Jeopardy! and Bible Categories

America’s favorite trivia show gets a fair amount of criticism whenever a Bible category shows up these days. Sometimes it is justified, when a clue is questionable, confusing or just plain wrong. Nevertheless, whether you believe in the teachings of the Bible or not, there is no denying that a great many writers, artists, poets and songwriters have found inspiration in the Bible. Jeopardy! clue writers, by extension, have been able to write countless trivia clues about any number of topics that have something to do with the Bible, whether directly or indirectly.

Let’s take a look at “Biblically Inspired Book Titles”, a category from the April 14, 2021 Jeopardy! game:
($200) “Stranger in a Strange Land” refers to this leader exiled in Exodus; his son’s name means “stranger there”
($400) Faulkner’s novel “Absalom, Absalom!” bears the name of a tragically rebellious offspring of this biblical king
($600) Cain ended up living in Nod, which Genesis says is here, giving this Steinbeck novel its title
($800 DD) Translating the name of a Philistine god mentioned in 2 Kings gives this 1954 novel about castaways its title
($1000) This Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel title is a twist on “Through a Glass Darkly”, from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians

That’s just one example of various authors who found titles for their novels in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Here are some more:

“Exodus” (1958) by Leon Uris is a novel about the immigration ship SS Exodus and the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. Uris and Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay for a 1960 film version starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint.

“A Virtuous Woman” (1997) by Kaye Gibbons is a novel about a woman named Ruby and her second husband, Jack. The title, as well as the main character’s name, comes from Proverbs 31:10 (” Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”)

“Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison features quite a number of characters with biblical names. Pieter de Vries used a phrase from the Bible’s Song of Solomon for his 1956 novel “Comfort Me with Apples”, and Catherynne M. Valente also used it for a short novella. It’s a hoot that some reviewers felt the need to warn Bible-adverse readers that Valente’s book contains biblical references when the title is straight out of Song of Solomon 5:2 (“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.”)

There was a Biblical Art category on 6/18/21:
($400) For the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted “The Fall of Man” & “The Expulsion from” this place
($800) Seen here on a 14th century German panel is Jesus, raising him from the dead
($1200) Tintoretto painted “The Conversion of Saint Paul” on his way to this city
($2000) Van Dyck depicted Jesus crowned with thorns in this painting whose name means “behold the man”
($1600 DD) Stolen in Israel in 1996, this Russian-born artist’s “Jacob’s Ladder” was recovered in 2015 & sold at auction in 2020

That is just a drop in the ocean of artwork inspired by the Bible. Imagine Jeopardy! with no clues on famous works of art just because they were based on Bible stories. No Creation of Adam? No Last Supper? That will never happen.

John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is an epic poem based on the fall of man in the Bible. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is another epic, with references to many people from mythology, history and– you guessed it– the Bible. There are reams of poems inspired by the Bible by poets through the ages. Herrick, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, Yeats, Frost, Plath, Angelou– they all drew from the Bible in one way or another.

“Turning to” popular music, “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” by The Byrds is a 1965 hit song written by Pete Seeger. It is based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Seeger has said that he came upom the passage by chance, suggesting that God led him to it. Likewise, Paul Simon has said that certain phrases in his song “The Boxer” came from the Bible. Certainly, the line “I can see the writing on the wall” in “Kodachrome” is reminiscent of Daniel 5:5–31.

“Prodigal Son” a 1970 song by The Rolling Stones, is based on the parable in Luke 15:11-32. It is a different take on the 1929 tune “That’s No Way to Get Along”, a 1929 tune by Rev. Robert Wilkins.

The Book of Psalms in the Bible itself is well-known as a collection of religious hymns. There are psalms of lament, of supplication, of praise and of thanksgiving. Psalm 23 (the Lord is my shepherd) is perhaps the most well-known. Many psalms have been set to music, such as “Rivers of Babylon”, originally by the Melodians from Jamaica, taken from Psalms 137 and 19.

That’s a lot already and I haven’t even mentioned plays yet. I didn’t forget about “Grapes of Wrath” either, a reference to the Book of Revelation. I don’t know whether Steinbeck figured that one out on his own or copped it from Julia Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Nevertheless, there are biblical allusions in “Grapes of Wrath” and it’s no coincidence that a character is named “Rose of Sharon”. (Song of Solomon 2:1 “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.)