The Ultimate Learn-As-You-Play Bible Quiz Book: That’s in the Bible?

INTRODUCTION   How This Book Can Help You Read, Enjoy, and Learn More from the Bible       THE BIBLE CAN BARELY BE READ IN ONE YEAR, LET ALONE IN one sitting. And its complexity and richness certainly can’t be comprehended in one reading. The Bible merits study, and study requires guidance. But while there are plenty of Bible guides and literally thousands of books of commentary available to anyone who wants them, the plain fact is that most of us don’t. While we may be interested in learning more about the Bible, few of us aim to become scholars or amateur theologians. We want a grasp of the central characters and we want guideposts to mark the essential points we need to remember and understand.   This quizbook is designed to help you read the Bible. Our hope is that it will deepen both your pleasure in and knowledge of the Bible. To help accomplish this, it is organized into the same sections as the Bible itself, so that you or your study group can follow it in sequence with the Bible. There are no trick questions in this book (although some are tricky!). Every question and every answer has been designed to help you increase your knowledge of the Bible. In addition, the answers are designed for discussion purposes, making the answers as integral to your study as the questions.   The Bible continues to be far and away the best-selling book in the world. In the United States alone it sells 15 to 16 million copies a year. By comparison, the top best-seller on the hardcover list as I write has sold 1.6 million copies. The best-selling paperback has sold 4.2 million copies. Next year both these books will be forgotten, so there is no reason to even mention their names. But the Bible sells at a consistent rate of three to five times that amount every year.   Reviewing these astoundingly high sales figures for the Bible, an executive with the Christian Booksellers Association asked me rhetorically (and plaintively), “Where do they all go?” Another and perhaps more important question is, “Why do people want to read the Bible?” Or in the case where it is being bought as a gift for someone else, “Why do people think other people need to read the Bible?”   For believers, the answer is quite simple, but for everyone else it’s not. For nonbelievers, for semibelievers, for wanna-be believers, for the curious, for the doubters, for the once-agnostic-but-not-so-sure, for the pained and hurting, for the good seeking a definition of good, for the bad seeking a way out of bad, for the dispirited seeking spirit, for the disinherited seeking a home, for the libertine seeking restraint and the constrained seeking liberty, for the altar boy who became an inside trader, for the Sunday School teacher who’s four times divorced, for the teenager crying over an abortion and for the boyfriend who told her to do it—for all of weak and vacillating and immoral mankind, this book continues as a Blessing, a salve on the wound of conscience and a stairway to a better life.   Why does the Bible have so many readers? Because in this book God talks to people exactly like us.   Abraham is a Patriarch. But is that the same Abraham who was willing to have his wife sleep with someone else if it will save his skin? Israel continues the Covenant. But isn’t that Israel the same Jacob who deceived his father to get his blessing? Peter will publicly pronounce the good news on Pentecost and later die a martyr’s death. But isn’t that the Simon Peter who took the coward’s way out by denying Christ? Aren’t we all at some point in our lives compromisers, liars, cowards?   Where is the perfect person among us? He doesn’t exist. But in the Bible we find that all this imperfection is to a purpose. Perfection is promised, and perfection comes. And it is so radically different from how imperfect people conceived what perfection should be that it is slaughtered.   Someone has said that the Bible is a book with a thousand heartbeats. It throbs with life. With a keen eye to human behavior and with an ear that hears every false note, it reports the pathetic dispassionately and sweeps us up to the sublime with sparse words. This is a book that sees no problem in boring its reader with bureaucratic number crunching in one section before encountering a talking ass in another. More interestingly, this is a book that tells without embarrassment the worst stories about its greatest heroes. It is frank. It is often funny. And in many, many places it is poetry.   