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Bible Facts and Numbers Trivia
Questions tagged Bible Facts and Numbers, gathered from every section that asks for a count or a fact. The app has 403 questions in this set. 2 more quote the ESV at length, and those stay in the app rather than on this page. 12 are printed here.
Questions and answers
Medium Bible Numbers & Statistics
According to the ESV, how old was Methuselah when he died — the oldest age recorded in the Bible?
- A930
- B950
- C969Correct
- D777
Answer: 969
Genesis 5:27 · ESV
Genesis 5 runs through ten generations in a fixed formula, giving each man's age at the birth of his son, the years he lived afterward, and the closing note that he died. Methuselah's nine hundred sixty-nine is the longest total recorded. Following the same chapter's figures into Genesis 7, his death falls in the very year the flood came.
Genesis 5:27; Genesis 7:6
Why not this one. Nine hundred thirty is Adam's age at death, the first figure the chapter gives, which is why it lodges in the memory. Adam is the oldest man in the line by generation, not by years.
Medium Doctrine — Baptist Faith & Message
How many articles did the Baptist Faith and Message contain as revised in 1963, before the family article was added?
- A15
- B17Correct
- C18
- D25
Answer: 17
BF&M 1963 · ESV
The 1963 revision had seventeen articles, ending with Religious Liberty. The 1998 amendment added an eighteenth on the family, and the 2000 revision kept that count.
The 1963 committee reached seventeen chiefly by consolidating: several separate 1925 articles on salvation were gathered into one, as were three on last things. No doctrine was dropped in the process; the committee said as much in its preamble.
Why not this one. Twenty-five was the count of the 1925 statement. The 1963 committee cut the number nearly in half without meaning to delete any doctrine. That statement ended with an article on the Kingdom.
Easy Doctrine — Church & Ordinances
Acts 2:42 says the first believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and what else?
- AThe prayersCorrect
- BThe reading of the Law
- CThe singing of psalms
- DThe washing of feet
Answer: The prayers
Acts 2:42 · ESV
Luke's four marks of the Jerusalem church are doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. They remain a fair summary of what a gathered congregation is for, and the list describes a settled devotion rather than a single occasion.
Acts 2:42, immediately after the baptism of about three thousand at Pentecost. The breaking of bread named there is commonly taken to include the Lord's Supper.
Why not this one. Singing is commanded elsewhere, in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, but it is not one of the four items Luke names in this verse.
Easy Doctrine — God & the Trinity
Which psalm, headed a prayer of Moses the man of God, declares that from everlasting to everlasting God is God?
- APsalm 90Correct
- BPsalm 8
- CPsalm 23
- DPsalm 119
Answer: Psalm 90
Psalm 90:2 · ESV
Moses sets the brevity of human life against the eternity of God: before the mountains were brought forth, God already was, and he will be when they are gone. God's eternity is not merely a very long duration but the ground on which everything else that has a beginning stands.
Psalm 90:1-2, the psalm's title naming Moses as its author.
Why not this one. Psalm 8 also contrasts man with God, but its theme is the dignity given to man under God's majestic name, not God's eternity.
Easy Doctrine — The Scriptures
The Old Testament was originally written chiefly in which language?
- AHebrewCorrect
- BGreek
- CLatin
- DAramaic
Answer: Hebrew
Daniel 2:4–7:28 · ESV
God gave the Old Testament to Israel in Israel's own tongue. Apart from a handful of passages, every book of the Old Testament stands in Hebrew, and the Hebrew text was copied and guarded by scribes for centuries before the church received it.
Short stretches of Ezra 4:8–6:18 and Daniel 2:4–7:28, along with a verse of Jeremiah, are written in Aramaic, the diplomatic language of the exile; the rest of the Old Testament is Hebrew.
Why not this one. Aramaic accounts for only a few chapters in Daniel and Ezra, not the body of the Old Testament, and it was the common speech of Judea only after the exile.
Medium Miracles of the Bible
Jesus told Peter to cast a hook and open the mouth of the first fish he caught. What would he find there?
- AA shekelCorrect
- BA denarius
- CA pearl
- DA signet ring
Answer: A shekel
Matthew 17:27 · ESV
To pay the two-drachma temple tax for them both, Jesus sent Peter to the sea, promising a coin in the mouth of the first fish. The miracle quietly makes the point of the preceding conversation: the Son is free from the tax, yet he pays it so as not to give offense. It is the only miracle in the Gospels worked to meet a tax obligation.
Matthew 17:24-27 records the exchange and the coin in the fish.
Why not this one. A denarius was a day's wage and appears in other accounts, but it would not have covered the temple tax for two; the coin named here is worth exactly that.
