Then the angel who talked with me returned and woke me up, like someone awakened from sleep.  He asked me, “What do you see?”
I answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps.  Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.”

• Zechariah 1:1-3

First, a bonus quiz that has nothing to do with the Bible, because the title of the quiz, “All that glitters is not gold” does not come from the Bible.  1) Who is attributed to having written this sentence?  Hint: similar things have been written as early as the 12-13 century, and Chaucer wrote something similar, but this phrase, as written and oft quoted, was written in the 16^th century.  2) In what literary work was it used? And 3) Was the line part of the primary plot of this literary work?

There are two questions that are asked about seven metals, gold, silver, bronze, lead, tin, copper, and iron.  All answers refer to the NIV.  The answers will be books of the Bible.  This means that the usual Bible Reference section in the middle must be something else.  This section will then become a Hint Section.  In other words, in what context is the metal in question being used?  I will also add chapter and verse for each answer.  That should be a great hint in a few cases in that many books of the Bible might not have that many chapters.  This is followed by a matching question regarding Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

The Questions:

1. What is the first book in the Bible that references this metal?
2. What is the last book in the Bible that references this metal?

To repeat the metals: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Lead, Tin, Copper, Iron

And the Matching Question:

In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, Daniel describes a large statue.  It was dazzling and awesome in appearance.  But the statue had a variety of body parts made of various things.  Below is a list of body part groupings and another list of the metals used in this quiz.  One twist is that one of the metals is used twice, and three of the metals are not used at all in the dream.  The metal used twice is used with something else.  What is that something else?  And what is the significance of the two things being mixed?

List of Body Part Groupings:

1. Head
2. Chest and arms
3. Belly and thighs
4. Legs
5. Feet

List of Metals:

Gold, Silver, Bronze, Lead, Tin, Copper, and Iron

Remember.  One of the metals is used twice, but it is mixed with something that is not a metal.  For a bonus, what is the significance of this mixture?

And here is a major hint that may and/or may not help.  This story in Daniel is not the answer to any of the other questions.  Why might this help or not help?  Logic will tell you that all these metals are mentioned in the NIV prior to the book of Daniel – major helpful hint for the first question.  BUT, three of the metals are not used.  Thus, we only know that four of these metals are mentioned in a book later than the book of Daniel.  However, I will be really nice this week.  Five of the seven metals are mentioned in the New Testament, and the featured Scripture is not an answer either.  But should that be a major hint?  Can you think of anything in the New Testament made of gold?

A THOUGHT ON BRONZE AND STEEL:  Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.  It typically has about 12-12.5% tin in the copper.  Archaeology identifies the Bronze Age by regions.  Most regions started the Bronze age near 3000BC, give or take a few hundred years.  Some switched to iron around 1000BC while other regions hung onto the bronze implements until about 600BC.

Steel existed during this time in the form of meteorite steel, but it was harder to make large quantities of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon.  The temperature had to be much hotter than most furnaces could obtain at that time.  Oddly, what is commonly referred to as “iron”, as in “pig iron,” has about 5% carbon content, while most steels have less than one percent carbon, all steel less than 2%.  And the amount of carbon determines the hardness and malleability (ability to change the shape).  And, if you want to know, the word “steel” is not mentioned in the NIV, although the early perfectors of steel products were the Hittites, who are mentioned in the Bible.

Hint Section:

What is the first book in the Bible that references this metal?	What is the last book in the Bible that references this metal?
Gold can be found at the river Pishon.	The great street of the city was of gold.
Chapter 2, Verses 11-12	Chapter 22, Verse 21
Silver is mentioned as part of someone’s wealth.	People will lament because they would no longer get silver from Babylon.
Chapter 13, Verse 2	Chapter 18, Verse 12
Someone had a son who was well known for his work with bronze.	People will lament because they would no longer get bronze from Babylon.
Chapter 4, Verse 22	Chapter 18, Verse 12
Something sunk like lead.	Tarshish did business in lead.
Chapter 15, Verse 10	Chapter 27, Verse 12
Soldiers were instructed to purify all things made of six of these metals, including tin.	Tarshish did business in tin.
Chapter 31, Verse 22	Chapter 27, Verse 12
They will go into a land where they can dig copper out of the hills.	A widow gave an offering of two copper coins.
Chapter 8, Verse 9	Chapter 21, Verse 2
Someone had a son who was well known for his work with iron.	There are a few references to an iron scepter.
Chapter 4, Verse 22	Chapter 19, Verse 15

The Nebuchadnezzar dream is explained in Daniel 3:24-47.

The “lead” first and last became a challenge.  The verb, “to lead,” gets in the way.  There are several hundred mentions of the letters “LEAD” in a single word, but nearly all are forms of the verb: lead, leads, leading, leader, leaders, etc.  It reminded me of the “first person” quiz when I speed read the entire book of Psalms, and a few other books of the Bible, looking for proper names of people.  Even then, the first use of the metal lead in the quiz is in the form of a metaphor: sinking, like lead.  Why did we ever change the word from the Latin, Plumbum?  And if you wondered, “plumbing” comes from plumbum, because plumbers used lead in the early days, and the chemical symbol for lead is Pb, for plumbum.

Peter, in his first epistle, first chapter, talks of refining by fire.  There are other references to this elsewhere in the Bible.  Having spent twenty years of my working life in steel mills and aluminum mills, I have watched the refining process up close.  I can see what the apostles meant.  You melt the gold, silver, or other metal down.  The impurities float to the surface and you can decant them or skim them.  In steel making, you usually tip the furnace in one direction to pour the impurities (slag) into a slag bucket.  Then the clean steel can be poured out, usually tilting the furnace in the opposite direction, into a ladle.  The usual method in aluminum making is to skim the impurities (dross) off the surface with something that looks like a hoe.  I even saw skimming done by hand in China.  They had a steel blade about the width of one and a half meters (yards) attached to a steel pipe over 10 meters (maybe 40 ft) long.  They would get 8-10 men to hold the pipe, insert the blade and then rake the blade across the surface to skim the impurities off.  The problem was that once you had the pure molten aluminum exposed, it became brighter and hotter.  And, of course, the dross that they skimmed out of the furnace was over 1000 degrees F.  Amazing what you will do when life is not valued, and labor expenses are cheap.

