National Bible Bee

The National Bible Bee was "founded with the mission to engage young people in the memorization and study of God's Word and provide opportunities to proclaim it through local, national and broadcast competitions." It is a favorite Bible memory competition - and, obviously, the preferred pastime - of children and young adults alike.

The NBB is very similar to a typical spelling bee, except contestants must recite Bible passages and facts rather than spell words.

The purpose of the NBB is to promote the Christian God in children and youth by motivating them to memorize passages and facts found in the Bible.

The ultimate goal of this game - aside from having guaranteed wacky family fun for all ages - is to arm the next generation with enough scripture and biblical facts as to engineer bold ambassadors for Jesus Christ and his rather nasty old dad, Jehova.

Contestants are allowed to use the King James Version (eew), the New King James Version (about equally eew in quality, but marginally more readable), the English Standard Version (approaching tolerable), or the New American Standard Bible (all the pitfalls of over-literal translation, and then some).

If you missed the pattern in this litter of prospect Bible versions, they seem to have chosen some of the most distinctly conservative English translations available, accuracy be damned. They have also excluded the preferred Bibles of those heathen Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians.