You call that a Bible quiz? This is a Bible quiz.

I’ve taken two online Bible quizzes in as many weeks. Last night it was the Ultimate Bible Quiz that Kieran and Jeremy have written about. It’s a breeze, especially with all the obvious wrong answers they’ve added to the choices (kind of like the first few questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire). Also, the first time I took the quiz I got a 98, but when I went back and messed around with some of the answers to figure out what I missed, I discovered that if I had answered “no” to the question, “Do you read the Bible?” I would’ve scored 97. Bonus points for reading the Bible.

If someone had an agenda with that quiz, there’s no doubt the Freedom From Religion Foundation has one with their quiz, “What Do You Really Know About the Bible?” But for my money, this is the more challenging and entertaining one. I suppose the questions are a bit, oh, selective in their survey of the Bible, but most of them seemed pretty fair. I took this a couple weeks ago and got a 37 out of 50. (Warning: many people of faith will find the answer key and explanations offensive, but I wash my hands of that: it’s a Bible quiz by atheists after all.)

All these Bible quizzes reminded me that I’ve enjoyed reading David Plotz’s Blogging the Bible off and on over the past few months. His tagline is “What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?” and he’s basically starting from page one, trying to make sense of familiar tales as well as all the jolting “That’s really in the Bible!?!” stories that tend not to make headlines on Sunday School felt boards. I think it’s refreshing.