# BibleBelt — Learn the Bible. Earn your belt.

> Do you actually know the Bible? BibleBelt is an iOS app (coming soon to the App Store) for Christians interested in what historians, scholars, and experts have known about the Bible for centuries. Every quiz answer shows the verse, names the scholar, and cites the source; Classes turn a subject into short lessons that earn stripes and belts.

Made by [Relucia, LLC](https://relucia.co). Contact: admin@relucia.co. Site: https://biblebelt.app

## How it works

- **Quizzes.** Pick a subject (Stories & People, Books & Authors, History & Timeline, Text & Tradition) and a level (Foundations, Deeper Study, Scholarship). Every level is open from day one; the label describes the questions, not you. Seven questions a round; a tap is provisional until you check it.
- **Every answer comes with receipts.** The verse, why it is interesting, whether the point is scholarly consensus, genuinely debated, or an open question, and the named sources.
- **Classes.** If quizzes are reps, Classes are the full workout: one subject worked through lesson by lesson. Each lesson is a few short cards and a two-question drill; every finished lesson earns a stripe, and four stripes earn the belt in that Class. Belts are earned per Class, never handed out app-wide.
- **Gym rules.** The text leads. Wrong answers get the richer explanation. No buzzers, no shame, no leaderboards. Every claim carries receipts. White belts welcome.

## Ten sample questions

### 1. How many wise men does the Bible say visited the baby Jesus?

Choices: Three · Twelve · **The Bible never gives a number** · Two

**Answer:** Matthew 2 never counts them. It says "magi" — a plural — and lists three gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh). The number three came from the gifts, not the visitors.

*Three gifts became three men, then kings, then names — Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar — all added by later tradition. The Gospel itself gives none of it.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Matthew 2:1-12; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah.

### 2. "Money is the root of all evil." Is that how the verse actually reads?

Choices: Yes, word for word · **No — it's a slight misquote**

**Answer:** Modern translations read "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10); the King James has "the root of all evil," which is where the familiar wording comes from. Either way, the popular version drops "the love of" — and that's the part that changes the meaning. The subject is love of money, not money itself.

*The popular saying is half genuine misquote and half faithful quotation of an older translation. Dropping "the love of" turns a line about greed into a blanket verdict on wealth; whether it's "a root" or "the root" depends on which English Bible you grew up with.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: 1 Timothy 6:10; The HarperCollins Study Bible.

### 3. What does the book of Jonah say swallowed Jonah?

Choices: A whale · **A great fish** · A sea serpent · A shark

**Answer:** "A great fish" (Jonah 1:17) — Hebrew dag gadol. No whale anywhere in the Hebrew. When Matthew 12:40 refers back to it in Greek, it uses ketos, "sea monster."

*The whale entered the story through later translation and art, not the text. The Hebrew is deliberately vague: just a very large fish, sent for the purpose.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Jonah 1:17; Matthew 12:40; Jack M. Sasson, Jonah, Anchor Bible.

### 4. Which animals does Luke name at the manger?

Choices: An ox and a donkey · Sheep, brought by the shepherds · Camels · **None — no animal is named**

**Answer:** Luke names no animals at the birth — only a manger, which is where the idea of them comes from. The ox and donkey entered the picture from Isaiah 1:3 — "the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib" — read from early on as a Christmas verse.

*Early Christian art already shows the ox and donkey flanking the manger, centuries before the modern crèche. They are the scene's oldest additions — imported from a prophet, not a Gospel.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Luke 2:7–16; Isaiah 1:3; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah.

### 5. "This too shall pass." Is it in the Bible?

Choices: Yes · **No**

**Answer:** It's nowhere in the Bible. The line comes from a Persian fable retold in the West by the poet Edward FitzGerald in the 1800s, and Abraham Lincoln quoted it in a famous speech.

*Its cadence is so scriptural that it's read at funerals and quoted from pulpits — a folk proverb wearing biblical clothes. The Bible's nearest cousin is Ecclesiastes' "a time for everything," which says something rather different.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Not found in the biblical text; cf. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 for a related theme.; Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

### 6. How many Gospels are in the New Testament?

Choices: One · Three · **Four** · Seven

**Answer:** Four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But they weren't the only gospels written — others, like the Gospel of Thomas, circulated early and weren't included.

*Luke's own opening admits "many" had already written accounts before him. The choice of exactly four became standard by the late second century, and the rest fell away.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Luke 1:1-4 (referring to earlier accounts); Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities.

### 7. In what year was Jesus born — the year 'zero'?

Choices: **There is no year zero; likely a few years 'BC'** · Exactly 1 AD · The year 0 · 33 AD

**Answer:** Our BC/AD count was worked out by a monk in the 500s, and it has no year zero — the calendar jumps from 1 BC straight to 1 AD. He also miscounted slightly, so most scholars place Jesus' birth a few years 'Before Christ,' around 6-4 BC.

*It means Jesus was, by our own calendar, born 'before Christ' — a genuinely charming accident of arithmetic. The clue is Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC yet is alive in the birth stories.*

Badge: Genuinely debated. Receipts: Matthew 2:1; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus.

### 8. How many books are in a standard Protestant Bible?

Choices: **66** · 73 · 40 · 27

**Answer:** 66 in a Protestant Bible (39 Old Testament + 27 New). A Catholic Bible has 73 — it includes books like Tobit and Maccabees — and Eastern Orthodox Bibles have more still.

*There isn't one universally agreed "Bible" table of contents; the number depends on the tradition. The extra books, called the deuterocanon or Apocrypha, were part of many Bibles for centuries.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Table of contents varies by canon (e.g., Tobit, 1-2 Maccabees in Catholic Bibles).; John Barton, A History of the Bible.

