Catholic Bible Trivia
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99 free Catholic Bible trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
47 free Catholic Bible trivia questions with answers. Catholic Bibles have 73 books, and this quiz is about the ones, and the history, that other Bible quizzes leave out. Fifty questions cover the deuterocanonical books (Tobit's angel and fish, Judith and Holofernes, the Maccabees and Hanukkah, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon), the Septuagint they came from, Jerome and the Vulgate, the councils from Rome in 382 to Trent in 1546, and the English translations from Douay-Rheims through Challoner, Knox, the Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible used at Mass. It starts with easy counting questions (how many books, how many in the Old Testament) and works up to ones for seminarians: who coined 'deuterocanonical', which pope promulgated the Nova Vulgata, and what the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate hid in its appendix. It suits RCIA groups, Catholic school religion classes, youth ministry and anyone who wants to know why their Bible is thicker than their Protestant friend's. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the books, translations and councils involved, and each question shows its source.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many books are in the Catholic Bible?
73
The Catholic Bible has 73 books, seven more than the 66 of Protestant Bibles; the extra seven are Old Testament books, and Esther and Daniel are longer too.
Q 02How many books make up the Old Testament of a Catholic Bible?
46
The Catholic Old Testament has 46 books: the 39 of the Hebrew Bible as Christians count them, plus seven more that Protestant Bibles set aside as Apocrypha.
Q 03What term describes the seven Old Testament books Catholics accept that are absent from the Hebrew canon?
Deuterocanonical
Deuterocanonical, from the Greek for 'second canon', is the Catholic term for the seven books; Protestants group them as Apocrypha, which Luther set apart in his 1534 Bible.
Q 04Which 16th-century theologian, a convert from Judaism, coined in 1566 the term for books of 'second canon'?
Sixtus of Siena
Sixtus of Siena, a Dominican convert from Judaism, coined 'deuterocanonical' in his 1566 Bibliotheca Sancta for books whose canonical standing was settled later, in both Testaments.
Q 05Which of these is NOT one of the seven books unique to the Catholic Old Testament?
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is in every canon; the seven are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
Q 06The seven disputed books are all found in which ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures?
The Septuagint
The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament begun by Jewish scholars in the 3rd century BC, contains all seven books and was the scripture most early Christians read and quoted.
Q 07Which 16th-century council fixed the Catholic canon in 1546 and declared the Vulgate the Church's authentic Latin Bible?
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent defined the canon on April 8, 1546, anathematizing anyone who rejected the listed books, and declared Jerome's Vulgate the authentic Latin text.
Q 08Which pope commissioned Jerome in 382 to revise the Latin Gospels, the start of the Vulgate?
Damasus I
Pope Damasus I, whose secretary Jerome was, asked him in 382 to revise the Latin Gospels; Jerome later translated the Old Testament from Hebrew on his own initiative.
Q 09Jerome did most of his Vulgate translation work while living for 34 years near which town?
Bethlehem
The Roman aristocrat Paula funded his monastery beside the Church of the Nativity; he died there in 420.
Q 10What are the Latin Bible translations that predate the Vulgate collectively called?
Vetus Latina
Vetus Latina ('Old Latin') is the collective name for the pre-Vulgate Latin versions, translated piecemeal from the Greek Septuagint from the 2nd century onward.
Q 11The two official post-Trent Latin Bibles, of 1590 and 1592, are named after which two popes?
Sixtus V and Clement VIII
The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate remained the standard Latin text until the Nova Vulgata of 1979.
Q 12Which pope promulgated the Nova Vulgata, the Church's official Latin Bible, in 1979?
John Paul II
John Paul II promulgated the Nova Vulgata with the apostolic constitution Scripturarum thesaurus on April 25, 1979; Paul VI had set up the revision commission in 1965.
Q 13In which town did English Catholic exiles publish the first Catholic Old Testament in English?
Douai
The New Testament appeared at Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament at Douai in 1609-10, giving the Douay-Rheims its name.
Q 21Which demon kills Sarah's suitors on their wedding nights in the Book of Tobit?
Asmodeus
Asmodeus has killed seven of Sarah's bridegrooms before Tobias, guided by Raphael, drives the demon off with the smoke of a burning fish heart and liver.
