The Bible

The rationale for inclusion in this page, as opposed to one of the other Bible pages, is fairly arcane. Most of these are facts about the Bible itself, as opposed to the stories therein; but some are included here simply because it's not clear from the question whether it refers to the Old Testament or the New Testament.

History

King James or Authorised Version: published		1611
Revised English Bible (New Testament) published		1881
Revised English Bible (Old Testament) published		1885
New English Bible published		1961

Books

Books in the Old Testament		39
Books in the New Testament		27
First five books of the Old Testament (a.k.a. the Books of Moses, and in the Jewish religion as the Torah)		The Pentateuch
First eight books of the Old Testament		The Octateuch
The eight books of the Octateuch		Genesis
		Exodus
		Leviticus
		Numbers
		Deuteronomy
		Joshua
		Judges
		Ruth
Books 9 and 10: I and II		Samuel
Books 11 and 12: I and II		Kings
Books 13 and 14: I and II		Chronicles
The five Poetic Books (18th to 22nd)		Job
		Psalms
		Proverbs
		Ecclesiastes
		The Song of Solomon
"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity" and "to everything there is a season" are qotations from		Ecclesiastes
Books named after women		Esther
		Ruth
Shortest book (one chapter, 21 verses)		Obadiah
Book with the shortest name		Job
Last book of the Old Testament		Malachi
Fifth book in the New Testament (after the four gospels)		Acts of the Apostles
Sixth book in the New Testament (after Acts) – the first of Paul's epistles		Romans
Antepenultimate and shortest book in the New testament		John III
Penultimate book in the New Testament		Jude
Last book in the New Testament		Revelation

Epistles

According to Wikipedia, "thirteen books of the New Testament [are] attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute."

Wikipedia proceeds to list fourteen Pauline Epistles. The odd one out is almost certainly the last one listed in the first table below – not least because its authorship is disputed.

Epistles to the following groups, listed in the order in which they appear in the New Testament, are attributed to St. Paul (all, except for the last, are early Christian churches):

	Romans		Corinthians (2)		Galatians		Ephesians
	Philippians		Colossians		Thessalonians (2)		Hebrews

Epistles to the following individuals, listed in the order in which they appear in the New Testament, are also attributed to St. Paul:

Timothy (2)

Titus

Philemon

The seven so–called Catholic Epistles (to unnamed recipients) are attributed to the following:

James

Peter (2)

John (3)

Jude

The first and last of these four authors are brothers of Jesus, according to the New Testament. The other epistles are attributed to Apostles of the respective names. Modern scholars doubt the veracity of most, if not all, of these attributions.

Shortest Books

It does depend whether you count the number of verses or the number of words. And if you count the number of words, it depends which version you're using. The following tables give word counts from two different sites: overviewbible.com and From the Kneehole Desk of Elsie K. Young. (Elsie died in March 2018, aged 105.)

The former site explains: "I got these word counts using Word Lists in Logos Bible Software. Again, these aren't listed by English word count: this is from the underlying Greek and Hebrew."

I feel bound to ask, "well ... was it the Greek, or was it the Hebrew?" I don't know the answer to this!

Elsie gives us no clue as to where her word count comes from; I'm guessing it's the King James version, but this is literally a guess.

The following are the only five books with just one chapter:

Testament	Verses	Words
		Overview	Elsie
New	14	219	299		The Third Epistle of John
New	13	245	303		The Second Epistle of John
New	25	335	445		The Epistle of Paul to Philemon
Old	21	440	670		Obadiah
New	25	461	613		The General Epistle of Jude

The next shortest books in the Old Testament are:

Chapters	Verses	Words
		Overview	Elsie
3	47	855	1,131		Nahum
2	38	926	1,285		Haggai

The only difference in the order, between the two word counts, is that Obadiah and Jude are reversed.

There are two more books in the New Testament that are shorter than Nahum, by number of words: Titus (659 words in the Overview) and 2 Thessalonians (823 words). Nahum is the 8th shortest book in the Bible (on word count).

The tenth shortest book in the Overview version is Habbakuk (3 chapters, 56 verses, 1,011 words). In Elsie's version it's Jonah (4 chapters, 48 verses, 1321 words.) Jonah has 1,082 words in the Overview version; Elsie doesn't give us a word count for Habbakuk because it isn't one of the ten shortest (or ten longest) books.

Longest Books

Here the inconsistencies in the results, depending on which word count you use – the one from the Overview (Greek or Hebrew) version, or Elsie's (which I'm guessing is from the King James version) – are more pronounced.