Medium New Testament — Acts of the Apostles
How many persons does Luke say were aboard the ship that carried Paul through the storm toward Rome?
- ATwo hundred seventy-sixCorrect
- BOne hundred forty
- CNinety-six
- DThree hundred twelve
Answer: Two hundred seventy-six
Acts 27:37 · ESV
Luke gives the exact count at the point where the crew and passengers finally took food after a long fast, and then lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea. Every one of them reached land alive, just as Paul had promised on the strength of the angel's word to him.
Acts 27:37 gives the number; verses 22-25 and 44 record the promise and its fulfilment.
Why not this one. No such figure appears anywhere in the account. The size of the ship's company is part of the point: a grain vessel carrying that many explains why a shipwreck with no loss of life was so remarkable.
Medium New Testament — General Epistles & Revelation
How many seals, trumpets, and bowls of judgment are in Revelation?
- ASeven each.Correct
- BSix each.
- CSeven seals, six trumpets, and seven bowls.
- DTwelve each.
Answer: Seven each.
Revelation 6–8; 8–11; 15–16 · ESV
Each series runs to seven, and each is interrupted before its last member, with the sealing and the great multitude standing between the sixth and seventh seals. How the three series relate is where orthodox readers divide. Some take them as strictly successive, others as recapitulating one period from different angles, and the futurist, historicist, idealist and preterist schemes answer that differently.
Revelation 6:1-8:1; 8:2-11:19; 15:1-16:21.
Why not this one. The trumpets really are interrupted after the sixth, and the seventh is not sounded until 11:15, so the series can feel short by one; but the seventh trumpet is there.
Hard New Testament — Paul’s Letters
In which two letters does Paul say that Tychicus will tell the readers everything about him and his circumstances?
- AEphesians and ColossiansCorrect
- BPhilippians and Philemon
- CRomans and Galatians
- D1 and 2 Thessalonians
Answer: Ephesians and Colossians
Ephesians 6:21–22; Colossians 4:7–8 · ESV
Tychicus carried both letters from Paul’s imprisonment and was to supply in person the news the letters leave out, so that the churches might know how Paul was and be encouraged. Colossians adds that Onesimus travelled with him, which ties that letter to Philemon.
Ephesians 6:21–22 and Colossians 4:7–9, the nearly identical closing notes of two letters sent at the same time.
Why not this one. Both are prison letters, but Philippians was carried back by Epaphroditus after his recovery, and Philemon went to Colossae in the hand of the returning slave Onesimus.
Hard New Testament — The Gospels
Which Gospel reports that the inscription over Jesus was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek?
- AJohnCorrect
- BMatthew
- CMark
- DLuke
Answer: John
John 19:19–20 · ESV
John alone notes the three languages, along with Pilate's refusal to change the wording when the chief priests objected. The place of crucifixion was near the city, so many could read it. The chief priests wanted the wording changed to a claim Jesus had made, and Pilate answered that what he had written he had written.
John 19:19–22; the other Gospels record the charge over his head without listing the languages.
Why not this one. Luke does report an inscription above Jesus naming him King of the Jews, which makes this the tempting choice, but he says nothing about the three languages.
Easy Old Testament — Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther
Which Persian king issued the decree allowing the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple?
- ADarius
- BCyrusCorrect
- CArtaxerxes
- DXerxes
Answer: Cyrus
Ezra 1:1–2 · ESV
Cyrus took Babylon around 539 BC, and in his first year issued the proclamation sending the exiles home with the temple vessels Nebuchadnezzar had carried off. Isaiah had named Cyrus long before, calling him God's shepherd and his anointed, the man who would say of Jerusalem that it should be built.
Ezra 1:1–7; Isaiah 44:28; 45:1
Why not this one. Artaxerxes is the king behind the two later journeys, sending Ezra with a commission for the temple and Artaxerxes granting Nehemiah timber and safe passage for the walls. He also once ordered the work on the city stopped. But he reigns two kings after Cyrus, well after the return had begun.
Medium Old Testament — Genesis & Creation
Which river in Genesis 2 is described as flowing around the whole land of Cush?
- APishon
- BGihonCorrect
- CHiddekel
- DEuphrates
Answer: Gihon
Genesis 2:13 · ESV
Genesis 2:10-14 names four rivers flowing out from the one that waters the garden. The Pishon circles Havilah, where there is gold, bdellium, and onyx. The Gihon circles the whole land of Cush. The third is the Tigris, running east of Assyria, and the fourth is the Euphrates, named with no description at all, as though the first readers needed none.
Genesis 2:10–14
Why not this one. The Pishon is the other river of the pair that gets a whole land attached to it, and the two descriptions sit in consecutive verses with the same wording. The Pishon's land is Havilah, remembered for its gold; Cush belongs to the Gihon.