his possessions to the poor; tax collectors were despised as Roman collaborators, hence the grumbling crowd.

Who asked God for a sign with a fleece, then beat the Midianites with 300 men chosen by how they drank?

Gideon, also called Jerubbaal after tearing down his father's altar to Baal; the 300 were the men who lapped water from their hands rather than kneeling to drink (Judges 7).

Who lived in Bethany with his sisters Martha and Mary and was raised by Jesus four days after dying?

Lazarus; the story is told only in John 11, where Martha worries aloud that the body will smell before the stone is rolled away, and Jesus weeps at the tomb before calling Lazarus out.

Who hid the two spies Joshua sent to Jericho and was spared when the walls fell?

Rahab; she marked her house with a scarlet cord so the Israelites would spare it (Joshua 2), and Matthew's genealogy later lists her among the ancestors of Jesus.

Which Pharisee of the Sanhedrin met Jesus by night and later helped bury him with spices?

Nicodemus; his night-time visit in John 3 is where Jesus speaks of being 'born again', and he appears three times in John's Gospel and nowhere else in the New Testament.

Who does Genesis say lived longer than anyone else, dying at 969, with a grandson who built the ark?

His father Enoch is one of only two people the Bible says did not die but was taken by God. Some scholars have argued the huge ages come from a mistranslation of months as years.

Who sold his birthright to his twin brother Jacob for a bowl of red lentil stew?

Esau's nickname Edom means 'red', a play on both his hair and the stew, and he became the ancestor of the Edomites; Jacob later stole his blessing too, disguised in goatskins.

Which prophet, hired by King Balak to curse Israel, had a donkey that spoke after seeing an angel?

Balaam, who instead delivered blessings over Israel from seven altars (Numbers 23); a 1967 inscription found at Deir Alla in Jordan mentions a seer called Balaam son of Beor.

Which cup-bearer to Artaxerxes got permission to rebuild Jerusalem's walls in 52 days?

Nehemiah; he worked despite opposition from Sanballat and Tobiah, with builders keeping a weapon in one hand (Nehemiah 4), and his book and Ezra were originally treated as a single work.

Which deacon in Acts, stoned after defying the Sanhedrin, was the first Christian martyr?

Saul of Tarsus, the future apostle Paul, watched over the coats of the men who stoned him. His feast day, December 26, is the 'Feast of Stephen' in the carol Good King Wenceslas.

Which orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai became queen of Persia and foiled Haman's plot?

Esther, whose Hebrew name was Hadassah; she hid her Jewish identity from King Ahasuerus until the crucial moment, and hers and Ruth are the only Protestant-canon books named for a woman.

Which prophetess, the only woman among Israel's judges, sent Barak to fight Sisera?

Deborah (Judges 4); Sisera was finally killed not by Barak but by Jael, who drove a tent peg through his head while he slept, and the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 is among the Bible's oldest passages.

Ruth, who followed her mother-in-law Naomi to Bethlehem, came from which nation?

Her loyalty was striking because Deuteronomy barred Moabites from the congregation of the LORD 'even to their tenth generation'.

Estimated total sales of the Christian Bible exceed how many copies?

That makes it the best-selling publication of all time, and the New Testament survives in more manuscripts than any other ancient work.

What is the name of the Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures begun in Alexandria?

The Septuagint; tradition credits around seventy scribes, hence its nickname LXX, and it was probably begun under Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the third century BCE.

In which city did Johannes Gutenberg print his famous Bible in the 1450s?

Mainz, where Gutenberg's workshop printed the Latin Vulgate around 1454–55; of the roughly 180 copies printed, 49 survive in substantial part.

By Jewish tradition, how many commandments does the Torah, also called the Pentateuch, contain?

613 commandments, the taryag mitzvot, form the basis of Jewish religious law; the Torah is also called the Pentateuch, meaning 'five scroll-cases'.

The King James Bible was proposed at which 1604 gathering convened by the king?

The Hampton Court Conference of 1604, where James I answered Puritan grievances set out in the Millenary Petition and agreed to a new translation; the finished King James Bible appeared in 1611.

Which two books are the only ones in the Tanakh with significant portions written in Aramaic?

Daniel and Ezra; Aramaic had become the lingua franca of the Near East, and the Aramaic sections run from Daniel 2:4 through 7:28 and in Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26.

The names Mordecai and Esther have been read as allusions to which two Mesopotamian deities?

Marduk and Ishtar; Mordecai echoes Marduk, Babylon's chief god, and Esther echoes Ishtar, goddess of love and war, a reading strengthened by the story's Persian-period setting in Susa.

Who committed the first murder in Genesis, killing his brother Abel in a field?

Cain; confronted by God, he answered with the famous line 'Am I my brother's keeper?' and was sentenced to wander the earth (Genesis 4).

Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and was turned into a pillar of what?

A pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26); the tale likely grew as a folk explanation for the salt formations around the Dead Sea, where a column at Mount Sodom is traditionally shown as Lot's wife.

What food did God provide the Israelites during their 40 years in the desert?

Manna (Exodus 16), described as white, the size of a coriander seed, and gathered before the sun melted it; none could be kept overnight except before the Sabbath.

Which tower in Genesis 11 ended with God confounding humanity's single language?

Babel, whose name puns on the Hebrew verb balal, 'to jumble'; the builders were in the plain of Shinar, in Lower Mesopotamia.

What is the 'number of the beast' in most manuscripts of the Bible's final book?

666 (Revelation 13:18); one early papyrus, P115, and a few other witnesses read 616 instead, a variant Irenaeus knew in the 2nd century and rejected.

Which prisoner did the crowd ask Pilate to release instead of Jesus?

