Baptism Trivia
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49 free Baptism trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Baptism is the one rite almost every Christian tradition shares, and almost every tradition does it a little differently. This baptism trivia quiz covers the story behind it: where and by whom Jesus was baptised, what John the Baptist ate and how he died, what the Greek word actually means, and the difference between immersion, affusion and aspersion. It works through the big denominational splits (infant versus believer's baptism, the Trinitarian formula, the Anabaptists of 1525, the churches that do not baptise with water at all) without taking sides. Then it heads into history and culture: the emperor who waited until his deathbed, the Frankish king baptised at Reims, the prince who baptised a whole nation in the Dnieper, why fonts have eight sides, the Florence Baptistery doors Michelangelo praised, the angel Leonardo painted, the baptism scene in The Godfather, and why ships get 'christened' with champagne. Good for a confirmation class, a church quiz night or anyone curious about the rite. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on baptism, its history and the people and places involved, and each question quotes the sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'baptism' comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Dipping
Dipping: in everyday Greek the same verb described cloth dunked in dye, and even ships sinking or men drowning.
Q 02The baptism of Jesus is described in which three Gospels?
Matthew, Mark and Luke
Matthew, Mark and Luke narrate it, and in Matthew John at first refuses, saying he needs to be baptised by Jesus instead.
Q 03Which Native American's baptism is the subject of a large painting in the US Capitol Rotunda?
Pocahontas
Pocahontas took the name Rebecca, and the Virginia Company later paid for her trip to England to promote the colony; she died at Gravesend before sailing home.
Q 04In the Gospel accounts, the Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism in the form of which bird?
Dove
Dove: this scene is why Christian art has long shown the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.
Q 05What did John the Baptist famously eat in the wilderness?
Locusts and wild honey
Locusts and wild honey: odd as it sounds, the Law of Moses lists the locust among the few insects Israelites were allowed to eat.
Q 06Which ruler ordered the beheading of John the Baptist?
Herod Antipas
Herod Antipas: the Gospels say John condemned his marriage, but the historian Josephus says Antipas feared John's influence might spark a rebellion.
Q 07What name does Josephus give the daughter of Herodias who danced for Herod?
Salome
Salome: the Gospels never name her, and some ancient copies of Mark even call the dancing girl Herodias, like her mother.
Q 08Which small sect reveres John the Baptist as its greatest prophet and practises frequent purifying baptism?
Mandaeans
Mandaeans: after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, most of the community there fled the country.
Q 09The risen Jesus's order to 'make disciples of all nations, baptizing them' is known as what?
The Great Commission
The Great Commission ends Matthew's Gospel, and in 1792 William Carey argued it was 'still binding' on Christians, then sailed for India the next year.
Q 10Baptism by sprinkling water on the head is called what?
Aspersion
Aspersion: churches used it mainly for the sick who could not leave their beds, and the bishop Cyprian ruled such baptisms valid.
Q 11Medieval theologians taught that babies who died unbaptised went to which place?
Limbo
Limbo was never official Church doctrine, and in 2007 a Vatican commission found 'serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope' that such babies are saved.
Q 12Early Christians were usually baptised naked; what did they put on after leaving the water?
A white robe
A white robe: new Christians wore it all through Easter week, which is how the next Sunday got its old Latin name, 'Sunday in white'.
Q 13Which Christian group has traditionally rejected all outward sacraments, water baptism included?
Quakers
Quakers: George Fox and the early Friends saw the whole of life as sacramental, so they refused to set apart any one practice as more sacred than others.
Q 21The consecrated oil used to anoint the newly baptised in Catholic and Orthodox churches is called what?
Chrism
Chrism: bishops now bless the year's supply at a special Mass in Holy Week, though it could once be blessed on any day of the year.
Q 22Who baptised the Ethiopian court official he found reading Isaiah in a chariot?
Philip
Philip: as soon as they came up out of the water, Acts says, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the official saw him no more.
Q 23Latter Day Saint proxy baptism for the dead is based on a verse in which New Testament book?
1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians: Latter-day Saints perform proxy baptisms only in temples, and teach that the dead may choose to accept or reject them.
Q 14Why did the Salvation Army's founders drop baptism and communion?
People trusted rituals instead of grace
People trusted rituals instead of grace, the Booths believed, and the Army's commitment to total abstinence also ruled out communion wine.
Q 15The Anabaptists of the 16th century got their name because they insisted on what?
Re-baptising those baptised as infants
Re-baptising those baptised as infants earned them the scornful German label Wiedertäufer, 'rebaptizers', though they saw infant baptism as no baptism at all.
Q 16In which city did Conrad Grebel baptise George Blaurock on 21 January 1525, founding the Anabaptists?
Zurich
Zurich: the city council soon decreed the severest penalties against the movement, and in 1527 Felix Manz, one of the group, was drowned.
Q 17Which three groups are direct descendants of the early Anabaptists?
Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites
Baptists also practise believer's baptism but have different roots; pouring rather than immersion remains the norm among the Amish.
Q 18In which city did John Smyth's exiled English congregation begin the Baptist tradition in 1609?
Amsterdam
Amsterdam: Smyth's first Baptists poured water rather than immersing, and English Baptists only began insisting on full immersion from the 1640s.
Q 19Which 16th-century reformer regarded baptism and the Lord's Supper as merely symbolic?
Huldrych Zwingli
Huldrych Zwingli fell out with Luther over communion at Marburg in 1529, and two years later he was killed in battle at Kappel.
Q 20In Eastern Christianity, the anointing that Western churches call confirmation happens when?
Immediately after baptism
Immediately after baptism, as in the early Church; the West split the rites apart so that its bishops could still confirm each child personally.
Q 24An early church writer linked eight-sided baptisteries to which event?
The Resurrection
The Resurrection: Jesus rose on the day after the seventh-day Sabbath, so some early Christian writers called Sunday the 'eighth day'.
Q 25Which Florentine lost the 1401 contest for the Baptistery doors but later built the cathedral's famous dome?
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi devoted many years to studying the ancient monuments of Rome, some of them alongside his younger friend Donatello.
Q 26Which sculptor made the Florence Baptistery doors that Michelangelo called fit for 'the gates of Paradise'?
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Lorenzo Ghiberti: the bronze workshop he built for the doors trained younger artists, among them Donatello and Paolo Uccello.
Q 27Which poet, baptised in the Florence Baptistery, hoped in vain to return there for a laurel crown?
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence in 1302 and died still in exile, in Ravenna, in 1321.
Q 28The left-hand angel in Verrocchio's 'Baptism of Christ' is credited to which young pupil?
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci: Vasari tells that the pupil's angel was so skilful it upset the older Verrocchio, though the story may be only legend.
Q 29Piero della Francesca's 'Baptism of Christ' hangs in which museum?
National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London: the Sansepolcro religious house it was painted for was later shut down, and the Gallery bought the panel in 1861.
Q 30Which Roman emperor delayed baptism until his deathbed in 337 to wash away his reign's sins?
Constantine
Constantine had hoped to be baptised in the River Jordan, but in the end an Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia, baptised him.