Results: Desert Island Bible Books

Results from the recent poll

Imagine you can only keep three books from the Old Testament and three books from the New Testament. Which ones would you keep?

Thank you to the 52 of you who filled in last month’s poll. Results below.

The New Testament

In the classic board game, Diplomacy, each country begins with three units¹. This gives rise to a set of limited choices on the first move, which in turn produces a set of specific openings that can be analysed and discussed.

England, for example, has three sensible places to send its two fleets: the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and the English Channel. Each of these three combinations² in turn constrains the sensible moves that can be taken with the army. Turkey, on the other hand, should almost always move Constantinople to Bulgaria - but then has a number of options for the other two units.

Looking at people’s choices for the New Testament felt very much like this:

Almost everyone chooses a gospel³. John is more often than any other gospel - but a synoptic gospel was chosen by more people than John.

So, your gospel nailed down, you have a problem: there are three obvious other choices - Acts, an epistle, and Revelation - but you can only pick two. Which two? Revelation was the most popular to drop⁴, with only a third of people choosing it⁵, with a gospel, Acts and Romans being the single most common choice, chosen by 9/52, or 17%. As one person said, this covers: “Jesus’ ministry (Luke), the church’s mission (Acts) and the theology of the Gospel (Romans),” while including Revelation gives you, “Jesus's life, significance for now, and significance for the future.”

There were two alternative approaches: the double gospel approach (almost always John and a gospel, though one person did go for Matthew and Luke, I presume because they wanted both the shepherds and the wise men), on the grounds that Jesus’s life is so important they want all of it - rather like someone who plays to both the Norwegian Sea and North Sea, to guarantee Norway⁶. One person chose two gospels and Acts - the historical approach - but two gospels and an epistle were far more common.

The other alternative was a gospel and two epistles: Romans and Hebrews, Romans and 1 Corinthians, Romans and Philippians; fascinatingly, everyone who went for this strategy chose Romans, except for two people who went for Ephesians and 1 Timothy, and another who chose 2 Timothy and Hebrews⁷. From conversations, at least some of the people who went down this route are involved in church leadership, and are prioritising pastoral advice over the historical narrative of Acts.

Eleven books - all epistles including, unsurprisingly, Jude and Philemon - were picked by no-one.

The Old Testament

If the New Testament felt fairly consistent - difficult choices, but a few clearly leading options - the Old Testament was much more varied.

There were two stand-out favourites, Genesis and Psalms, and two runner-ups, Exodus and Isaiah. But unlike the New Testament, where almost everyone picked a gospel, only around two-thirds of people picked either Genesis or Psalms - and under half picked both.

On the other hand no-one chose 17 books⁸, including all of the minor prophets, and a further six were only chosen by 1 person each. Given that two of these (Joshua and Esther) were chosen by Eldest (aged 10), we should probably really count these with the 17 who no-one picked⁹.

From speaking to people, it was clear that a number of books had a powerful claim on people:

• Genesis, for creation, the fall and God’s covenant

• Exodus for redemption and the law

• Psalms for theology, and relating to God

• One of 1 and 2 Samuel or Kings for kingship and the history.

• Jeremiah for the Exile

• Isaiah for prophetic links to the New Testament

Comments included:

• “These ones I think are foundational. The Bible would not make sense without them.” (Genesis, Exodus, Psalms)

• “Genesis, Exodus and Isaiah set out much of the historical-theological framework required to understand Jesus’ ministry” (Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah)

• “I have chosen in the OT based on the story of Israel and its deliverance, persecution, glory days and need for repentance.” (Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah)

A few people observed that you could get a lot of the law from Deuteronomy, or that Psalms refers to Exodus, which helped to guide them on what they could drop. A relatively high number of people (four) chose Daniel, which I assume is also for prophecy, or possibly for the good stories¹⁰.

Outside these, a fair few people chose one of the Wisdom books: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Song of Solomon. There’s clearly a theological case for each of these: Job in particular is THE text for theodicy¹¹, which is a pretty big deal; and as someone commented, “Proverbs is actually practical and actionable.” These books also contain some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, which I suspect played a major role - as someone I spoke to said, “Ecclesiastes is a personal favourite.'“

Final thoughts

It was clear from conversations and comments that a number of people thought about both questions when making their choices, to choose the six books that collectively made sense together:

• “These six books tell us of God's creation of the world, man's rejection of Him, the consequences, Christ's arrival, and the consequences of His sacrifice, with the future that awaits with him in the new creation!” (Genesis, 2 Kings, Psalms; John, Romans, Revelation).

• “Genesis, Exodus and Isaiah set out much of the historical-theological framework required to understand Jesus’ ministry (Luke), the church’s mission (Acts) and the theology of the Gospel (Romans).” (Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah; Luke, Acts, Romans)

Just over a third of respondents (35%) were female, which is a little higher than when I do more political surveys (for the prediction contest, for example, it was 28% female)¹². And perhaps unsurprisingly, only seven people (13%)¹³ did not consider themselves practicing Christians; I looked at the answers for this group but there were no noticeable differences from the answers as a whole.

Thank you to everyone who took part! This was a fun exercise, that grew out of a conversation with friends, and it was fascinating to see the answers of a much wider group of people. Hopefully it also sparked some interesting conversations amongst readers!

As always, if you enjoyed this post, please share and subscribe - I rely on word of mouth for my audience.

1. Except Russia, which begins with four.

2. Of which the two involving the North Sea are by far superior.

3. Only three of the 52 did not choose a gospel. These independently-minded individuals chose:

• Acts, Romans, 2 John;

• Hebrews, James, 2 John;

• Acts, Romans, Revelation

Interestingly, these account for the only two choices of 2 John. Most of the other choices - Acts, Romans, Revelation - were very mainstream. If any of the three people concerned are reading this, I’d love to hear about your reasoning.

4. It is, after all, pretty weird.

5. One of whom cited Rev 22:19 as a reason.

6. One person chose Matthew, Mark and John, which I am struggling to find a Diplomacy analogy for.

7. Go Timothy!

8. Though I had a conversation with someone who would have kept Ezekiel, but didn’t complete the survey.

9. Having said this, an 11 year old who I spoke to also chose Esther, suggesting that maybe we would have got very different results if we’d done it with kids.

10. I didn’t speak to anyone who chose Daniel, and they didn’t leave any comments - if you did choose Daniel, please say!

11. See also Unsong.

12. I’m not sure whether this reflects the readership of this blog or whether men are more likely to respond to internet surveys. Either feels plausible - or perhaps a mix of both.

13. Including me.