1. 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. A few bits of the Old Testament were written Aramaic (looking at you, Ezra and Daniel). The New Testament was written in Greek, the commonly-spoken language of the time.
2. The Bible is about 611,00 words long
In those original languages, the Bible’s word count is about 611,000.
That word count is not going to line up with your Bible though, for a few reasons:
When translating the Bible from its original languages to English, translators tend to use more words to get across the original author’s point.
Different translations word passages differently, which results in a variation in word count.
But even so: it’s interesting to think that while the Bible is longer than Moby Dick, it’s nowhere near as long a read as the Harry Potter saga. You can learn more about just how long the Bible is here .
3. The longest book of the Bible is Jeremiah
This prophet 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 anymore 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 )
Granted, 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. (See Fact #9!)
And if we did it really, really, really old school, the five-part Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) would dwarf all other contenders. This megabook alone makes up about one fifth of the whole Bible!
You can learn more about the longest books of the Bible here .
4. The shortest book of the Bible is 3 John
You can read this book in about one minute. The book right before it, 2 John, is the second-shortest book of the Bible. You can learn more about the shortest books of the Bible here.
5. The Bible was written by more than 40 traditional authors
The books of the Bible are traditionally attributed to
heroes of the Jewish and Christian faiths . Moses is given credit for the first five books of the Bible, most of the prophets are given credit for the books named after them, etc.
The reality is a bit messier than this, of course. Moses probably didn’t pen every word of Genesis–Deuteronomy—he died before some of the events happened! And there’s a good chance Jonah didn’t write Jonah, and Isaiah may have had some help over the centuries, and so on and so forth.
Aphorism CITY 