60 Fun Facts About New Testament

How many books make up the New Testament?

All of them were written in Koine Greek, the everyday Greek of the Roman world, and the earliest surviving manuscripts date from around the late second century.

In what language was the New Testament originally written?

The word 'gospel' itself comes from Old English for 'good news', translating the Greek euangelion.

Which Gospel do most scholars believe was written first?

Early tradition says it records the preaching of the chief apostle as set down by a companion.

The Gospel of Luke and which other book are widely thought to be a two-volume work by the same author?

Together they make up more than a quarter of the New Testament, and tradition names the author as Luke, a doctor who travelled with Paul.

Which Gospel builds Jesus' ministry around seven 'signs', ending with the raising of Lazarus?

It is also the Gospel that names an unnamed 'disciple whom Jesus loved' as its source.

Which archangel tells Mary she will bear a son, in the scene called the Annunciation?

The scene is described only in Luke's Gospel and became one of the most painted subjects in Western art.

Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is described in Luke as what relation to Mary?

She and her husband Zechariah were childless until old age; the exact relationship, often called 'cousin', is not specified.

According to the first Gospel, King Herod ordered the killing of all boys in Bethlehem up to what age?

The Magi had been warned in a dream not to report back to Herod, and Joseph fled with the family to Egypt.

The Gospels describe John the Baptist's diet as locusts and what?

He also wore clothing of camel's hair, and he is the only saint whose birth and death are both commemorated in the Roman martyrology.

Which ruler had John the Baptist beheaded after John condemned his marriage to Herodias?

He was tetrarch, meaning 'ruler of a quarter', of Galilee and Perea, and Josephus says the execution took place at the fortress of Machaerus.

In John's Gospel, Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding in which town?

His mother pointed out that the wine had run out, and the water was drawn from stone jars used for Jewish purification.

Which Sea of Galilee village was the base of much of Jesus' ministry and Peter's home?

A house there was progressively turned into a church in the 4th and 5th centuries, and the ruins of its synagogue still stand.

The Feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle apart from the resurrection that appears in how many Gospels?

John adds that the five loaves and two fish were supplied by a boy; the separate Feeding of the 4,000 appears only in Matthew and Mark.

At the Transfiguration, Jesus is seen talking with which two Old Testament figures?

Origen was the first to suggest the pair stood for the Law and the Prophets; Peter, James and John were the witnesses.

Zacchaeus, the tax collector of Jericho, climbed what to see Jesus over the crowd?

He then promised to give half his possessions to the poor; tax collectors were despised as collaborators with Rome.

How many days had Lazarus been dead when Jesus raised him?

The village of Bethany is today called Al-Eizariya, which translates as 'the place of Lazarus'.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, which two people pass the wounded man first?

The road ran from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and the story is Jesus' answer to the question 'Who is my neighbour?'

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, what job is the younger son reduced to before he returns home?

Jesus tells it in Luke 15 alongside the lost sheep and the lost coin, to critics who complained he ate with sinners.

The Samaritan woman whom Jesus meets at Jacob's Well had had how many husbands?

The meeting is at Sychar in John 4, and Eastern tradition gives her the name Photine.

The Sermon on the Mount opens with which set of sayings?

The sermon is the first of five long discourses that structure Matthew's Gospel.

Nicodemus, who visited Jesus by night, was told a person must be what to see the kingdom of God?

He appears three times in the fourth Gospel, later helping Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus' body for burial.

The name Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus was arrested, comes from Aramaic words meaning what?

The garden lies at the foot of the Mount of Olives, and Judas knew to find Jesus there because the group visited it often.

Which disciple cut off the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant, during the arrest of Jesus?

All four Gospels mention the ear, but only John names both the swordsman and the servant.

For how many pieces of silver did Judas Iscariot betray Jesus?

Matthew says he tried to return the money and hanged himself, and the priests used it to buy the Field of Blood.

Which prisoner did the crowd ask Pilate to release instead of Jesus?

All four Gospels describe a Passover custom of releasing one prisoner at the crowd's request.

Who was compelled by the Romans to carry the cross of Jesus?

Mark names his sons Alexander and Rufus, suggesting they were known to the early church; Cyrene was in modern Libya.

The crucifixion site Golgotha is translated in the Gospels as 'the place of' what?

The Latin equivalent gives us the name Calvary.

Which woman is honoured as the 'Apostle to the Apostles' for first witnessing the resurrection?

The church for centuries conflated her with the repentant sinner of Luke 7, a reading it later abandoned.

On the road to Emmaus the risen Jesus walks with two disciples. Which one is named?

The pair only recognise him when he breaks bread at supper, and his companion is never named.

The Great Commission, Jesus telling followers to make disciples of all nations, closes which Gospel?

It is delivered on a mountain in Galilee to the eleven remaining apostles.

After Judas' death, the apostles chose his replacement by what method?

