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Do You Know If These Bible Verses Are Real or Fictitious?

By: Torrance Grey

5 min

"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Cor. 13:12)

This is from the Bible.

1 Corinthians chapter 13 is better known for its famous verses on love, ending with " ... the greatest of these is love." But here, the apostle Paul writes about the life to come with God, as compared to life on earth. He describes it as a kind of completion of one's relationship to God, like adulthood is to childhood.

This one is fictitious.

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"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." (3 Pet. 4:18)

This is from the Bible.

No, it's from something else.

This is the famous first line of Max Ehrmann's "Desiderata." Technically a poem, it is also a laundry list of advice, and is a favorite for reading at graduation ceremonies.

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"All that glitters is not gold." (Prov. 3:31)

This is from the Bible.

It has another source.

This line is from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." It's part of a rhyming couplet: "All that glitters is not gold/Often you have heard it told." Portia's unfortunate suitor has opened up a gold casket in hopes of finding her likeness inside -- an implicit promise to marry him -- but instead finds a poem telling him he's out of luck.

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"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity." (Prov. 17:17)

It's real.

This one might sound like a sentiment from popular poetry, or maybe a greeting card. However, it's from the book of Proverbs, and has that book's traditional sentence structure of two complete clauses separated by a semicolon.

This one is not from the Bible.

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"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)

This one is real.

This one sounds like it might have come from the stirring poetry of the 19th century, possibly "The Charge of the Light Brigade." However, it comes from the gospel of John. In decades past ,you probably heard it with traditional, gender-specific language: "man" and "his."

No, it's made up.

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"In addition, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." (Eph 6:16)

This is the real thing!

In this chapter, Paul famously compares adopting Christian virtues, like faith, with putting on a suit of armor. The metaphor begins in verse 13, in which he says, "Therefore take up the whole armor of God."

No, it's invented.

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"And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves." (Job 4:27)

This is from the Bible.

No, it's not.

This is a line from "Leaves of Grass," written by Walt Whitman. Our fake citation, above, is "Job" because this line reminds us of the dark, poetic tone of the book of Job.

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"But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." (Phil. 3:7)

This quote is from the Bible.

Philippians is one of the letters of the apostle Paul. Here, he speaks of worldly success and good as useless compared to the benefits of being Christ's servant.

No, it's not.

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"If you know yourself and know your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without jeopardy." (Josh. 15:2)

This is from the Bible.

No, it's something else.

This line is from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." The Old Testament is certainly not short on descriptions of battles and war -- see, for example, David's killing of Goliath -- but rarely do you read outright advice.

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"All we have to decide is what to do with the time given us." (Tol. 3:16)

This is from the Bible.

No, it's from something else.

If you ask someone for their favorite quote from the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, one of two phrases is likely to come up. Probably the most popular is "Not all those who wander are lost." The second is the one above.

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"His golden blood, laced on his silver skin..." (Mac. 14:18)

This one is Biblical.

No, it's not.

This is a line from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth." It describes the murder of King Duncan, whose blood is "golden" because he is of a royal line. Why is his skin "silver"? Possibly because of moonlight through a window; Duncan's body was discovered in the very early morning.

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"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." (Tobit 4:7)

This is from the Bible.

No, it isn't.

This is a line from the work of poet Mary Oliver, a beloved American cultural icon. Oliver died in early 2019, of lung cancer.

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"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds." (James 1:2)

This one is Biblical.

Unlike the letters of Peter and John in the New Testament, there is only one book of James. Five chapters long, it holds a lot of practical, straight-talking advice for Christians.

No, it's from somewhere else.

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"I hope to see my pilot face-to-face, when I have crost the bar." (Ten. 12:9)

This is from the Bible.

It has another source.

This is a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar". The tip-off is the first person voice; only a few parts of the Bible are written in first-person (though a number of the Psalms are).

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"And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored." (Acts 9:18)

This is the Word of God.

The pronoun "his" in the passage refers to Saul, who is about to be baptized and become Paul. He was struck blind on the road to Damascus, and when Ananias laid hands on him, Saul's sight was restored -- evidently with a scale-like substance falling away from them. To this day, people say metaphorically, "The scales fell from my eyes."

It's from another source.

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"Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise; Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise." (Prov. 10:36)

Yes, this is the word of God.

No, it's someone else.

This is a line from Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise." Angelou was one of America's best-known contemporary poets; she wrote and read a poem, "On the Pulse of Morning," for President Bill Clinton's inauguration.

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"If God is with us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31)

It's Biblical.

Short and sweet, this one is half a verse in the book of Romans. The lead-in is, "What, then, shall we say in response to these things?" But the second half is often quoted solo.

It's from something else.

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"If most of us valued food and cheer and song over hoarded gold, the world would be a merrier place." (Bil. 10:13)

This one is the Word of God.

No, it's someone else's word.

This is another quote from the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Or possibly from the *life* of J.R.R. Tolkien, as, unlike our earlier quote from "The Fellowship of the Ring," this one is attributed solely to Tolkien. If you know where, exactly, it's from, tell us in the comments!

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"Why then should I destroy Nineveh, that great city, where live one hundred and twenty thousand souls, who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" (Jon. 4:11)

This one is Biblical.

In this last verse of Jonah, we see a bit of compassion from the often-harsh God of the Old Testament. He spares Nineveh not in spite of, but because of its people's ignorance of Him, and He also cares about the animals who live there. This is a different picture of God, compared to the one who oversaw the destruction of Jericho, right down to its animals.

