Christianity - The Holy Bible

There are 39 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament.

As you might expect, there are a lot of numerological features, both explicit and implicit in the Bible, beginning perhaps with the Creation story in which God makes the world in six stages (two sub-cycles of 3 each, if you re-read early Genesis and look for the 'scheme') and then has a rest on the seventh.

(Going back a further level, there are whole scholarly literatures about how that story itself arose in this form, given that there were no humans on-hand to record it in 'real time' ... but that's already getting rather deeper than we need!)

Answer 4, obviously enough, is unhelpfully dismissive of a wealth of interesting material!

Their word 'Adonai' is traditionally rendered as 'the Lord' (often with 'Lord' in small-capital type, which our present site appears not to support) in English versions.

Written Hebrew usually leaves out its vowels, so their actual name for God would normally be rendered as Y*HW*H; the missing two vowels, for reference, are the first two vowels alphabetically in English (puzzle that out, or look it up!).

Meanwhile, 'hallelujah' (variously spelt, but as in many Jewish &/or Christian worship music ~ not least the famous chorus in Handel's 'Messiah') means 'praise to God', with the last syllable being an unmistakeable shortened hint at His full Jewish name. 'Y*HW*H' also appears as an acrostic within the narrative of the Book of Esther.

Apparently, 365 of these are negatively framed ('Thou shalt not ...', at a rate of one daily per year for those studying and attempting to abide by them) and 248 positively. Christians could, we hope, be forgiven for being grateful that Jesus ~ among many other wonderful accomplishments ~ came through 'the System' and simplified all this to a bare handful of core principles. In fairness, a great rabbi Hillel had already tried something similar before Jesus' earthly time.

Several key denominations, for instance, include the Apocrypha ~ a group of other 'books' ~ between the Old and New Testaments.

The Psalms, simply put, were the Old Testament equivalent of a hymnbook, with songs to or about God to articulate almost every shade of human experience ~ from elation to despair. These were originally numbered as such (even so, with some relatively minor variations or inconsistencies), but other Books were not marked in any such way, for reference purposes, until much later.

John 11:35 gets the prize here, describing Jesus' reaction to the reported death of his friend Lazarus (whom ~ so the story goes ~ He then went on to bring back from the dead, in a prefigurement of His own later Resurrection).

It perhaps bears comparison that when, in the Old Testament, King David was brought the news that, against his direct orders, his own son had been killed during what amounted to a civil war, this great soldier and poet-king was rather similarly reduced to saying almost nothing coherent, even he being too moved to find words. (See in 2 Samuel, perhaps picking up the story towards the back of the 'teen' chapters for context's sake.)

Answer 2 here is from Shakespeare ('Romeo and Juliet') and is certainly a true encapsulation of human experience. The Bible references were, respectively, from Psalm 127 ('Unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain'); Jesus' teaching in Matthew's Gospel; and the story of Elijah and his servant awaiting the end of the great drought in Israel.

The tale of Belshazzar's blasphemous feast comes from the book of Daniel. William Walton wrote a wonderful musical version of the story for soloist, chorus, orchestra and brass band (!) in 1931, which is strongly recommended if you are that way inclined and have half-an-hour or so to experience it; the cover of the printed score (of course) reproduces Rembrandt van Rijn's previous, and also deservedly famous, painting of the crucial moment.

The message of all this is that nobody should expect to get away with being so breathtakingly arrogant over matters that are so special or symbolic to God. Without wishing completely to spoil the story for any not already famliar with it, suffice it that Belshazzar is shortly struck dead ( ... and in the Walton setting, all the voices ~ perhaps even, also, those of the instrumentalists ~ shout the monosyllable 'slain' rather than actually singing it, which in itself was a technical 'first' for settings of Biblical material)!

Gideon's own story is told in the book of Judges (Old Testament) along with the likes of Samson: a picaresque period in the dealings of God and His people. The modern organisation was established and named in his honour by two American businessmen, and now has an active ministry worldwide (Gideons International, which you could research further ... look, for instance, for what emblem they use, that is depicted in stylised form on the jacket of all their copies!).