My mom just e-mailed me this one. It’s a fun little puzzle, though it took me a little longer than I expected to track down the last few.
BIBLE PUZZLE: There are 30 books of the Bible in this paragraph. Can you find them??
This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu keeping him occupied for hours. He enjoyed it so much he passed it on to some friends. One friend from Illinios worked on it while fishing from his johnboat. Another friend studied it while playing the banjo. Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend was so intrigued by it she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend judges the job of solving the puzzle so involving, she brews a cup of tea to help her nerves. There will be some names that are real easy to spot. That’s a fact. Some people, however, will soon find themselves in a jam, especially since the book names are not necessarily capitalized. Truthfully, from answers we get, we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister or scholar to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have in seeing the books in this paragraph. During a recent fund raising event, which featured this puzzle, the Alpha Delta Phi lemonade booth set a new sales record. The local paper, The Chronicle, surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Hummana humbly puts it, the books are right there in plain view hidden from sight. Those able to find them will hear great lamentations from those who have to be shown. One revelation that may help is that the books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also keep in mind, that punctuation and spaces in the middle are normal. A chipper attitude will help you compete really well against those who claim to know all the answers. Remember, there is no need for a mad exodus, there really are 30 books of the Bible lurking somewhere in this paragraph waiting to be found.
Have fun!
(Here’s a link to a printable version that doesn’t have a lengthy sidebar).
In case anyone’s wondering, this one took me just over 20 minutes. I had 24 of them in the first ten minutes, but the last six took an added ten minutes themselves. For the last three, I made a quick list on the side of some likely suspects.
And no, I didn’t crack up my scriptures.
I’ve found 25 without looking up anything in the Bible. However the “find” function in the browser came in handy. I give up on the rest.
Dump the text into a .txt file, remove the spaces, and run a DB query using a list of all the books of the Bible. Took me two minutes and I didn’t have to squint.
Paul–
Where’s the fun in that?
Ten minutes, twenty books. Do I go on or do something productive? hmmm
I enjoyed this little test of my knowledge of the books of the Bible. Finding “Malachi” was particularly fun. It took me about 15 minutes.
Extra points for finding the last name of one of the T&S permabloggers.
“from answers” reveals Oman.
Despite the risk of being considered a total moron, I’ll see if I can make a similar paragraph for the Book of Mormon. From nice old ladies to criminals on the lam, anyone ought to be able to solve this one. Moms like Julie and Kristine, philosophers like Jim and Russel, even lawyers and law students will probably lose no sleep figuring it out. Don’t panic, stay calm, and you should be able to find eight books.
Do books with numbered versions count individually or collectively? For example, does finding “John” give you credit for 4 books? (St, I, II, III)
If so, I’m at 30. If not, I give up.
Very nice, Dan R.
How could Peter have been so hard to see?
Sorry, Matt. Only one credit each for John, Samuel, Timothy, Kings and Chronicles.
It took me half an hour to find the last two! The first twenty-eight went pretty quick tho.
My husband woke up at an unmentionable hour this morning to work on this puzzle and woke me up “BEFORE MY ALARM” claiming – “MATTHEW the last one’s MATTHEW! I can’t believe I didn’t see it” Thanks for that. I’ve now sent it to all of my family so they can be annoyed as much as I was.
I got to 29 and then started to wonder if the 30th was Isis, after all.
But then I found Peter, and was done.
I spent about 25 minutes to get a list of 29, then spent 10 minutes looking for the 30th. I finally looked up the book names and tried them all, and couldn;t find the 30th. I then double-checked myl list and realized that I had found Genesis (and put it in all caps) in the text but hadn’t added it to my list, which is why my list only showed 29.
Always double-check the math.
I have found both Matthew and Genesis, but still am stuck at 29.
I got this puzzle from another site and that site said that there is one more. “The 31st Bible names ia a variant of one of the Old Testament prophet. I can’t seem to find that… Anyone have a clue?
My guess for the 31st bible name was DEB for Deborah.