Facts and Trivia about the Bible

Facts and Trivia about the Bible

The Bible is actually a library of 66 books, written by 44 authors over a period of about 1500 years. The 39 books of the Old Testament were composed between 1400 and 400 B.C., the 27 books of the New Testament between A.D. 50 and A.D. 100.

When the Bible was first written, there were no chapters or verses as today. In fact, many of the early, handwritten manuscripts were written without spaces between the words! Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters about A.D. 1228. The Old Testament was divided into verses by R. Nathan in A.D. 1448, and Robert Stephanus divided the New Testament into verses in A.D. 1551. The first complete Bible with chapter and verse divisions was the Geneva Bible of A.D. 1560.

Here are some interesting facts and trivia regarding the King James Version of the Bible produced in A.D. 1611.

Books of the Bible:

Old Testament: 39 books
New Testament: 27 books
Complete Bible: 66 books
Middle book of the Old Testament: Proverbs
Middle book of the New Testament: 2 Thessalonians

Verses:

Old Testament: 23,214 verses
New Testament: 7,959 verses
Complete Bible: 31,173 verses
Middle verse of the Bible: Psalms 103:1,2
Middle verse of the Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 20:17
Middle verse of the New Testament: Acts 17:17
Shortest verse of the Old Testament: 1 Chronicles 1:25
Shortest verse of the New Testament: "Jesus wept." John 11:35; "Rejoice evermore" 1 Thessalonians 5:16
Longest verse in the Bible: Esther 8:9
Verse containing all letters of the alphabet except "J": Ezra 7:21
Verse containing all letters of the alphabet except "Q": Daniel 4:37
Verses most alike: Psalm 107:8,15,21, 31

Chapters:

Old Testament: 929
New Testament: 260
Entire Bible: 1,189
Middle chapter of Old Testament: Job 29
Middle chapter of New Testament: Romans 13
Middle and shortest chapter of Bible: Psalms 117
Longest chapter in the Bible: Psalm 119
Chapters that are most alike: 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37

Words:

In the Old Testament: 592,439 words
In the New Testament: 181,253 words
Complete Bible: 773, 692 words
Longest word in the Bible (18 letters): Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isaiah 8:1)

Words occurring only once in the Bible: eternity (Isaiah 57:15); grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5); gnat (Matthew 23:24)