Q 22Which Assyrian general does Judith behead in his tent to save her city of Bethulia?
Holofernes
Judith beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes with his own sword after plying him with wine (Judith 13), a scene painted by Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Klimt.
Q 23Most modern Catholic scholars classify the Book of Judith as what?
A theological novel
Most Catholic scholars read Judith as a theological novel: its anachronisms, such as Nebuchadnezzar ruling the Assyrians from Nineveh (Judith 1:1), signal didactic fiction rather than history.
Q 14Which 1943 Pius XII encyclical encouraged Catholic translations from Hebrew and Greek rather than the Vulgate?
Divino afflante Spiritu
Divino afflante Spiritu, issued by Pius XII on September 30, 1943, urged translations from the original Hebrew and Greek and endorsed critical study of literary forms.
Q 15Which 1970 Catholic translation became the basis of the US Mass lectionary?
New American Bible
The New American Bible, published in 1970 after decades of work sponsored by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, was adopted as the basis of the US Mass lectionary.
Q 16The 1966 Jerusalem Bible was inspired by a French translation by Dominicans at which school?
The École Biblique
The Jerusalem Bible followed La Bible de Jérusalem (1956), produced by Dominicans of the École Biblique in Jerusalem; J. R. R. Tolkien contributed to the English edition.
Q 17Vatican II's 1965 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation is known by what Latin title?
Dei verbum
Dei verbum ('The Word of God'), promulgated by Paul VI on November 18, 1965 after a vote of 2,344 to 6, is Vatican II's constitution on revelation and scripture.
Q 18Which Latin mark in a Catholic Bible shows a bishop has authorized its publication?
Imprimatur
Imprimatur is Latin for 'let it be printed', the bishop's permission to publish; it usually follows a censor's nihil obstat declaring the text free of doctrinal error.
Q 19In the Book of Tobit, which archangel travels in disguise with young Tobias?
Raphael
Raphael, calling himself Azariah, guides Tobias to Media and tells him a fish's burnt heart and liver drive out demons and its gall cures blindness.
Q 20In Tobit, what blinds the pious Tobit as he sleeps in his courtyard?
Sparrow droppings
Sparrow droppings fall into Tobit's eyes as he sleeps by the courtyard wall (Tobit 2:10), forming white films; physicians' ointments only worsen it until fish gall restores his sight.
Q 241 Maccabees is best known for recounting the origin of which Jewish festival?
Hanukkah
Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in 164 BC after Judas Maccabeus retook Jerusalem, an eight-day festival instituted in 1 Maccabees 4:59.
Q 25Which Seleucid king's bans on Jewish practices provoked the Maccabean revolt?
Antiochus IV
Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed circumcision and Sabbath observance and desecrated the Temple in 167 BC, provoking the revolt led by Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus.
Q 26Catholics cite 2 Maccabees 12 as scriptural support for which practice?
Prayer for the dead
2 Maccabees 12:44-46 praises Judas Maccabeus for having atonement made for his fallen soldiers, calling prayer for the dead 'holy and pious'; Catholics cite it for purgatory.
Q 27Unlike 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees was originally written in which language?
Greek
2 Maccabees was composed in Greek as an abridgement of a five-volume history by Jason of Cyrene (2 Macc 2:23), whereas 1 Maccabees was written in Hebrew.
Q 28By what Latin name, roughly 'church book', is the Book of Sirach also known?
Ecclesiasticus
Ecclesiasticus, 'the church book', is the Latin name for Sirach, written in Hebrew around 180 BC by Jesus ben Sira, who names himself in the text (Sirach 50:27).
Q 29Who translated Ben Sira's Hebrew wisdom book into Greek around 117 BC, adding a prologue?
His grandson
Ben Sira's grandson translated the book into Greek after settling in Egypt in 132 BC; his prologue is the earliest witness to the threefold division of Law, Prophets and Writings.
Q 30The Book of Wisdom was actually composed in Greek by a Jewish author in which city?
Alexandria
The Book of Wisdom was written in Greek in Alexandria, the center of Hellenistic Judaism, probably in the first century BC, making it among the latest Old Testament books.