Bible Trivia

You may or may not know your Bible well, but here are some pieces of information about God's Word that perhaps you didn't know

Facts and Numbers About The Bible

Who, What, When, Where?

• The word "Bible" simply means books.
• The Bible was originally made up of books written in three languages; Hebrew, Aramic, and Koine Greek.
• The entire Bible was written over a 1500 year span.
• The Bible contains 66 books written by over 40 different authors.
• The Bible contains 1189 chapters and over 31,00 verses.
• The Bible has been translated into over 2,000 languages.
• The Bible is the best selling book of all time.
• The Bible was the first book ever printed. In 1454, Johannes Gutenberg invented the "type mold" print press and began to print the Bible. Life Magazine called this the single most important event of the second millennium.
• Stephen Langton first divided the Bible into chapters in 1228.
• The Old Testament was first divided by verses in 1448 and the New Testament in 1551.
• The first English Bible translation was initiated by John Wycliff in 1382 and completed by John Purvey in 1388.
• It takes about 70 hours to read the entire Bible.
• About 170,000 Bibles are distributed each day in the United States.

The Long And Short Of It

• The longest book of the Bible is Psalms. (150 chapters, 2461 verses, 43,743 words)
• The shortest book is 3 John. (1 chapter, 14 verses, 299 words)
• The 2nd shortest is 2 John, close behind 3 John. (1 chapter, 13 verses, 303 words)
• The longest verse is Esther 8:9.
• The shortest verse is John 11:35. (2 words - "Jesus wept.")
• The shortest chapter is Psalm 117.
• Psalm 118 is between the shortest and longest chapters of the Bible and Psalm 118:8 is the Bible's center verse. "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." (Psalm 118:8)
• The longest chapter is Psalm 119.
• The Bible's longest word: Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:1, 3)
• Esther is the only book of the Bible that doesn't mention the name of "God"
• The word "Trinity" isn't mentioned in the Bible. Neither is "Rapture".
• The last word in the Bible is "Amen."

Book of Isaiah - Mirror of the Bible?

• The book of Isaiah is constructed much like the entire Bible.
• Bible: 66 books.
• Isaiah: 66 chapters.


• Bible: First 39 books mainly concern Isreal.
• Isaiah: First 39 chapters mainly concern Isreal.


• Bible: Last 27 books concern the life and coming of Jesus Christ.
• Isaiah: Last 27 chapters concern the life and coming of Jesus Christ.

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

• The first ever vocal radio broadcast on December 24, 1906 consisted of a reading from Luke chapter two.

You Said What?!

Here are some common, everyday figures of speech and phrases we use, that actually come from the Bible.

• "A drop in the bucket" comes from Isaiah 40:15.
  "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
  they are regarded as dust on the scales;
  he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust." (NIV)
• "Can a Leopard change its spots?" comes from Jeremiah 13:23.
  "Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots?
  Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. (NIV)
• "A man after my own heart" is found in two places of the Bible: Samuel 13:14, and Acts 13:22.
  Acts 13:22 "After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him:
  ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (NIV)
• "By the skin of my teeth" comes from Job 19:20.
  "I am nothing but skin and bones;
  I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth." (NIV)
• "Eat, drink, and be merry" comes from Ecclesiastes 8:15.
  "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun." (KJV)
• "Gave up the ghost" comes from Acts 12:23.
  "And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory:
  and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." (KJV)
• "The writing is on the wall" originates from Danial 5:5-6.
  "5 Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. 6 His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking." (NIV) It was then used figuratively later on, to foretell danger, even when there was no wall or writing around.

Questions, questions, questions...

• Who does the Bible say was the meekest man in the Bible (not including Jesus)?
• Moses (Numbers 12:3)
• Who was the oldest man that ever lived?
• Methuselah who lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27)
• Who were the two men in the Bible who never died but were caught up to heaven?
• Enoch, who walked with God and was no more (Genesis 5:22-24)
• Elijah, who was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven (II Kings 2:11)
• In the beginning, man had a life expectancy of around 1,000 years. Adam lived 930 years, and his son, Seth, lived 912 years. Methuselah lived the longest at 969 years, and Noah lived 950 years. It was common to live over 800 years. Where in the Bible does that change to our shorter lifespan?
• Genesis 6:1-3, at the beginning of the story of Noah.
  "1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” (NIV)