### 9. How many of the four Gospels tell the story of Jesus' birth?

Choices: All four · Three · **Two — Matthew and Luke** · One — Luke

**Answer:** Only Matthew and Luke have birth stories. Mark opens with Jesus as an adult at his baptism; John opens before creation, with the Word. The two nativities also tell different halves — magi and star in Matthew, shepherds and manger in Luke.

*Mark, which most scholars date earliest, begins without a birth story at all — the nativities enter the written tradition with Matthew and Luke, and each tells a different one.*

Badge: Scholarly consensus. Receipts: Matthew 1–2; Luke 1–2; Mark 1:1–9; John 1:1–14; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah.

### 10. Everyone knows David killed Goliath. But another verse credits the giant's death to someone else. Who?

Choices: **Elhanan** · Jonathan · Joab · Abishai

**Answer:** 1 Samuel 17 gives Goliath to David. But 2 Samuel 21:19 says 'Elhanan... killed Goliath the Gittite.' Chronicles, retelling the same moment, says Elhanan killed 'Lahmi the brother of Goliath' (1 Chronicles 20:5) — one of the ways the tradition itself reads the puzzle.

*Chronicles often smooths the books of Samuel as it retells them, and this is a favorite example: a brother appears to account for the two Goliaths. The text hands you both versions and the ancient fix beside them.*

Badge: Genuinely debated. Receipts: 1 Samuel 17:50; 2 Samuel 21:19; 1 Chronicles 20:5; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel, Anchor Bible.

## Classes at launch

### Mark (Bible book · 12 lessons)

The earliest Gospel, most scholars think — and the one in the biggest hurry. This Class covers the book itself: its breathless style, the tradition about who wrote it and where his story came from, and the strange details only Mark keeps. The deeper belts follow it into the scholarship it anchors. Twelve lessons across three belts.

**White Belt:** The Gospel in a Hurry · Mark Wasn't There · The Man Who Ran Away Naked · Written for Outsiders
**Brown Belt:** Don't Tell Anyone · First, Not Second · The Most Human Jesus · Two Endings to the Same Week
**Black Belt:** The Synoptic Problem · Dating Mark to the Rubble · Moved With Anger · The Ending That Isn't There

### Paul (Person · 12 lessons)

Thirteen New Testament letters carry Paul's name, and his story fills half of Acts. This Class follows him from Pharisee to apostle: the road to Damascus, the letters and the churches they were mailed to, and the questions scholars still argue about which ones he wrote. Twelve lessons across three belts.

**White Belt:** The Road to Damascus (Hold the Horse) · Saul Didn't Become Paul · Thirteen Letters, One Name · The Man Before the Road
**Brown Belt:** Paul Wrote First · He Never Met Jesus · Three Tellings of One Conversion · Letters, Not Books
**Black Belt:** The Seven and the Six · The Letter He Didn't Write to the Hebrews · Paul and James on Faith and Works · The New Perspective

### The Christmas Story (Story arc · 8 lessons)

Everyone knows the Christmas story — which is exactly what makes it such a pleasure to reread. Only two Gospels tell it, and between them they gave us the shepherds, the magi, a manger, and the calendar the whole world counts by. This Class walks through what Matthew and Luke each actually say: who visits and where, how the family trees run, when the birth really lands, and the famous verse behind "the virgin shall conceive." Eight lessons across two belts.

**White Belt:** Nobody Counted the Wise Men · There Is No Stable · Two Gospels, Two Christmases · The Cast You've Combined
**Brown Belt:** Two Genealogies, Two Answers · Not the Year Zero · Herod's Slaughter, Outside the Bible · Almah and Parthenos

### Noah & the Flood (Story arc · 12 lessons)

Everyone knows the ark, the animals, and the rainbow — and the text has more to say than the nursery version. This Class reads the flood story closely: the animal counts, the flood's own calendar, the raven and the dove, and the covenant in the sky; then the braided tellings, the strange prologue, and where the ark is said to have landed. The deepest belt sets Genesis beside the older floods of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, and follows what geologists and a century of Ararat expeditions have found — and haven't. Twelve lessons across three belts.

**White Belt:** How Many of Each Animal? · Forty Days, or a Hundred and Fifty? · The Raven Before the Dove · What the Rainbow Is For
**Brown Belt:** Two Flood Stories, Braided · The Sons of God · Noah's Vineyard · Where the Ark Landed
**Black Belt:** The Older Flood · Documentary Hypothesis 101 · Looking for the Flood · Ararat, Searched

### How We Got the Bible (Theme · 8 lessons)

The Bible on your shelf has a history — councils and quiet consensus, scribes and printers, manuscripts lost, found, and compared. This Class follows that story: what Nicaea actually decided, why Catholic Bibles run longer, where chapter and verse came from, and what turned up in a cave near the Dead Sea. It starts at Brown Belt because the material does. Eight lessons across two belts.

**Brown Belt:** Nobody Voted at Nicaea · The Books That Didn't Make It · Why Catholic Bibles Are Longer · Chapter and Verse Came Later
**Black Belt:** No Autographs · Sinaiticus and Vaticanus · Erasmus, the KJV, and the Comma · The Great Isaiah Scroll

## Legal

- Privacy Policy: https://biblebelt.app/privacy
- Terms of Use: https://biblebelt.app/terms

_Generated from the BibleBelt content corpus by website/build.mjs. Nothing here is a claim that the content has been independently verified; every statement carries its sources so you can check them._