No, it's from elsewhere.

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"Dan shall be a snake by the roadside, a viper along the path that bites the horse's heels, so that the rider falls backward." (Gen. 49:16)

This isn't from the Bible.

This one is real!

"Dan" sounds like a modern name, but he was one of Jacob's twelve sons in Genesis. In this verse, Jacob predicts that the tribe of Dan will produce judges, hence the description of him as a snake who brings down horse and rider -- judgment can be strict, and cause such a downfall.

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"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." (Em. 8:40)

This is from the Bible.

No, it has a different source.

This is perhaps Emily Dickinson's most famous line, a favorite for quoting at funerals and on other difficult occasions. Because Dickinson did not give her poems titles, they are identified by their first line. So this one is from "Hope is the Thing With Feathers."

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"As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God." (Ps. 42:1)

This is truly from the Old Testament.

Psalm 42 is the basis for a Christian hymn. You might recognize it by its title, with more traditional language: "As The Hart Pants," instead of "As the deer longs."

No, it has another source.

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"Every third shall walk in darkness." (1 Sam. 12:30)

This one is Biblical.

No, it's not.

The "Sam" in our citation is the neuroscientist and contrarian Sam Harris. He uses this fake religious quote as part of a larger thought experiment: What if a religious society was blinding every third child at birth, based on a scriptural quote like the one above? Would we say it's wrong to condemn this practice, if it is so deeply rooted in their culture? Food for thought.

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"Then Naaman said, 'Let two mule loads of earth be given to your servant, for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the LORD.' " (2 Kings 5:17)

This is from the Bible.

This verse and the passage overall is not often chosen as the basis for sermons or Bible study sessions. But it shows us a fascinating cultural detail from the time. Naaman, a foreign king, is healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha. Because he wants to worship Elisha's god from now on, he asks for loads of Israel's soil to take with him, because the belief at the time was that gods could only be worshiped on their native soil. Interesting, eh?

No, it's from somewhere else.

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"So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." (James 2:17)

This is from the Bible.

Belief-versus-good-deeds is a topic of debate to this day in Christian churches. While most Christian theology says that belief alone is enough for salvation, James makes a powerful argument for deeds here.

No, it's from somewhere else.

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"Love takes up where knowledge leaves off." (Thom. 2:28)

This one's from the Bible.

No, it has another source.

The poet T.S. Eliot, author of "The Waste Land" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," gave us this one. Given what we've seen of how people in love behave, we'd have to agree!

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"When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable." (Ex. 21:28)

This is a real Bible verse.

Much of the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers consist of detailed laws, laying out how the newly-freed Hebrews should function as a society. Exodus 21:28, above, is a very specific rule about legal liability.

This one is invented.

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"I the Lord your God am a jealous god, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third or fourth generation." (Ex. 20:5)

This one is from fiction.

No, it's real!

Exodus 20:5 reads, in full, "You shall not bow down to them (false gods) or worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous god, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third or fourth generation of those who reject me ..." Sounds harsh, but the next verse continues, "but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."

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"Jacob ate his fill; Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You grew fat, bloated and gorged!" (Deut. 32:15)

This one's real!

Part of what's confusing here is the switch from the well-known name "Jacob" to the little-known "Jeshurun" to "You." Both of the "J" names refer to the nation of Israel (because the angel with whom Jacob wrestled gave him the name Israel). "Jeshurun" is a less-used alternate, and then the condemnation of the Israelites simply switches to the second person. Nonetheless, this is a legit Bible verse.

No, it's from elsewhere.

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"If a brother or sister is naked and lacks food, and you say, 'Go in peace, be warm and eat your fill,' but do not supply their needs, what good is that?" (James 2:15-16)

This is from the Bible.

Can you tell we really like the book of James in the New Testament? We do, and we'll just say that many Christians in present-day America could stand to hear these verses from James once again, if not a whole sermon on the topic.

It's from another source.

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"When Peleg had lived thirty years, he became the father of Reu, and Peleg lived after the birth of Reu two hundred and nine years." (Gen. 11:18)

This one is for real.

Long lives are commonly ascribed to the people in the book of Genesis. The longest life that Genesis records is that of Menthuselah, who lived to 969 years old. Peleg is relatively short-lived in comparison.

No, it's made up. Who lives 239 years?

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"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." (Gib. 13:18)

This is the Word of God.

It's someone else's word.

This is a line from Kahlil Gibran's "On Pain." If you haven't heard of this Lebanese-American poet, get yourself to a copy of his best-known work, "The Prophet." Gibran is, after all, the third best-selling poet in history, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tse.

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"The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornications." (Rev. 17:4)

This is from the Bible.

Revelations is a book rich in description. The woman on the scarlet beast, so expensively adorned, is often thought to be a symbol of Rome, which was, at the time, the center of the world and the enemy of early Christians.

No, it's from another source.

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"Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." (Rev. 22:11)

This is from the Bible.

We've arrived at Revelations, the book of the Bible most likely to appeal to sci-fi fans! In this verse near the end, the angel who showed John the end of the world tells him that things should go on just as they have all this time, because God is preparing to sort things out at the end of days.

No, it's from something else.

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"The game is afoot!" (1 Hol. 3:08)

This is from the Bible.

You're kidding, right?!

Just wanted to see if you're paying attention! This is Sherlock Holmes' famous phrase from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, hence the fake citation of "1 Hol," standing in for "Holmes."

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