Barabbas; Matthew, Mark and John describe a Passover custom of freeing one prisoner, and some early manuscripts of Matthew give his full name as 'Jesus Barabbas'.

On the road to which city was a persecutor of Christians blinded by a heavenly blaze?

Damascus; Saul was carrying letters from the high priest to arrest followers of Jesus there, and a disciple named Ananias in Damascus restored his sight (Acts 9).

Into which animals did Jesus send the demons who called themselves 'Legion'?

Pigs; the herd of about 2,000 rushed down a hillside and drowned in the lake (Mark 5), and the locals, having lost their livestock, asked Jesus to leave the region.

Who made the golden calf while the Israelites waited at the foot of the mountain?

Aaron; confronted, he claimed he had simply thrown the gold into the fire 'and out came this calf' (Exodus 32:24), yet he went on to become Israel's first high priest.

Which prophet's book is the last in the Old Testament of most Christian Bibles?

Malachi, meaning 'my messenger', possibly a title rather than a personal name; it closes with a promise that Elijah will return before 'the great and dreadful day of the LORD'.

Which prophet was shown a valley of dry bones that reassembled and came to life?

Ezekiel; the vision in chapter 37 promised the exiles in Babylon a national resurrection, and the spiritual 'Dem Bones' is built on it.

Which queen, wife of King Ahab, was thrown from a window and eaten by dogs?

Jezebel; her death fulfilled a prophecy made after she arranged the judicial murder of Naboth to seize his vineyard (1 Kings 21), and her name became a byword for a scheming woman.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near which site, starting in the 1940s?

Qumran, on the Dead Sea's northwest shore; Bedouin shepherds found the first jars in 1946–47, and the scrolls include copies of almost every Old Testament book, a thousand years older than the previous record.

At whose feast did a disembodied hand write 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin' on the wall?

Belshazzar (Daniel 5); the king had been drinking from vessels looted from the Jerusalem temple, was killed that very night, and the episode gave English 'the writing on the wall'.

Which unnamed queen came to Jerusalem with camels of spices and gold to test a king with riddles?

The Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10); Ethiopian tradition names her Makeda and claims the royal line of Ethiopia descended from Menelik, her son by Solomon.

Which rebellious son of David was caught by his head in an oak as his mule ran on beneath him?

Absalom (2 Samuel 18); hanging helpless, he was killed by Joab against the king's orders, and David's cry 'O my son Absalom... would God I had died for thee' became one of the Bible's great laments.

Bathsheba's first husband, whom David sent to die at the front, was which soldier?

Uriah the Hittite, one of David's elite 'Thirty' warriors (2 Samuel 23); the prophet Nathan later exposed the crime with a parable about a rich man stealing a poor man's one ewe lamb.

Which Syrian army commander was cured of leprosy after bathing seven times in a river?

Naaman (2 Kings 5); he nearly refused, grumbling that the rivers of Damascus were better than any in Israel, and a captive Israelite servant girl had first told him about the prophet Elisha.

Which 4th-century scholar translated the Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate?

He worked from the original rather than the Greek, a controversial choice at the time, and did much of the work in a cave near Jerusalem.

On which Aegean island did John receive the visions recorded in the Bible's final book?

Patmos (Revelation 1:9); tradition places the visions in the Cave of the Apocalypse, where John heard a voice 'as of a trumpet', and the cave and monastery of St John were listed by UNESCO in 1999.

Before Festus, which Roman governor kept Paul imprisoned at Caesarea for two years?

Felix; Acts 24 says he heard Paul's defence, hoped for a bribe, and left him in custody for two years until Porcius Festus succeeded him.

With 176 verses, which psalm is the longest chapter in the entire Bible?

Psalm 119; it is an acrostic of 22 stanzas of eight verses, each stanza's lines beginning with the same Hebrew letter in alphabetical order, 176 verses in all.

The Epistle to Philemon pleads on behalf of which runaway slave?

Onesimus, whose name means 'useful', and the letter puns on it (Philemon 11); at 335 Greek words, Philemon is the shortest of the Pauline epistles.

Which king of Salem brought out bread and wine and blessed Abram in Genesis 14?

Melchizedek; the Epistle to the Hebrews makes him a model for Jesus' priesthood, 'without father, without mother, without genealogy' (Hebrews 7:3), and Salem is usually taken to be Jerusalem.

Which prophet was told to marry Gomer, an unfaithful wife, as a sign of Israel's infidelity?

Hosea; he named their children Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah ('not pitied') and Lo-Ammi ('not my people') as living prophecies against the northern kingdom (Hosea 1).

Which left-handed judge hid a sword on his right thigh and killed the obese King Eglon?

Ehud (Judges 3); the blade sank in so far that the fat closed over the hilt, then he slipped out and locked the doors, and the servants assumed the king was relieving himself.

Which young man in Acts fell asleep during a long sermon and dropped from a third-storey window?

Eutychus (Acts 20); he was pronounced dead, but Paul embraced him and declared him alive, then went back upstairs and kept talking until daybreak.

Which 13th-century archbishop devised the chapter divisions used in modern Bibles?

Stephen Langton, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who divided the Vulgate into chapters while teaching in Paris; he stood with the barons against King John and had a hand in Magna Carta.

Which Parisian printer first numbered the verses of the New Testament, in his 1551 edition?

Robert Estienne, also known as Stephanus; legend says he did the numbering on horseback while travelling between Paris and Lyon, which critics blamed for some of the odd verse breaks.

Which institution holds most of Codex Sinaiticus, the 4th-century Greek Bible?

The British Library holds 347 of its roughly 400 surviving leaves; Tischendorf brought it out of Saint Catherine's Monastery in the 1800s, and the Soviet government sold the bulk to Britain in 1933 for £100,000.