Bible Characters
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50 free Bible Characters trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Bible is crowded with unforgettable people: shepherds who became kings, prophets who ran from their calling, queens who risked everything and disciples who lost their nerve at the worst possible moment. Their stories have shaped art, language and everyday expressions for thousands of years, which is why so many of the names feel familiar even to people who have never opened the book. This quiz works like a game of guess who. Each question gives a clue or two about a figure from the Old or New Testament, such as a famous deed, a family tie or a memorable fate, and asks you to pick the right name from four. The set opens with the best-known characters and moves on to judges, exiles and early Christians that only keen readers will place. Every answer comes with a short explanation and a fact worth retelling. It suits Sunday school classes, youth groups, Bible study nights and family quiz evenings, as well as anyone who simply wants to test how well they know the people of Scripture.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which man in the Bible built an ark to survive a great flood, then planted a vineyard and got drunk?
Noah
Noah lay uncovered in his tent after the wine. A 4th-century archbishop defended him: as the first person ever to taste wine, he could not have known what it would do.
Q 02Which Hebrew baby was hidden among the bulrushes of the Nile and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter?
Moses
Moses owes his name to the princess who found him. She said, "I drew him out of the water", a play on the Hebrew verb for drawing out.
Q 03Which youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem played the lyre to soothe a tormented King Saul?
David
David joined the royal court as a musician and armour-bearer, long before he wore the crown. Scripture later calls him "the sweet psalmist of Israel".
Q 04Which Philistine champion from Gath was felled by a single stone from a shepherd boy's sling?
Goliath
Goliath stands "six cubits and a span", about 9 feet 9 inches, in the standard Hebrew text. The Dead Sea Scrolls give a more human 6 feet 9.
Q 05Which judge of Israel killed a lion with his bare hands but lost his strength when his hair was cut?
Samson
Samson was a Nazirite from birth, so the haircut broke a lifelong vow. His hair had begun to grow back in prison when he pulled down a Philistine temple.
Q 06Which prophet spent three days and nights inside a great fish after fleeing a mission to Nineveh?
Jonah
Jonah had boarded a ship bound for Tarshish to escape the task, and was cast into the sea in a storm. Nineveh, the city he dodged, lay near present-day Mosul.
Q 07Which Jewish exile, raised to high office by Darius the Mede, survived a night in a den of lions?
Daniel
Daniel was trapped by jealous rivals, who tricked the king into banning prayer to anyone but himself for thirty days. They were thrown to the lions in his place.
Q 08Which woman in the Garden of Eden ate the forbidden fruit after listening to a serpent?
Eve
Eve is a name meaning "living one" or "source of life". She had not yet been created when God first gave the command about the tree.
Q 09Which disciple identified Jesus to an arresting party with a kiss, for thirty pieces of silver?
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot also kept the disciples' money bag and, by one Gospel's account, helped himself to it. Matthias was later chosen to fill the empty place among the Twelve.
Q 10Which fisherman from Bethsaida denied knowing Jesus three times before a rooster crowed?
Peter
Peter was born Simon; Jesus renamed him Cephas, from an Aramaic word for rock or stone. Tradition says he was later crucified upside down in Rome.
Q 11Which disciple, whose name means "the twin", refused to believe Jesus had risen without touching the wounds?
Thomas
Thomas answered the sight with "My Lord and my God", yet the nickname "doubting" stuck for good. Tradition sends him on to India, where he is honoured as a patron saint.
Q 12Which young woman of Nazareth was told by the angel Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus?
Mary
Mary received the news in an event known as the Annunciation. Churches keep its feast on 25 March, exactly nine months before Christmas.
Q 13Which farmer, the firstborn of Adam, killed his shepherd brother and then asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Cain
Cain was given a protective mark by God so that nobody would kill him in revenge. He then settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden, and built a city.
Q 21Which short chief tax collector at Jericho climbed a sycamore tree to get a view of Jesus?
