WASHINGTON (RNS) Under the bright stage lights, Daniel Staddon, an 18-year-old home-schooler from Salem, W.Va., squeezed his eyes shut as he methodically recited verse after verse from the Bible at the inaugural National Bible Bee.

The concentration technique came in handy as he recited the first 20 verses of the fifth chapter of Ephesians and the 21 verses of Psalm 145 in the tie-breaker round on the stage of the JW Marriott Hotel ballroom. His skills paid off big-time, earning Staddon first place and a $100,000 prize.

“Dad suggested closing my eyes,” said Staddon, adding that his seven siblings helped him study for months for the contest that ended Friday (Nov. 6).

Competitions for spelling and math have long brought young people to national stages to test their vocabulary and prodigious memories. But now the “bee” concept has gone biblical. Culled from more than 17,000 students ages 7-18, the National Bible Bee finals grilled 21 children on their knowledge of Scripture. The five-hour finals were preceded by regional competitions in 49 of the 50 states in September, oral contests and SAT-like tests for 300 contestants.

The Bible bee was created after the death of Shelby Kennedy, a 23-year-old Texas woman who died of a rare form of cancer in 2005. An anonymous benefactor was inspired when he learned of her commitment to Scripture memorization at her memorial service and donated money for the Shelby Kennedy Foundation to launch the bee.

“Kids are learning to spell words,” Mark Rasche, executive director of the bee, recalled the benefactor saying. “That’s great, but there’s no eternal value.”

Students and parents alike, chatting between breaks in the competition that required their mastery of six books of the Bible, seemed to agree.

Jacob Manning, 14, a Minneapolis public high school student, said he considered his participation in the bee “really an investment in eternity” because he expected the words to remain with him forever.

“The Bible says my word shall never pass away,” he said. “Jesus says that.”

Manning didn’t make the semi-finals, so instead he and his father toured museums here, but they returned in time to watch contestants in the finals.

“I was just — and still am — enamored with how fluid they are with knowing God’s word and being able to tell it and proclaim it,” said Al Manning, Jacob’s dad. “My own nephew was in Scripps National Spelling Bee. That was cool but this is cooler.”

Master of ceremonies Joel Belz said he thought the dead-heat atmosphere of the finals had more tension than baseball’s World Series that ended a couple of nights before.

“I just think it’s so remarkable how differently God makes those of you who are sitting right here,” said Belz, founder of World magazine, a conservative Christian publication that helped sponsor the bee. “Because some of you just back up and then you go for it and you get all the way through and then we just watched Daniel think with his lips and he took every word one … by… one.”

The bee, attended predominantly by home-schoolers and members of a range of evangelical churches, marks a new juncture in Bible memorization. The tradition that remains active in some circles — such as Southern Baptist children’s Bible drills and Scripture memory activities in weekly Awana clubs in evangelical churches across the country — has faded elsewhere.

Pamela Braithwaite, office manager of Scripture Memory Fellowship in St. Louis, recalled winning a trophy in a church Bible bee as a teen in 1971 but said such activities have dwindled over the years. David Bunker, spokesman for Chicago-based Awana, said his organization supports the bee and hopes it will help reinvigorate Bible memorization.

“We are probably one of the holdouts and now it’s kind of like … what was considered antiquated is now becoming chic,” he said.

Despite the biblical emphasis — contestants’ T-shirts read “Building character … one Bible verse at a time” — some participants did admit that, at least at first, the thousands of dollars in prize money was a draw.

“My dad said if I won, I could buy a horse with the money,” said 10-year-old Rebecca Gross of Wattsburg, Pa.

Staddon, too, said the $100,000 prize was an attraction. He expects he’ll use it for housing and schooling but he will have to “ask the Lord” for advice.

As fellow contestants clamored around him after the bee’s awards banquet, he explained that he kept one of the Ten Commandments in mind as he studied the Bible passages.

“You have to say `em every day,” he said in between signing autographs. “I wouldn’t say `em on Sundays since Sunday was a day of rest.”