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60 free Abraham trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Abraham trivia quiz follows the patriarch from Ur of the Chaldees to the cave of Machpelah, drawing on the Genesis narrative and on how Judaism, Christianity and Islam remember him. The easy questions are ones anyone with a Sunday-school or Quran-class memory can attempt: his original name, his wife, his two famous sons and their mothers, his nephew who fled Sodom, and the mountain-top test involving a knife and a ram. From there it moves through the whole cycle: the call to leave Haran, Sarai and Pharaoh, the war of the kings and the 318 servants, Melchizedek's bread and wine, the covenant of the pieces, the three visitors, the haggling over Sodom, Abimelech, Beersheba and Keturah's six sons. The harder end is for people who know the text and the traditions: Abraham's ages at each milestone, what his new name is said to mean, Ephron the Hittite and the price of the cave, why the site is fenced by Herod's walls, the Talmud's name for his mother, Nimrod's furnace, Ibrahim as Khalilullah and reformer of the Kaaba, the Zamzam well, Eid al-Adha, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Rublev's Trinity and even a Bob Dylan song. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Abraham, his family and the traditions about him before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Bible, Old Testament and world religions quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which of Abraham's sons inherited the divine promise of the land?
Isaac
Ishmael was separately promised that he would found a great nation of his own.
Q 02Abraham is regarded as the forefather of the Jewish people through Isaac and of which other people through Ishmael?
The Arabs
That shared ancestry is why Judaism, Christianity and Islam are grouped as the Abrahamic religions.
Q 03Who was Abraham's father?
Terah
He was the ninth in descent from Noah.
Q 04In which city did Abraham's family originally live?
Ur
Some commentators, such as Nahmanides, thought he was born elsewhere and moved there later.
Q 05How old was Abram when he set out for Canaan with Sarai and Lot?
75
He travelled with Sarai and his nephew Lot to Shechem, where he built an altar.
Q 06In which town did Terah die, aged 205, after the family stopped there on the way to Canaan?
Haran
Abram, Sarai and Lot continued the journey without him.
Q 07What did Abram tell Sarai to say to the Egyptians when famine drove them to Egypt?
That she was his sister
Pharaoh took her into his palace, was struck with plagues, and expelled the couple when he learned the truth.
Q 08When Abram and Lot parted, Lot chose the well-watered Jordan valley. Where did Abram settle?
The plain of Mamre near Hebron
He built yet another altar there and later welcomed heavenly visitors under its terebinths.
Q 09How many trained servants did Abram muster to rescue Lot from the Elamite army?
318
He split his force, launched a night raid at Dan and chased King Chedorlaomer to Hobah, north of Damascus.
Q 10Which king of Salem, a priest of El Elyon, blessed Abram and received a tenth of everything?
Melchizedek
In the New Testament he appears only in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he is discussed at length.
Q 11Whom did Abram expect to inherit his estate before God promised him a son?
Eliezer of Damascus
God answered by promising descendants as numerous as the stars.
Q 12The Vale of Siddim, where four kings fought five, is identified in Genesis with which body of water?
The Salt Sea, or Dead Sea
The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were among the five who rebelled against Elam.
Q 13Sarai offered Abram which of her servants so that he might have a son?
Hagar
After ten childless years in Canaan, the plan produced Ishmael.
Q 21Which king of Gerar took Sarah into his household until God warned him in a dream?
Abimelech
He returned her with sheep, oxen, servants and a thousand pieces of silver as her vindication.
Q 22What place name arose from Abraham's oath with the king of Gerar over a well, sealed with seven ewes?
Beersheba
Abraham planted a tamarisk grove there and called on the everlasting God.
Q 23How old was Abraham when Isaac was born?
100
He circumcised the boy when he was eight days old and held a great feast when he was weaned.
Q 24What does the name Isaac mean?
Q 14How old was Abram when Ishmael was born?
86
An angel had told his pregnant mother to return and give him that name.
Q 15What did God command Abraham to do at 99 as the sign of the covenant?
Circumcise the males of his household
He carried it out immediately on himself and on the 13-year-old Ishmael.
Q 16According to Genesis, what does the name Abraham mean?
Father of a multitude
Scholars think the true meaning is probably father is exalted, and that the Genesis gloss is a folk etymology.
Q 17How many visitors did Abraham entertain at the terebinths of Mamre?
Three
He served them curds, milk and a choice calf, and one told him Sarah would bear a son within a year.
Q 18What did Sarah do when she overheard that she would bear a son in her old age?
She laughed
Frightened, she then denied it.
Q 19Abraham bargained God down over Sodom. For how few righteous people would God finally agree to spare the city?
Ten
Not even ten were found, and Abraham watched the smoke rise the next morning like the smoke of a furnace.
Q 20What happened to Lot's wife when she looked back at the burning cities?
She turned into a pillar of salt
Lot had insisted the two visiting angels stay at his house rather than in the city square.
He will laugh
It recalls the laughter of both his parents at the promise of a child in old age.
Q 25How much older than Isaac was his half-brother?
Fourteen years
Sarah demanded that he and his mother be sent away after seeing him mocking at Isaac's weaning feast.
Q 26What skill did Ishmael become known for while living in the wilderness of Paran?
Archery
His mother later found him a wife from her homeland, Egypt.
Q 27In which land did God tell Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice?
Moriah
Second Chronicles later places Solomon's Temple on Mount Moriah, the site believed to be the Temple Mount.
Q 28What did Abraham sacrifice in place of Isaac?
A ram caught in a thicket
He named the place Jehovah-jireh, and the episode is read in synagogues on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
Q 29What is the Hebrew name for the story of the binding of Isaac, read at Rosh Hashanah?
The Akedah
The Talmud, in tractate Taanit, treats it as a story of Isaac's willingness as much as Abraham's.
Q 30Which Danish philosopher explored Abraham's anguish over the sacrifice in Fear and Trembling (1843)?
Søren Kierkegaard
He published it under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio, John the Silent.