Big Time Bible Facts for Kids
The Bible is a really cool book because it’s a love letter to us written by God Himself. He used different authors (40 of them in fact) but they all have the same message; God loves you and wants you to follow Him. But sometimes when you read the Bible (even if you’re a grown up) it might be confusing, so here are some interesting facts about the early part of the Bible or what we call the Old Testament:
Adam and Eve
Genesis 2
Where was the Garden of Eden?
At the very beginning of time, God created the earth, the oceans, the sun, moon and stars, the land and all the animals. Then He created people- two to be exact. Adam and his wife Eve. He placed them in the most beautiful place you can imagine, the Garden of Eden. So, was this a real place or is this whole thing just a myth? Well Genesis 2:10-14 mentions four rivers that ran next to and through the garden. Two of these still exist today- the Tigris and the Euphrates. And they’re located over in modern day Iraq. So, if this whole place was made up, they probably wouldn’t have mentioned real rivers that people seemed to know about.
Genesis 3 Talking Animals
Could the animals talk to Adam and Eve? Have you ever thought about that? It seems strange that when the snake spoke to Eve in Genesis chapter three Eve didn’t say “Wow I’ve never seen a snake talk before!!!” Things were so different back in the garden before Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Things were perfect, everybody got along, and maybe, just maybe the people and the animals could communicate with each other in ways we can’t do today. Just something to think about.
Noah’s Ark
Genesis 6:13-22
How big was the ark?
When God told Noah to build the big boat or ark as they called it, He knew it was going to need to be huge to hold all those animals. According to Genesis 6:15 the ark was at least 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. To put that in perspective, a modern aircraft carrier is 1000 feet long and carries a crew of 5000 people. The ark was about half as long. According to researchers, the ark could hold as much as 330 railroad cars!
Tower of Babel
Genesis 11:1-9
What did it look like?
When you think of a tower, you might think of the Empire State Building in New York or the Chrysler building in Chicago. But the Tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis chapter 11 was probably what is called a ziggurat. It was like a multi leveled tower that almost resembled a wedding cake. Only not as delicious. Ziggurats were pretty common around the area for hundreds of years, but the Tower of Babel was different. The people who built it wanted to make a name for themselves, so they’d be famous. Plus, they wanted to make sure they’d all stay put and be together forever. Apparently, God had different plans for them. For He came down from Heaven and scattered them all over the region and even confused their languages. So much for their plan to build a tower to heaven.
Abraham
Genesis 22
Perhaps the hardest thing Abraham ever had to do was offer up his only son, Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Abraham obeyed even though this was going to break his heart. But you know who else had faith for this moment? Isaac! You might think of him as being four or five years old but Isaac was probably a teenager or even in his twenties when Abraham took him up on the mountain. He easily could have escaped from his 100-year-old father! But he didn’t- he trusted Abraham (and God!) Don’t worry though God didn’t make them go through with it. Abraham and Isaac came back down the mountain together after that really hard test. Did you know that Jesus did offer Himself up as a sacrifice for all of us, so we would never be separated from God the Father?
Joseph
Genesis 37:1-8
Favorite son
Jacob (or Israel after God changed his name) had 12 sons! Can you imagine the sibling rivalry? As a parent, you’re not really supposed to have favorites but Jacob loved his son Joseph more than the other boys (long story). He even made Joseph a special coat made of many colors, the kind a prince would wear! Imagine how well that went over with his brothers. The description of the coat might also mean it had long sleeves, which meant whoever wore it probably didn’t do much work (long sleeves would get in the way as you were doing chores on the ranch). So, all in all Joseph might have ben his dad’s favorite but he certainly wasn’t his brothers’.
Why didn’t they recognize him in Egypt?
Joseph’s brothers hated him so much they actually sold him to be a slave and he ended up in Egypt running the household of a guy named Potiphar. Well, it’s along story (check it out in Genesis 37-50) but Joseph ended up being like second in command of the entire country. So anyway, there was a famine where his brothers lived so they came down to get some food from Egypt. And who do they run into but Joseph? Now even though he’s their brother they don’t recognize him. How come? Glad you asked.
One- it’s been thirteen years, and Joseph was really out of context for the brothers. So they weren’t expecting to see him. And here’s an interesting fact- While the Hebrew men had kind of long hair and beards, Egyptian men were clean shaven and maybe even bald. And they wore make up! So, Joseph really looked different from how he must have looked when his brothers sold him. Plus, he pretended not to understand their language and spoke through a translator so he could eavesdrop on their conversation. Good job, Joseph.