WHY I USE THE KING JAMES VERSION     The King James Version is not only outmoded in its language but outdated in its scholarship. (Koine Greek, in which most of the New Testament is written in the earliest manuscripts, wasn’t understood by the King James translators, who used ancient Greek as best they could. Their best, as we shall see, was very good.)   In spite of its admitted limitations, I use the King James Version for two reasons. One, it is still the best-selling translation of the Bible and thus the Bible most people encounter and read; therefore its phrasing is the most familiar to the greatest number of people. Two, the grace and beauty of the Elizabethan writing rings with surer authority than any translation that has come since. This is why the King James Version is the only translation to be ranked among the world’s classics of literature.   On the question of authenticity, I turn to Reynolds Price, author of A Palpable God, who made his own translations of thirty passages from the Old and New Testaments. After learning Koine and closely reading the Latin Vulgate (which is close to being a primary source itself, since St. Jerome relied on manuscripts no longer in existence), Reynolds came to the conclusion that the King James Version holds truer to the original texts. He uses an incident recorded in Mark 5 to show why.   Jesus enters a house where there is a great wailing because the young daughter of the homeowner has died. Jesus says no, she’s only asleep, which causes the mourners to jeer at him until he walks over to her and tells her to wake up, which she does. In the King James Version, “he cometh into the house of the ruler of the synagogue and seeth the tumult” (Mark 5:38).   Chapter 1     THIS INTRODUCTORY QUIZ IS A WARM-UP. IF YOU ARE FAIRLY familiar with the Bible, you ought to answer at least 23 of the 25 questions correctly. If you are coming back to the Bible after a long absence or if the whole experience is new to you, be lenient with yourself, although you’ll probably be surprised how well you do with a well-considered guess.   Answers begin on page 137.   1. The most frequently mentioned woman in the Bible is: Eve Virgin Mary Sarah Rachel   2. The most frequently mentioned man, after Jesus himself, in the Bible is: David Moses Abraham Paul   3. The longest book in the Bible is: Jeremiah Ezekiel Genesis Psalms   4. The shortest book in the Bible is: Second Epistle of John Epistle to Philemon Obadiah Nahum   5. The shortest verse in the Bible is ____________.   6. The shortest prayer in the Bible is ____________.   7. The Old Testament book most often referred to or quoted in the New Testament is:   Psalms Daniel Isaiah Genesis   8. What New Testament book relies on the most Old Testament books? Matthew Epistle to the Hebrews Luke Revelation   9. Among the “lost” books mentioned in the Bible but not included in it is: Book of Jasher Book of Zephaniah Book of Baruch Book of Judith   10. The Hebrew Bible does not include among the Prophets which of these books: Isaiah Ezekiel Jeremiah Daniel   11. After the books of the four major prophets come the writings of the so-called minor prophets. How many minor prophets are there? four ten seven twelve   12. The Book of Lamentations is included among the Prophetic Books of the Bible, even though it is not a prophecy, because it is thought to have been written by: Isaiah Ezekiel Jeremiah Daniel   13. What is the only book in the Bible that does not mention God?   14. The longest reign of any king in the Bible is by: David Manasseh Solomon Hezekiah   15. The shortest reign of any king in the Bible is by: Saul Herod Agrippa I Asa Zimri   16. Which two books in the Bible begin with “In the beginning …”?   17. What book of the Bible is a collection of five smaller books?   18. What is the most often used noun in the Bible: Lord water Israel wilderness   19. What is currently considered by scholars to be the oldest complete book of the Bible? Judges Exodus Second Samuel Deuteronomy   20. What is currently considered to be the latest book written? Revelation Epistle to the Hebrews Gospel of John Second Epistle of Peter   21. Who is traditionally believed to have written the first five books of the Bible? Joshua Ezra Moses Aaron   22. The Old Testament is, among other things, a history of the Hebrews. But two books have non-Hebrews as their main characters. Which are they?   23. Over fifty authors, some well known and some anonymous, contributed to the sixty-six books of the Bible, but one author is responsible for more books than any other single person. Who?   24. The Bible begins at the dawn of Creation and ends with the prophecy of the End Times. Which book of the Bible spans more time than all other sixty-five books put together?   25. The very last word of the Bible is ____________. (Don’t peek. Think about it.)