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This Thanksgiving Bible trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers, built for church groups, Sunday school classes and family tables that want a faith-based round on Thanksgiving Day. It walks through the Bible's own thanksgivings: the psalm whose Hebrew title literally names it a song for the thank offering, Hannah and Mary singing after unexpected sons, Jonah praying inside the fish, Daniel kneeling three times a day with his windows open, the one leper out of ten who came back, and Jesus giving thanks over loaves, over a cup and at a tomb. Later questions cover the harvest festivals God commanded in the Torah, the todah offering in Leviticus, the Deuteronomy verse that gave the world grace after meals, Paul's short verses on gratitude that get printed on every Thanksgiving card, and the choirs Nehemiah marched around the walls of Jerusalem. A final round connects Scripture to the American holiday: the Geneva Bible carried on the Mayflower, Lincoln's 1863 proclamation, and the hymns sung on the fourth Thursday of November. Difficulty ranges from questions a Sunday-school child can answer to a few for seminary graduates. Every answer was checked against the King James text or Wikipedia before it went in.
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Q 01Which psalm's Hebrew title, 'Mizmor l'Todah', names it as a song for the thank offering in the Temple?
100
Psalm 100 opens 'Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands' and became the hymn 'All People That on Earth Do Dwell', sung to the tune Old Hundredth.
Q 02Complete the King James line: 'Serve the LORD with ______: come before his presence with singing'?
Gladness
The word is 'gladness'; the verse is the second line of the psalm that begins 'Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands' and ends 'his truth endureth to all generations'.
Q 03Which psalm repeats 'for his mercy endureth for ever' in the second half of every verse?
136
Psalm 136, called the Great Hallel in Jewish tradition, runs through creation, the Exodus and the conquest, answering each of its 26 verses with 'for his mercy endureth for ever'.
Q 04Which psalm opens 'It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD' and is subtitled a song 'for the sabbath day'?
92
Psalm 92 carries the superscription 'A Psalm or Song for the sabbath day' and is sung in synagogues at the Friday-evening Kabbalat Shabbat service that welcomes the Sabbath.
Q 05'Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his ______' (Psalm 103:2). Which word completes the verse?
Benefits
The psalm then lists them: forgiveness, healing, redemption from destruction and satisfying your mouth with good things.
Q 06Jesus healed ten lepers on the way to Jerusalem, but only one came back to thank him. What was that man?
A Samaritan
Jesus asked, 'Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?' The story appears only in Luke's Gospel.
Q 07Which Gospel is the only one to record the story of the ten lepers?
Luke
Only Luke records the ten lepers, in chapter 17, between Jesus's sayings on forgiveness and faith and his teaching on the coming of the kingdom.
Q 08Before feeding the five thousand, Jesus took five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven and did what?
Gave thanks and broke them
Jesus 'gave thanks' (John 6:11) and broke the loaves before distributing them; the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle besides the resurrection told in all four Gospels.
Q 09After the feeding of the four thousand, how many baskets of leftovers did the disciples collect?
Seven
Seven baskets were gathered (Matthew 15:37); Jesus had 'given thanks' over seven loaves and a few small fish, and this second feeding appears only in Matthew and Mark.
Q 10Which visitors to the newborn Jesus 'returned, glorifying and praising God'?
The shepherds
The shepherds, told of the birth by an angel in the fields near Bethlehem, went back 'glorifying and praising God' after finding the child in the manger.
Q 11'Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.' Jesus prayed these words just before doing what?
Raising Lazarus from the tomb
He added that he said it aloud for the sake of the crowd, 'that they may believe that thou hast sent me', then called Lazarus out.
Q 12In one of Jesus's parables, which character prays 'God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are'?
The Pharisee
The Pharisee prays this in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican; the tax collector standing far off asks only for mercy, and Jesus says he, not the Pharisee, went home justified.
Q 13Which elderly prophetess 'gave thanks likewise unto the Lord' when the infant Jesus was presented?
Anna
Q 21Daniel was thrown to the lions for praying how many times a day toward Jerusalem?