The following table lists the five longest books according to the Overview word count, but it also gives Elsie's word count and rankings for those five. All five are in the Old Testament:

Chapters	Verses	Words		Elsie's ranking
		Overview	Elsie
52	1,364	33,002	42,659	2		Jeremiah
50	1,533	32,046	38,267	4		Genesis
150	2,461	30,147	43,743	1		Psalms
48	1,273	29,918	39,407	3		Ezekiel
40	1,213	25,957	32,602	7		Exodus

The three longest books in the New Testament, according to the number of words in the Overview version, are:

Ranking		Chapters	Verses	Words
Overview	Elsie			Overview	Elsie
12	10	24	1,151	19,482	25,944		The Gospel According to St. Luke
15		28	1,007	18,450			The Acts of the Apostles
16		28	1,071	18,346			The Gospel According to St. Matthew

(Luke is the only New Testament book that Elsie gives us any figures for, as she only gives the ten longest books in the Bible and Luke is the only one of them that's in the New Testament. But at least she agrees that it's the longest book in the New Testament.)

Please note that the verse counts are my own, and may be subject to errors!

The next four longest books in the New Testament, according to the number of words in the Overview version, are John's gospel (15,635 words), Mark's gospel (11,304), Revelation (9,851) and the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (7,111).

Alphabetically

First book (New Testament)		Acts (of the Apostles)
Last book (Old Testament		Zephanaiah
First book in the Old Testament		Amos
Last book in the New Testament		Titus (The Epistle to)

The Gospels

Tells the story of the Nativity (including the Annunciation, the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, and the angels' announcement to the shepherds)		Luke
Tells of the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the murder of the Innocents; includes the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer		Matthew
Differs from the other three gospels (which are known as the synoptic gospels), and doesn't include much of the same information; seems to have been written after them; emphasises Jesus being the son of God; begins with the Creation; has a lot about Jesus's early ministry in Galilee, including the wedding at Cana and the raising of Lazarus		John

Famous lines

Opening verse (King James version)

In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want: opening line of (King James Version)		Psalm 23
In the beginning was the Word: opening words of		St. John's gospel

General

Year of the Creation (according to Archbishop James Ussher)		4004 BC
Longest psalm		119
Number of Psalms		150
The last word in the Bible (book of Revelation)		Amen
A declaration of affirmation, found in the Bible, and used in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worship as a concluding word or a response to prayers; said to be of Hebrew origin, but also has roots in Aramaic; typically translated as "so be it", or sometimes "verily" or "truly"
Tobit, Judith, Esther, Maccabeus 1 and 2: parts of the		Apocrypha
Illustrated Latin manuscript of the Gospels: probably created in a Columban monastery in Ireland, c. 800; widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure; named after the monastery in Co. Meath where it was kept from at least 1007 until 1564, when it was sent to Dublin for safe keeping; presented to Trinity College in 1661, and now on permanent display in its library		Book of Kells
Book of the Old Testament that includes the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace, by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, but brought out unscathed		Daniel
The Psalms were written by		David
Qumran Texts (found at Qumran, Jordan, 1947–56)		Dead Sea Scrolls
Books in which the Ten Commandments appear		Exodus
		Deuteronomy
The only miracle described in all four gospels		Feeding of the 5,000
The word "gospel" comes from an Old English term meaning		Good news
The New Testament was originally written in		Greek
Name given by theologians to the Biblical account of the six days that it took God to create the Earth – derived from the Greek words for 'six days'		Hexameron
Lamentations: attributed to		Jeremiah
Created the Vulgate Bible by translated from Greek and Hebrew into Latin (c. 347 – 420 AD)		St. Jerome
The shortest verse in the bible (King James version, among others; John, 11:35; refers to the death of Lazarus before Jesus raised him)		Jesus wept
The author of the Book of Revelation, and the recipient of the revelation, is named in the text as		John
History of Judah and Israel, from Solomon to the fall of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem		Kings I & II
Oldest surviving Anglo–Saxon translations (950AD)		Lindisfarne Gospels
Gospel addressed to Theophilus		Luke
Gospel thought to be based on eye–witness information		Mark
The principal Greek version of the New Testament		The Septuagint
The only two animals in the Bible that talk		Serpent
		Balaam's ass
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes: written by		Solomon
Acts of the Apostles: written by		St. Luke
The first three Gospels		Synoptic Gospels
The Decalogue is another name for the		Ten Commandments
St. Jerome's Latin Bible, 5th century AD		Vulgate
The only witch in the Bible: appears in Samuel I, said to be the origin of the name of Samantha's mother in Bewitched; also the Elves' name for Middle–Earth, in Tolkien		Witch of Endor

The Wicked Bible, of 1631, was so called because

The word 'not' was omitted from the 7th Commandment – which read "Thou shalt commit adultery"

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24