Books of the Bible Trivia
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118 free Books of the Bible trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Most Bible trivia asks what happens inside the books. This quiz asks about the books themselves: how many there are and why Catholic and Protestant Bibles disagree, which is the shortest by word count and which the longest, why the Book of Numbers is called that, and how the twelve minor prophets became one scroll in the Hebrew Bible and twelve books in a Christian one. The 118 questions run from Genesis to Revelation and cover the Torah, the histories, Psalms and the wisdom books, the major and minor prophets, the four Gospels, Acts, Paul's thirteen letters, the general epistles and the deuterocanonical books such as Tobit, Judith and Sirach. There is also a short round on how the Bible got its chapters and verses. It suits Sunday school teachers, youth groups, Bible study leaders and anyone who has memorised the order of the books and wants to be tested on more than the order. Every answer is checked against a cited reference page, and the explanations add the detail that makes the fact stick.
30 of 118 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which book is in the Catholic Old Testament but outside the Protestant canon?
1 Maccabees
1 Maccabees tells how Judas Maccabeus retook Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple, the event Hanukkah still celebrates.
Q 02Which New Testament letter contains the famous passage 'love is patient, love is kind'?
1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians sets this hymn to love inside Paul's rebuke of a church split by quarrels over status and spiritual gifts.
Q 03Which ecumenical council explicitly laid out the 73-book canon used by the Catholic Church?
Trent
Trent made the list binding dogma in 1546 to answer the Reformers, confirming the same books the Council of Florence had listed in 1442.
Q 04The books traditionally credited to Moses are known collectively by which Greek-derived name?
The Pentateuch
The Pentateuch means 'five scrolls' in Greek, and Judaism calls the same books the Torah, a word meaning 'instruction' rather than just 'law'.
Q 05Which single-chapter book of 21 verses is the shortest in the Hebrew Bible?
Obadiah
Obadiah is one long oracle against Edom, the nation descended from Esau, for gloating and looting while Jerusalem fell.
Q 06By word count, which is the shortest book in the entire Bible?
3 John
3 John is a private note thanking a man named Gaius for hosting travelling preachers, and it has fewer words than 2 John despite more verses.
Q 07Which of Paul's letters is his shortest, at only 335 words in Greek?
Philemon
In Philemon, Paul offers to cover any debt himself, writing 'I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back.'
Q 08Paul's shortest letter pleads for which slave to be received as a 'brother beloved'?
Onesimus
Paul never orders Onesimus freed outright, which is why both pro-slavery advocates and abolitionists cited the letter.
Q 09Which two books of the Hebrew Bible never explicitly mention God?
Esther and Song of Songs
Esther and Song of Songs never name God in Hebrew, but the Greek version of Esther adds prayers that call on God openly.
Q 10The Book of Esther is read aloud twice from a handwritten scroll during which Jewish holiday?
Purim
At Purim readings, listeners use noisemakers called graggers to drown out every mention of the villain Haman's name.
Q 11In the Hebrew text, Psalms 146 to 150 each open and close with which word?
Hallelujah
Hallelujah is Hebrew for 'praise Yah', a call to worship that many English Bibles translate as 'Praise the LORD' instead.
Q 12Which chapter of the Psalter, an acrostic of 176 verses, is the longest in the Bible?
Psalm 119
Psalm 119 gives each of the 22 Hebrew letters its own eight-verse stanza, and almost every verse names God's law or one of its synonyms.
Q 13Which two-verse entry in the Psalter is the shortest chapter in the whole Bible?
Psalm 117
Psalm 117 calls on every nation to praise God, and Paul quotes it in one of his letters to show that Gentiles too are called to praise God.
Q 21Which New Testament book gives the number of the beast as 666?
Revelation
In Revelation, the author says he was on the island of Patmos 'because of the word of God' when a voice told him to write to seven churches.
Q 22Which is the longest of the letters attributed to Paul?
Romans
Romans helped spark Methodism: Wesley felt his heart 'strangely warmed' while hearing Luther's preface to the letter read aloud.
Q 23Which scribe who wrote down one of Paul's letters slipped in his own greeting?
Tertius
Tertius adds 'I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you'; Paul seems to have dictated, then added a closing greeting in his own hand as a sign it was genuine.
Q 14Which psalm is the only one in the Psalter attributed to Moses?
Psalm 90
Psalm 90 is headed 'A Prayer of Moses, the man of God', and it sets a human lifespan at 'threescore years and ten'.
Q 15Psalm 3's heading has David fleeing which son?
Absalom
Absalom led a revolt that drove David out of Jerusalem, and David climbed the Mount of Olives weeping, barefoot, with his head covered.
Q 16"Jesus wept", the shortest verse in the King James Bible, appears in which Gospel?
John
John sets it on the way to Lazarus's tomb, just before Jesus calls his dead friend out alive.
Q 17Which three Gospels are known as the Synoptic Gospels?
Matthew, Mark and Luke
Matthew, Mark and Luke share so many stories, in similar order and wording, that scholars print them side by side in parallel columns.
Q 18Most scholars believe which Gospel was written first and used as a source by the others?
Mark
Mark ends abruptly in its oldest manuscripts, with the women fleeing the empty tomb in fear, and later scribes added longer endings.
Q 19Which Gospel opens with a preface addressed to a patron named Theophilus?
Luke
Luke addresses Theophilus, whose name means 'friend of God', yet nobody knows who he really was, or even whether he was one real person.
Q 20Which New Testament book continues a Gospel's story, forming a two-volume work by the same author?
Acts of the Apostles
Acts of the Apostles ends abruptly with Paul under house arrest in Rome, never saying how his trial turned out.
Q 24Which of these letters do nearly all scholars accept as genuinely written by Paul?
Galatians
Galatians is one of Paul's seven undisputed letters, and in it he tells how he opposed Peter to his face at Antioch.
Q 25Which three letters are grouped together as the Pastoral Epistles?
1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus
1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus coach church leaders, and 2 Timothy is framed as Paul's farewell: 'I have fought the good fight.'
Q 26Which New Testament letter names no author, though traditionally credited to Paul?
Hebrews
Hebrews was long grouped with Paul's letters, yet as early as the 200s the scholar Origen wrote that only God knows who wrote it.
Q 27Which epistle insists that faith without works is dead?
James
James stresses works so strongly that Martin Luther, champion of faith alone, dismissed it as an 'epistle of straw'.
Q 28Which short New Testament letter backs up its warning against scoffers by quoting the Book of Enoch?
Jude
Jude also tells of the archangel Michael disputing with the devil over the body of Moses.
Q 29Paul's letter to which companion says he left him on Crete to organise the church there?
Titus
Titus gets a blunt briefing on his flock, as Paul quotes a Cretan prophet saying 'Cretans are always liars'.
Q 30Which epistle was sent to the church in a small Phrygian city near Laodicea?
Colossians
Colossians tells its readers to swap letters with the church at Laodicea, and that 'letter from Laodicea' is generally thought lost.