Three
Daniel 6:10 says he knelt 'three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime', defying Darius's thirty-day ban on petitions to anyone but the king.
Q 22Hannah's Old Testament song of thanksgiving celebrates the birth of which son she had promised to God?
Samuel
The son was Samuel, a name Hannah explained as 'asked of the LORD'; her song begins 'My heart rejoiceth in the LORD' and is often compared with the Magnificat.
Q 23Mary's song of praise, the Magnificat, is spoken when she visits which relative?
Elisabeth
Elisabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist, who leapt in her womb at Mary's greeting. The Latin name comes from its first word, 'magnifies'.
Anna, a widow of about 84 who 'departed not from the temple', gave thanks and then spoke of the child to all who looked for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Q 14Which verse reads (KJV) 'In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you'?
1 Thessalonians 5:18
It is 1 Thessalonians 5:18, following two even shorter commands, 'Rejoice evermore' (verse 16) and 'Pray without ceasing' (verse 17).
Q 15'Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication...' opens a verse in which New Testament letter?
Philippians
It is Philippians 4:6, and the reward follows in the next verse: 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding'.
Q 16Which psalm opens 'O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name'?
105
Psalm 105 opens with that call and then retells Israel's story from the covenant with Abraham through the Exodus; the same words begin David's song of thanks in 1 Chronicles 16.
Q 17In Romans 1, the pagans 'became vain in their ______'. Which word fills the blank?
Imaginations
The result, he says, was that 'their foolish heart was darkened'. It is the New Testament's bluntest statement that ingratitude is a root sin.
Q 18Which letter says every creature of God is good 'if it be received with thanksgiving'?
1 Timothy
It is 1 Timothy 4:4, answering teachers who forbade marriage and certain foods: every creature of God is good and 'nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving'.
Q 19'Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift' closes which chapter, one about a collection for the poor?
2 Corinthians 9
It is 2 Corinthians 9:15; the chapter is about the collection for the Jerusalem saints and cheerful giving, with 'God loveth a cheerful giver' at verse 7.
Q 20Which Old Testament prophet prayed a psalm of thanksgiving from inside a great fish?
Jonah
Jonah prayed it from inside the fish; the prayer ends 'Salvation is of the LORD', and the fish then vomits him out upon the dry land (Jonah 2:10).
Q 24'Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD.' What had just happened?
They had crossed the Red Sea
Miriam then took a timbrel and led the women in the same refrain. Some scholars think the Song of the Sea is the oldest text in the Bible.
Q 25'Then sang Deborah and Barak' opens a victory song in which book of the Bible?
Judges
It is Judges 5, celebrating the defeat of Jabin king of Canaan and his general Sisera, whom Jael finished off with a tent peg in the previous chapter.
Q 26How many extra years of life had God promised King Hezekiah after his illness?
Fifteen
God added fifteen years (Isaiah 38:5); the sign was the shadow going back ten degrees on the sundial of Ahaz, and Isaiah 38 preserves 'the writing of Hezekiah' after his recovery.
Q 27On bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, David handed a psalm of thanks to which musician and his brethren?
Asaph
The text, in 1 Chronicles 16, begins 'Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name'. Asaph's name is on twelve of the psalms.
Q 28At the dedication of Jerusalem's rebuilt wall, Nehemiah appointed 'two great companies' to do what?
March in opposite directions around the ramparts
One choir went right toward the dung gate, the other left, and they met at the house of God with trumpets and cymbals.
Q 29When the Second Temple's foundation was laid in Ezra 3, the young shouted for joy while the old men did what?
Wept aloud, remembering the one Solomon built
The noise of weeping and shouting mixed so that people could not tell one from the other, and it was heard far off.
Q 30In Leviticus 7, what had to accompany the animal sacrifice in a peace offering 'for a thanksgiving'?
Unleavened cakes and leavened bread
The thanksgiving peace offering (Hebrew todah) had to come with unleavened cakes and wafers mingled with oil and also leavened bread (Leviticus 7:12-13), alongside the animal.