Zacchaeus
Zacchaeus shocked the crowd by hosting Jesus at his house, since a tax collector counted as a sinner. He responded by giving away half of all he possessed.
Q 22Which man is credited with the longest lifespan recorded in the Bible, a full 969 years?
Methuselah
Methuselah has become a byword for long life. By the Bible's own arithmetic, his 969 years run out in the very year of the great flood.
Q 23Which Roman governor of Judaea publicly washed his hands at the trial of Jesus to disown the death sentence?
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate is the best-attested Roman governor of Judaea, yet the famous hand-washing scene appears in only one of the four Gospels, Matthew's.
Q 14Which favourite son of Jacob was given a coat of many colours, then sold by his brothers to passing merchants?
Joseph
Joseph rose from slave to second-in-command of Egypt by interpreting Pharaoh's dreams. The brothers had dipped the coat in goat's blood to fake his death.
Q 15Which king of Israel settled two women's claim to one baby by ordering the child cut in half?
Solomon
Solomon never had to use the sword. One woman begged him to give the baby to her rival rather than see it die, and he declared her the true mother.
Q 16Which man from Bethany did Jesus call out of a tomb four days after his burial?
Lazarus
Lazarus still names his home town: Bethany is today Al-Eizariya, which translates as "the place of Lazarus". His story also holds the famous line "Jesus wept."
Q 17Which man fled the destruction of Sodom with his daughters while his wife was turned into a pillar of salt?
Lot
Lot escaped, but his wife looked back at the burning city. She is never named in the Bible, though some Jewish traditions call her Ado or Edith.
Q 18Which righteous man from the land of Uz lost his wealth, his children and his health in a test of faith?
Job
Job ends his story better off than he began it. God rebukes the three friends who kept insisting he must have sinned, and restores his fortunes.
Q 19Which persecutor from Tarsus was struck blind for three days on the road to Damascus and became an apostle?
Paul
Paul had to be led by the hand into Damascus, where a disciple named Ananias restored his sight. He later paid his own way as a tent maker.
Q 20Which patriarch from Ur was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac until an angel stopped him?
Abraham
Abraham offered a ram caught nearby in place of the boy. He is counted as forefather of the Jewish people through Isaac and of the Arab people through Ishmael.
Q 24Which preacher in the Judaean wilderness wore camel's hair and lived on locusts and wild honey?
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was later beheaded by Herod Antipas, after rebuking the ruler for marrying Herodias, the wife of his own brother.
Q 25Which Jewish queen of Persia exposed the plot of the vizier Haman to wipe out her people?
Esther
Esther is first introduced under her Hebrew name, Hadassah, which means "myrtle tree". Her people's escape is still celebrated every year at the feast of Purim.
Q 26Which Moabite widow told her mother-in-law Naomi, "Where you go I will go", and followed her to Judah?
Ruth
Ruth went on to marry a wealthy relative of the family named Boaz. The Bible counts her as the great-grandmother of Israel's most celebrated king.
Q 27Which prophet challenged 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and was later carried up in a whirlwind?
Elijah
Elijah never dies in the Bible's telling: a chariot of fire and horses of fire appear, and he is swept up to heaven. Earlier, ravens had fed him beside a brook.
Q 28Which woman of Sorek was offered 1,100 silver coins by each Philistine lord to betray her strongman lover?
Delilah
Delilah failed three times, sent away with a false answer on each try, before she coaxed out the truth. She then had a servant do the cutting while her lover slept.
Q 29Which Israelite commander marched his army around Jericho for seven days until the city walls fell?
Joshua
Joshua had priests blow horns on every circuit, and on the seventh day the people marched around seven times and shouted. Only one household in the city was spared.
Q 30Which hairy twin brother of Jacob sold his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew?
Esau
Esau came home famished from the fields and traded away his rights as firstborn on the spot. His other name, Edom, means "red", like the stew.