Three Connecting Letters, Biblical Names Quiz

Answer: EPH

The letters 'eph' form the correct answer. Add 'eph' to the end of 'Jos' and you get Joseph. Add the letters to the beginning of 'esians' and you get Ephesians.

There are two Josephs in the Bible. The first Joseph was one of twelve sons of Jacob and was sold into slavery only to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. Joseph's story is told in chapters 37 to 50 in Genesis. The second Joseph was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Details about Joseph and Mary, and the birth of Jesus, can be found in Matthew 1:18-24 as well as in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.

Ephesians is the title of one of thirteen books in the New Testament Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, is credited with writing. It is addressed to believers in a resurrected Jesus Christ who lived in Ephesus, an ancient city in present day Turkey.

Answer: DAM

Put the letters 'dam' at the end of a capital A and you get Adam, the first man. Put the letters in front of 'ascus' and you get Damascus, the home of Abraham's servant and the city Paul was traveling to when he had a dramatic encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Adam's story is told in Genesis. His wife was Eve and Scripture says their first three children were called Cain, Abel and Seth. However, according to Genesis 5:4 they had a number of other children who are not named in Scripture.

Damascus is first named in Scripture in Genesis 15:2 and is given as the home of Eliezer, Abraham's servant. In the New Testament, Damascus, is best known as the city Saul, who would later become known as Paul, was traveling to when he had a dramatic encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. As a result of that encounter, Paul stopped persecuting Christians and converted to Christianity, becoming the main apostle to the Gentiles. His conversion is told in the ninth chapter of Acts.

Answer: HAG

Add the letters 'hag' to the end of the first set of letters and you get Abishag, the beautiful young woman who basically served as a nurse to King David when he was frail and elderly.

Put the letters 'hag' in front of the second set of letters and you get Haggai, which is part of the Minor Prophets in the English Bible, or the Book of the Twelve in the in the Hebrew Bible.

Abishag could very well have been the world's first nurse. In 1 Kings 1:3, she is described as "young" and "beautiful" and was found after an extensive search was conducted for a woman to care for King David who was elderly and frail at the time. According to 1 Kings 1:1, David was "very old" and he "could not keep warm even when they put covers over him." According to 1 King 1:4, Abishag "took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no sexual relations with her."

Meanwhile, Haggai was a prophet of God who had returned from exile in Babylon.
"His first task was to force them to see where their hearts and priorities really lay," notes in the NKJV Study Bible state. "He urged them to do what they should have done from the start: to rebuild the temple with a willing heart. To these admonitions, he added the promise of God to be with them. With this promise, the people could return to their first enthusiasm and carry out God's promise for them. Then their worship would be joyful and sincere."

Incidentally, the books in the Minor Prophet section bear such a name simply they are much shorter than the books of the Major Prophets. (The Major Prophets include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel.) However, the writings of the Minor Prophets are seen as just as relevant. According to Bible.org, the term "Minor Prophets" originated in the fourth century, during the time of Augustine.

Answer: MOS

Add 'mos' to the letter 'A' and you get Amos, the title of a book in the Minor Prophet section of the Old Testament of the English Bible, or the Book of The Twelve in the Hebrew Bible.

Put the letters 'mos' in front of 'es' and you get the name Moses, a central figure in the Book of Exodus.

"The Book of Amos is perhaps the most familiar of the Minor Prophets, not in detail, but in its theme of justice and some striking metaphors," state notes in the NKJV Study Bible. The notes go on to state Amos was a Judean sheepbreeder "with a strong message for Israel delivered in the shadow of Jeroboam's pagan temple at Bethel."

The story of Moses is told basically throughout the Book of Exodus, with details of his birth appearing in Chapter 2. Moses, of course, spearheaded a successful bid by the enslaved Israelites to leave Egypt and to travel to what Scripture calls the Promised Land. Moses was assisted by his brother Aaron and sister Miriam, according to the account in Exodus.

Answer: TER

The missing letters are 'ter', creating the names Peter and Tertius.

Peter, of course, was one of the twelve disciples who was known for his brashness and impulsiveness. Some trivia about him: Going by Scripture, he is the only disciple who was married. We know Peter was married because Mark 1:29-30 and Luke 4:38-39 tell of Jesus healing his mother-in-law who was in bed seriously ill.

