a game for those who think they know their Bible
for two players or more.
How to play
Player one bowls a word or phrase, for example, 'pretending to be mad'. Player two then tries to score, by saying it was King David when he went to Gath (scores one) in One Samuel (raises the score to two) in order to escape from the King of the Philistines who had been told, "this is the one who they sang about killing tens of thousands, compared with Saul's thousands" (scores four, a boundary). Scoring a six would be possible, if you were able to supply chapter and even a verse as well (hardly likely in this instance).
Now it's player two's turn to bowl. He takes his run up, and delivers 'twenty-four hours at sea'. Player one replies that this was Paul in the book of Acts in the terrible storm at sea of the closing chapters, somewhere around chapter twenty-six. "No," cries player two with glee, "it's two Corinthians somewhere around chapter ten, where Paul is listing all his hardships." Player one has been caught out by a slip, so his score at the end of the first pair of balls is nought for one wicket. Hardly a promising start! Player two is on four for no loss.
Then player one bowls again, and so it goes on.
Rules are basic and few
It's all by memory!
Give as full an answer as you can, but keep it under a minute (without deviation, hesitation and repetition ideally - thanks Ian Messiter). Over a minute is 'run out'.
If you prefer. have an over each in turn (six balls)
Generosity when awarding runs is praiseworthy.
It's OK to block the ball rather than take a swipe and be bowled out.
In the event of a no ball (an incorrect question of some kind, such as "what was John's thorn in the flesh?" when that should have been Paul's thorn in the flesh, 2 Corinthians chapter 12) the laws of cricket apply: runs can be scored, and the only way the batsman can be be out is to be run out. He then gets a second ball in a row.
If you have a third player, he can act as referee and umpire and scorer. All three can take it in turns to bowl, bat and umpire. With four or more, do something similar. You could even have teams, with a team going into a breakout room to discuss their response to a ball or to decide what to bowl, if you are on Zoom.
Tips
Some balls invite more than one answer, for example the words 'two fishes' (feeding of the five thousand) come in more than one gospel, and also. how many fishes were there at the feeding of the four thousand? To score a six, all instances in the Bible need to be covered.
You might think it is impossible to score a five in cricket, but I have seen it done, when I played for Second 'Tics while at school. 'Tics was short for peripatetics, referring to the fact that we less-than-able sportsmen tended to wander round all over the pitch on a non-professional manner. What happened was that in an attempt to run out a batsman taking a cheeky quick single, the ball was hurled at the stumps so hard by the zealous fielder that having missed the wiicket it shot on and crossed the boundary before anyone could stop it. One single and four overethrows makes five. How you might contrive to score a five in Bible cricket I am not quite so sure...
Please let me know how you get on. David F Pennant, Woking, UK