Moses and the plagues
Exodus 7-11
When you read the story of Moses and the plagues of Egypt in Exodus it’s easy to get caught up in how gross so many of then were. Flies? Frogs in your cupboards? A river of blood? Yuk. But these weren’t just random plagues. God designed them to confront the (fake) gods of Egypt. Here are a couple examples-
Nile turning to blood– Since the Nile River was such an important part of Egyptian life the people actually created a river god- Hapi who was supposed to bring life and fruitfulness to the land. When God turned the water into blood guess the Egyptians had second thoughts about Hapi.
Hail –When God sent hail into the land it was an affront to Isis the Egyptian goddess of life
Livestock- When the livestock was afflicted with disease, this was an attack on Hathor a mother-goddess who was usually portrayed as a cow.
Darkness- When God spread darkness over the land of Egypt, this was a major affront. It attacked Ra the sun god who had no power against the living God. But also Pharoah himself was believed to be a descendent of Ra. So it was an attack on Pharoah too.
Gideon
Judges 6-8
In the story of Gideon, there’s a little detail that’s easy to skip over. When we first meet Gideon, it says he’s threshing wheat in the winepress. So what? Well normally you’d be threshing wheat on top of a windy hill, not in a hole in the ground. Threshing was the process of throwing the wheat up in the air where the wind would catch the empty husks (called chaff) and blow it away while the good grain (which was heavier) would drop to the ground where you’d gather it later. So why wasn’t Gideon up on top of a hill doing this right now? It’s because the bad guys the Midianites would ride into Israel just about harvest time and destroy all the crops Gideon’s people had grown (These were some really bad guys). So in order to hide, Gideon threshed his wheat in the hole in the ground- the winepress- so they wouldn’t find him. You should read his whole story, it’s a good one in Judges chapter
Samson
Judges 13-16
God had big plans for Samson- even before he was born! An angel visited Samson’s mom and told her she was going to have a son. Then he gave her specific instructions on how he was supposed to live. He wasn’t to cut his hair, he was never to drink any alcohol and he was forbidden to touch anyone or anything that had died. This was called a Nazarite vow. Lots of people took these vows in the Old Testament but Samson’s vow was to be for his entire lifetime. The problem is he broke all the vows sometime in his life. First, he touched the dead body of a lion and a donkey, violating the whole don’t touch dead things vow. He also held a big banquet for his wife’s clan where they probably -we don’t know for sure -drank a bunch of wine. And later Samson let his new wife cut off his hair breaking the third vow. Samson did a lot of great things to help the Hebrew people but unfortunately he didn’t follow through with his vows and his life ended up tragically.
Ruth
Ruth 1-4
Kinsman Redeemer
This is a great short book in the Old Testament right after the book of Judges. It’s a love story but it also gives us a glimpse of God’s great love for us. The main theme has to do with something called a Kinsman Redeemer -Goel in Hebrew- a provision God created to take care of a widow after her husband had died. In those days when a husband would die quite often the wife would be in danger of losing everything. So, God told the people that a relative usually a brother, would marry the widow and thus take care of her, even if the brother was married already. That way the widow wouldn’t starve or become sold into slavery. In the book of Ruth, Ruth discovers her Kinsman Redeemer is a relative of her husband’s named Boaz. He ends up marrying Ruth and taking care of her. And her great grandson turns out to be King David!
Gleaning
When Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, return to Bethlehem, they had no money and not much future. So, Naomi told Ruth to go and glean in the fields. Now gleaning was a concept God had given the Jewish people in order to take care of the poor and it was very unusual in that day and age. God told the Jewish farmers not to harvest the corners of their field. That way poor people could come in and gather the “leftovers” that the farmer had left behind. God also said not to completely strip their fruit trees but to leave some fruit for the less fortunate. Isn’t that cool? So, when Ruth went to glean, she was taking advantage of the provision God had arranged to take care of families like hers. And by being obedient to her mother-in-law, Ruth ended up meeting Boaz who would soon become her husband.
The sandal agreement
When Boaz decided to become Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer, he went to the gates of the city where legal matters took place in order to find Ruth’s next closest relative. If that relative would redeem Ruth and promise to take care of her, then that would be that. But since the relative refused to take Ruth under his roof, Boaz agreed to play the role of redeemer and took Ruth as his wife. When the agreement was settled, the relative did an interesting thing. He gave his sandal to Boaz as a sign that the agreement was settled. According to Ruth 4:7 this was a custom in Israel when two parties agreed to a settlement. This might date back to Joshua’s day when God told him that wherever “The soul of your foot shall tread, that I have given unto you.” Perhaps the sandal represented the foot and that might be how the tradition came about. But after the “sandal ceremony,” it was official. Ruth now belonged to Boaz.
I’ll be posting more fun Bible facts for you pretty soon so keep your eyes open for that. If you liked this post, you might like a couple of my books The Awesome Book of Bible Facts and Kids Big Questions for God.