Meanwhile, Tertius is the man who transcribed for Paul the book of Romans. In Romans 16:22, it states: "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord." There is no further mention of him in Scripture. According to Biblos.com, a website that serves as a Bible encyclopedia, some theologians suspect Tertius was a friend of Silas while others believe he was a Roman Christian living in Corinth. It's all speculation, of course.

Answer: SAR

The letters 'sar' form the connecting link between Caesar, the notorious Roman ruler in the New Testament, and Sarah, the wife of Abraham, in Genesis of the Old Testament.

Paul had been bound to appear before Caesar when he was part of a shipwreck off the coast of Malta. Details of the shipwreck can be found in the 27th and 28th chapter of Acts. Paul had obtained permission from Festus to appear before Caesar, as per Acts 25:12. However, there are no details in Scripture about the appearance before the Roman dictator.

Sarah was originally known as Sarai. Genesis 17:15-16, in the NKJV Bible, tells of God talking to Abraham: "'As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her'." According to Verse 17, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old when they had a child. The boy was called Isaac. Details about his birth are contained in Genesis 25:1-5.

Answer: RAH

Add the letters 'rah' to the end of the first set of letters and you get Gomorrah, the town that was destroyed in Genesis. Put the letters 'rah' in from of the lettrs 'ab' and you get the name Rahab, the prostitute in Jericho who harbored two Israelite spies.

Gomorrah was a city on the plain of Sidon which was destroyed by brimstone and fire, as per Genesis 19:24. According to the Website Christiananswers.net, Gomorrah means 'submersion'. Whenever the placename Gomorrah appears in Scripture, it is always mentioned after Sodom, which was also destroyed by brimstone and fire at the same time. The destruction of the two cities is also mentioned in the New Testament -- 2 Peter 2:6 and Jude 1:4-7.

The story of Rahab the prostitute can be found in the second and sixth chapters of Joshua. Because she harbored two spies from the Israelite camp, Rahab and her family were spared when Joshua and his armed men succeeded in making the walls of Jericho fall down, just as the LORD told them in Joshua 6:2-5. Incidentally, Rahab's name appears in Matthew 1:5 as part of the genealogy of Jesus and she is also saluted in Hebrews 11:31 for her "faith".

Answer: HER

The connecting letters are 'her' creating Esther, the name of the Old Testament queen, and Hermes, the name of a Greek god.

The story of Queen Esther is appropriately told in the Book of Esther. Esther's original name was Hadassah and she was raised by her cousin Mordecai. Esther 2:7, in the NKJV, states: "Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died." Esther, of course, would go on to become queen and play a pivotal role in derailing a diabolical scheme by Haman to exterminate the Jewish population in the vast area ruled by the man who is known as Ahasuerus in the KJV and the NKJV and Xerxes in the NIV.

Meanwhile, Hermes is mentioned in passing reference in the New Testament. Acts 14:8-19 tells of Paul healing a lame mane in Lystra with the people being so impressed they called him Hermes. Barnabas, who was also with Paul, earned the nickname Zeus.

Answer: LEM

Jerusalem is the placename and Lemeul is the name created by adding the letters 'lem'.

Jerusalem, of course, is front and center throughout the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible. The placename appears more than 800 times in the NKJV Bible. It was in Jerusalem that Jesus was crucified, and according to Scripture, was resurrected from the dead three days latter and after appearing to a large number of people, ascended to heaven.

Lemuel is the writer of the 31st chapter of Proverbs. However, there is no certainty about who Lemuel was. Some speculate Lemuel was actually Solomon because the writer quotes his mother as advising him not to give his strength to women. "Often in the ancient world, a king would amass a large harem or involve himself sexually with many women," notes in the NKJV Study Bible state. "The wisdom of Lemuel's mother was that such behavior destroys rulers." If Lemuel was indeed a pseudonym for Solomon, the woman offering the advice in the chapter is Bathsheba. It's all speculation, of course.

Answer: DIA

Add the letters 'dia' and you get Lydia and Diana.

The story of Lydia's conversion to Christianity is told in Acts 16:11-15. Scripture says she was a businesswoman who sold purple cloth at Philippi and her household became believers in a resurrected Jesus Christ as well.

Reference is made to the Greek goddess Diana in Acts 19:24,27,28,34 and 35 in the NKJV. (In the same passages, the NIV uses the name Artemis.) The name is evoked during a riot in Ephesus, an ancient city in present day Turkey. According to Scripture, Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, sparked the riot. Demetrius knew if Paul and his fellow church workers were successful in converting people to Christianity, there would be a drop in demand for silver shrines of Diana.