The Bible is the best-selling book in history, with total sales exceeding five billion copies. The first Biblical stories were passed down orally and only written down later by various authors. Most Biblical scholars believe the Book of Genesis was the first book to be written down. This would have happened around 1450 BC to 1400 BC. So about 3400 years or so ago.
• The Bible is a library of 66 books, written by at least 40 Holy Spirit-inspired authors.
• The Bible has 17 historical books. …
• The Bible has 5 poetical books. …
• The Bible has 17 prophetic books. …
• The Bible has 4 Gospels. …
• The Bible has 21 Epistles
The Bible is the most-read book in the world. This best-selling book sees up to 100 million copies sold or donated annually. Approximately 20 million copies are sold each year in the U.S. alone. The Bible was written in three languages. Those languages are Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Most of our Old Testament was written in Hebrew, which was the language the original readers spoke. Some of the Old Testament was written in Aramaic. There are about 58 English-language versions of the Bible. The Bible in its entirety has been translated into 704 languages and at least some portion has been translated into over 3,000 languages.
The longest book of the Bible is Jeremiah. He had a lot to say. He even wrote in the twentieth chapter of his book:
But if I say, I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9)
Jeremiah is the longest book based on how we currently arrange the books of the Bible. If we did it the old school way, the two-part book of Kings would be the longest book.
Kings wrote parts of the Bible. Half of the Psalms, a good chunk of Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes seem to be written by royalty. But other parts of the Bible are written by farmers, fishermen, a tentmaker, homeless prophets, a doctor, professional scribes, vocational musicians, pastors, etc.
There are at least 185 songs in the Bible. About 150 of these are in the book of Psalms. There are twenty-one dreams recorded in the Bible. The most used word in the Bible is “Lord,” The last word is Amen.
The Bible has been around for a long time and has influenced people around the world. It’s interesting and fun to read these facts about our Bible, but more important is what is contained in the 1,189 chapters. We’re going to look at more of those details in the coming days.
Deb Hill
Executive Assistant