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60 free Mary Magdalene trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Mary Magdalene trivia quiz separates what the four gospels say about the most famous woman follower of Jesus from the fifteen centuries of legend that grew up around her. The early questions stick to the New Testament: the town she was probably named for, the seven demons, the women who funded the ministry, who stood at the cross, who found the tomb empty in each gospel, and the garden scene in John where she mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener. The middle of the quiz follows her reputation: the pagan critic who called her hysterical, the Church Fathers, the 591 sermon in which Pope Gregory I fused her with the sinful woman of Luke 7, the Eastern Orthodox titles Myrrhbearer and Equal to the Apostles, the red-egg legend, the medieval French tales of a rudderless boat and a Provençal cave, the rival relics at Vézelay and Saint-Maximin, the Golden Legend, the Reformation debates and the 1969 correction of the Roman calendar. The last questions cover the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, Philip and Thomas, the word maudlin, Donatello and Titian, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Da Vinci Code, the forged Gospel of Jesus's Wife, the 2018 film and the 2016 upgrade of her feast. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Mary Magdalene and related texts.
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Q 01Magdala, Mary Magdalene's presumed home village, lies on the shore of which body of water?
The Sea of Galilee
Magdala was known in antiquity chiefly as a fishing town.
Q 02Some scholars argue 'Magdalene' may have been an honorific nickname meaning what?
Tower
Elizabeth Schrader Polczer and Joan Taylor have made the case.
Q 03Why did the gospel writers need to call her 'Magdalene' at all?
Mary was the era's most common Jewish girls' name
Several other women named Mary followed Jesus, including his mother.
Q 04According to the Gospel of Luke, how many demons did Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene?
Seven
Seven was the Jewish number of completion, so it may simply mean she was completely overwhelmed.
Q 05Which gospel, thought to be the earliest, does not mention Mary Magdalene at all until the crucifixion?
Mark
Luke 8:2-3 gives the only brief summary of her role during the ministry.
Q 06Luke names Mary Magdalene alongside which other women who 'provided for' Jesus 'out of their resources'?
Joanna and Susanna
Joanna was the wife of Herod's steward Chuza; the passage implies Mary was relatively wealthy.
Q 07Whenever Mary Magdalene appears in a list of women in the Synoptic Gospels, where does she come?
First
Carla Ricci compares her position among the women to that of the leading male apostle among the Twelve.
Q 08How many of the four gospels explicitly name Mary Magdalene as a witness to the crucifixion?
Three
Luke mentions a group of women watching but gives no names.
Q 09According to Mark 15:40, which women watched the crucifixion alongside the Magdalene?
The mother of James, and Salome
Matthew instead lists the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee, who may be the same person Mark calls Salome.
Q 10Which man do all four gospels say buried Jesus, with Mary Magdalene watching in two of the accounts?
Joseph of Arimathea
John mentions Nicodemus, a Pharisee, at the burial but no women.
Q 11Whom does 1 Corinthians 15 credit with the first sighting of the risen Jesus?
Simon Peter
It preserves a creed written roughly 20 years before any gospel.
Q 12On what do all four gospels agree about Mary Magdalene and Easter morning?
She was among the first to find the tomb empty
The details of who was with her and what happened next differ drastically.
Q 13In Mark's original ending, what do the women do after the young man in white tells them Jesus has risen?
Run away and tell no one
Q 21Which Church Father, unusually, argued there were two different women called Mary Magdalene?
Ambrose
One found the empty tomb, he proposed, and another saw the risen Christ.
Q 22Which pope dropped the identification of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman from the calendar in 1969?
Paul VI
Historian Michael Haag calls it an admission that the old teaching had been wrong.
Q 23On what date is the feast of Mary Magdalene kept in Western and Orthodox calendars?
July 22
In 2016 the Vatican raised it from an obligatory memorial to a full feast, like those of the apostles.
The gospel then stops abruptly; scribes later added 'shorter' and 'longer' endings.
Q 14In Luke's account, how do the eleven apostles react when the women report the empty tomb?
They dismiss it as nonsense
In Luke, Jesus never appears to the women; his first appearance is on the road to Emmaus.
Q 15In the Gospel of John, whom does Mary Magdalene mistake the risen Jesus for in the garden?
The gardener
She recognizes him only when he says her name.
Q 16What Aramaic word does Mary cry out when she recognizes Jesus in John 20?
Rabbouni
It means 'teacher'.
Q 17'Noli me tangere', the Latin title of countless paintings of the garden scene, translates as what?
Touch me not
Some scholars prefer 'stop clinging to me'; a piece of Mary's forehead flesh venerated in France is even called the noli me tangere.
Q 18By what title is Mary Magdalene known for being sent to tell the disciples of the resurrection?
Apostle to the Apostles
The Latin apostolorum apostola became commonplace in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Q 19Which second-century pagan critic dismissed Mary Magdalene as 'a hysterical female' who hallucinated the resurrection?
Celsus
Origen answered him in Against Celsus by pointing out Matthew names a second witness, 'the other Mary'.
Q 20Which pope's 591 sermon fused Mary Magdalene with Luke's 'sinful woman', casting her as a repentant prostitute?
Gregory I
He read her seven demons as the seven deadly sins; the gospels never call her a prostitute.
Q 24Besides Myrrhbearer, by what title does the Eastern Orthodox Church honour Mary Magdalene?
Equal to the Apostles
The Orthodox have always taught she was a virtuous woman her whole life.
Q 25In Orthodox tradition, Mary Magdalene's egg turned red before which Roman emperor?
Tiberius
The story is one origin of the custom of sharing dyed eggs at Easter.
Q 26An eastern tradition says Mary Magdalene retired and was buried in which city with Mary the mother of Jesus?
Ephesus
A later patriarch of Jerusalem said she went there to live with the apostle John.
Q 27Odo of Cluny made Mary Magdalene a wealthy noblewoman; some manuscripts name her parents as what?
Syrus and Eucharia
One version gives the family land in Bethany, Jerusalem and Magdala.
Q 28Which Burgundian abbey claimed from around 1050 to hold Mary Magdalene's skeleton?
Vézelay
It was later eclipsed by a rival tomb discovered in Provence in 1279.
Q 29Charles II of Naples's 1279 excavation found a rival tomb of Mary Magdalene in which Provençal town?
Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume
Its residents were exempted from taxes in return for housing pilgrims; her skull is still displayed there.
Q 30Which Dominican friar compiled The Golden Legend around 1260?
Jacobus de Voragine
Bart Ehrman sums up its Magdalene as 'fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual'.