And one last hint, and maybe an admonishment:  If you simply wrote down Genesis for all the “first” answers, you would get four of the seven questions right.  If you wrote down Revelation for all the “last” answers, you would again get four of the seven questions right, and the same four.  But that seems so WRONG, especially when I said that two of the metals are not mentioned in the New Testament.

   …

   …

   …

The Answers:

Before we get to the biblical quiz, “All that glitters is not gold” was written by William Shakespeare, if you can believe that the conspiracy theories are wrong and he really wrote what he wrote, if you follow my line of thinking.  It was in The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 7.  It was not part of the primary plot, but a line from a scroll inside a casket – the puzzle of Portia’s boxes.

What is the first book in the Bible that references this metal?	What is the last book in the Bible that references this metal?
GOLD
Genesis	Revelation
Chapter 2, Verses 11-12	Chapter 22, Verse 21
In locating the Garden of Eden, four rivers are mentioned: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.  Pishon is rich with deposits of Gold, but where is it?	People often misquote Revelation saying that the streets are paved with gold, but John says “the great street” is paved with gold and is like transparent glass.
SILVER
Genesis	Revelation
Chapter 13, Verse 2	Chapter 18, Verse 12
Abram’s wealth was measured in silver, gold, and livestock.	Babylon has been destroyed in John’s prophecy.  Silver is among the things that people will find difficult to obtain.
BRONZE
Genesis	Revelation
Chapter 4, Verse 22	Chapter 18, Verse 12
Tubal-Cain, whose great-grandfather’s great-grandfather was Cain, son of Adam, was a worker in bronze and iron.	Babylon has been destroyed in John’s prophecy.  Bronze is among the things that people will find difficult to obtain.
LEAD
Exodus	Ezekiel
Chapter 15, Verse 10	Chapter 27, Verse 12
In the song of Moses and Miriam, their enemy was engulfed in water when the Lord blew the wind and waters engulfed them.  Although they were already on the bottom, they “sank like lead.”  Ah, poetry.	Tyre was a bustling seaport.  Tarshish was the furthest known city to the west, noted for being where Jonah was going to hide from God, as far as you could go.  In this curse of Tyre, Ezekiel is saying it will affect all the Mediterranean area.
TIN
Numbers	Ezekiel
Chapter 31, Verse 22	Chapter 27, Verse 12
The Israelites defeated the Midianites in battle, but Levitical Law required them to be considered unclean for seven days.  This applied to their weapons and anything that might touch a dead body.  The only metal in our list that is not mentioned here is copper.	The curse of Tyre also mentions tin, along with the lead that was discussed above.
COPPER
Deuteronomy	Luke
Chapter 8, Verse 9	Chapter 21, Verse 2
The Promised Land will be a place where the rocks are made of iron and you can dig copper from the hills.	In the story of the of the rich givers at the temple and the poor widow, the widow gives two small copper coins.  According to Jesus all that she had to live on.
IRON
Exodus	Ezekiel
Chapter 4, Verse 22	Chapter 19, Verse 15
Tubal-Cain, whose great-grandfather’s great-grandfather was Cain, son of Adam, was a worker in bronze and iron.	The iron scepter makes three appearances in Revelation: the one who is faithful (letter to Thyatira) will rule with an iron scepter, a woman will give birth to a child who will rule with an iron scepter, and in the referenced verse, Jesus returns at the End Times with an iron scepter.
The Nebuchadnezzar Dream Body Parts	The material those body parts were made of.
Head	Gold
Chest and arms	Silver
Belly and thighs	Bronze
Legs	Iron
Feet	Iron and Clay
	Significance?  This final empire has a mixture of two things that will not blend.  They are incompatible.  The iron is strong.  The clay is brittle.  The final empire will crumble.

I found the verse on Tubal-Cain as odd.  Cain killed Abel and was banished.  The latter half of Genesis 4 speaks of Cain’s descendants.  With Cain and his family banished and all but Noah’s family killed in the flood, would Tubal-Cain’s skills have been lost?  Then it dawned on me that the two family lines might have mixed and intermarried over the large expanse of years from Cain and Seth to the time of Noah.  The family tree from Cain to Tubal-Cain is about the same as from Seth to Methuselah.  Since people lived a very long time in those days, there is no telling whether Noah or his sons could be grandchildren or great-great grandchildren of Tubal-Cain on the mother’s side of the family.  And thus, the skill and knowledge of Tubal-Cain is passed on beyond the flood.  Which makes sense to mention it in the book of Genesis.

And since you did so well, here is a video of gold refining. They decant impurities at one point, but they do not talk about it.

And as for steel making, this is a video from US Steel.  Some of the processes mentioned here are older technology, but I have worked on everything mentioned in the video except for the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF).  Instead, I worked with Electric Arc Furnaces.  Today, most coiled steel product from hot strip mills is made from compact strip plants or by another name, direct strip plants, making thinner slabs that are never cooled and stored, but immediately heated evenly (after the caster overcools the surface) and then fed directly to the mill.  Otherwise, the video brags on US Steel, but is typical of most steel production.

And why all this talk of refining?  So that we can be “A Child of Love.”

If you like these Saturday morning Bible quizzes, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Saturday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.