The lot fell on Matthias rather than Joseph called Barsabbas, and Matthias is never mentioned again in the New Testament.

Which chapter of the book after the Gospels describes the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost?

Pentecost is the Greek name for the Jewish harvest festival Shavuot, held fifty days after Passover.

Who is traditionally regarded as the first Christian martyr, stoned to death in Acts 7?

He was one of the seven deacons of the Jerusalem church, and a young man named Saul approved of his killing.

In Acts 5, a couple drop dead after lying about the price of land they sold. What were their names?

They had copied Barnabas, who sold a field and gave the whole sum to the apostles, but secretly kept part of the money.

The Ethiopian official baptised by Philip was reading which book of Scripture in his chariot?

He was treasurer to the Candace, the title of the queen of the Ethiopians, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church regards him as a founding figure.

Saul of Tarsus was on his way to which city when he was struck blind by a light and heard the voice of Jesus?

A disciple named Ananias was sent to the house of Judas on the Street Called Straight to restore his sight.

According to Acts, what was Paul's trade?

It is how he came to work alongside Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth, and he had studied under the great teacher Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

The Roman centurion Cornelius, often called the first Gentile convert, was stationed in which city?

Peter came to him after a vision of a sheet full of animals, and the Ethiopian eunuch is the rival claimant to 'first Gentile'.

Lydia, regarded as the first documented Christian convert in Europe, was a dealer in what?

Paul met her at Philippi; her name simply means 'the Lydian woman', pointing to her origin in Thyatira in Asia Minor.

In which city were the followers of Jesus first called Christians?

The city in Syria became a chief centre of early Christianity and the launching point for Paul's missionary journeys.

What did the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 decide about Gentile converts?

James the Just delivered the judgment, asking Gentiles only to abstain from idol food, blood, strangled meat and sexual immorality.

Paul's sermon on the Areopagus in Athens took as its starting point an altar dedicated to what?

Two named converts followed, Damaris and Dionysius the Areopagite, and Paul quoted pagan poets in the speech.

Eutychus, a young man in Troas, died after doing what during one of Paul's sermons?

Paul went down, embraced him and restored him to life, then went back upstairs and kept talking until dawn.

Paul and Silas were freed from prison in Philippi by what event?

The jailer, about to kill himself, was instead baptised with his household that same night.

Which New Testament book is the shortest by word count?

2 John has fewer verses, but 3 John, a personal letter to a man named Gaius, has fewer words.

Paul's letter to Philemon asks him to welcome back which runaway slave as a brother?

The name means 'useful', and Paul puns on it, offering to repay anything the man owes.

How many of the 27 New Testament books have traditionally been attributed to Paul?

The count includes Hebrews, whose authorship was disputed even in antiquity; most scholars today accept seven letters as certainly his.

On which island was John when he received the visions recorded in the Book of Revelation?

The island's Cave of the Apocalypse and its Monastery of St John became UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1999.

The seven churches addressed at the start of Revelation were all located in what is now which country?

They were Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, all in Greek-speaking Anatolia.

The Four Horsemen of Revelation ride horses of which colours?

Only the fourth rider is named in the text, Death; the labels Conquest, War and Famine come from later commentary.

The oldest surviving manuscript of Revelation gives the number of the beast not as 666 but as what?

Papyrus 115 and Codex Ephraemi both carry the variant, which critical editions of the Greek text still note in the margin.

Which early church writer is the first known to call the Christian scriptures the 'New Testament'?

It appears in his work Against Praxeas; Irenaeus used the phrase too, but not for a written collection.

Which bishop's Easter letter of 367 first listed the 27 books of today's New Testament?

He used the word 'canonized' for them; the Synod of Hippo in 393 may have been the first council to accept the same list.

Who around AD 140 proposed a canon of only a modified Luke and ten Pauline letters?

His canon and his theology, Marcionism, were largely rejected by proto-orthodox Christians.

How many of Paul's letters are classed as 'undisputed', with near-consensus that he wrote them?

Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon; the other six bearing his name lack the same consensus.

In the Latin West before the Vulgate, the Gospels were arranged in which order?

The Syriac Peshitta, meanwhile, puts James, 1 Peter and 1 John straight after Acts, ahead of Paul's letters.

What does the word 'catholic' mean when applied to the Catholic or General epistles?

The term, used in the oldest manuscripts, says nothing about their canonical status; several have disputed authorship.

Which emperor commissioned Eusebius in 331 to produce fifty Bibles for Constantinople?

Athanasius also recorded Alexandrian scribes preparing Bibles for the emperor Constans around 340.

Roughly how many Greek manuscripts preserve all or part of the New Testament?

There are also some 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 in other ancient languages such as Syriac, Slavic, Ethiopic and Armenian.

Whose Bible placed Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation last, reflecting his doubts about them?

The ordering in the 16th-century Luther Bible mirrors his views on the canonicity of those four books.