50 free Catholic Bible trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many books are in the Catholic Bible?
73
Protestant Bibles have 66; the difference is the seven deuterocanonical books plus extra passages in Esther and Daniel.
Q 02How many books make up the Old Testament of a Catholic Bible?
46
That is 39 shared with the Hebrew Bible plus seven deuterocanonical books; the New Testament's 27 are the same for all Christians.
Q 03What term describes the seven Old Testament books Catholics accept that are absent from the Hebrew canon?
Deuterocanonical
Protestants file them under 'Apocrypha'; the word means roughly 'second canon' and was coined in 1566.
Q 04Which 16th-century theologian, a convert from Judaism, coined in 1566 the term for books of 'second canon'?
Sixtus of Siena
He applied it to books whose canonical recognition came 'secondarily', 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
Made by Alexandrian Jews from the 3rd century BC, it was the Old Testament most early Christians actually read.
Q 07Which 16th-century council fixed the Catholic canon in 1546 and declared the Vulgate the Church's authentic Latin Bible?
Council of Trent
Earlier councils at Rome (382), Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) had listed the same books; Trent made it dogma against Luther.
Q 08Which pope commissioned Jerome in 382 to revise the Latin Gospels, the start of the Vulgate?
Damasus I
Jerome went on, largely on his own initiative, to translate most of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek.
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
The 'Old Latin' texts were what Jerome was asked to tidy up; surviving manuscripts run from about 350 to the 13th century.
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
Vatican II had ordered a revised Latin Psalter, and Paul VI appointed the commission in 1965; the apostolic constitution was Scripturarum thesaurus.
Q 13The first complete Catholic Bible in English was translated by exiles in which French town?
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 21In Tobit, what blinds the pious Tobit as he sleeps in his courtyard?
Sparrow droppings
Physicians' ointment finished the job; the fish gall from the Tigris eventually restores his sight.
Q 22Which demon kills Sarah's suitors on their wedding nights in the Book of Tobit?
Asmodeus
Raphael helps exorcise him and Sarah marries Tobias.
Q 23Which Assyrian general does Judith behead in his tent to save her city of Bethulia?
Holofernes
The scene was painted by Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Klimt, and sculpted by Donatello.
Q 14Which 18th-century bishop revised the 1582-1610 English Catholic Bible into its long-standard form?
Richard Challoner
The original was thick with Latinisms; Challoner issued his New Testament in 1749-52 and Old Testament in 1750.
Q 15Which 1943 Pius XII encyclical encouraged Catholic translations from Hebrew and Greek rather than the Vulgate?
Divino afflante Spiritu
Raymond Brown called it a 'Magna Carta for biblical progress'; the Jerusalem Bible and New American Bible followed from it.
Q 16Which 1970 Catholic translation became the basis of the US Mass lectionary?
New American Bible
Fifty-one scholars worked on it from 1944; it grew out of the Confraternity Bible and translated from Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.
Q 17The 1966 Jerusalem Bible was inspired by a French translation by Dominicans at which school?
The École Biblique
J. R. R. Tolkien contributed to the English edition; the translation famously renders God's name as Yahweh.
Q 18Vatican II's 1965 Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation is known by what Latin title?
Dei verbum
The bishops approved it 2,344 to 6; it is one of the council's principal documents.
Q 19What mark near the front of a Catholic Bible shows a bishop has approved it as free of doctrinal error?
Imprimatur
The word means 'let it be printed'; a nihil obstat from a censor usually precedes it.
Q 20In the Book of Tobit, which archangel travels in disguise with young Tobias?
Raphael
He tells Tobias that a fish's burnt heart and liver drive out demons and its gall cures blindness; Tobias's dog comes too.
Q 24Most modern Catholic scholars classify the Book of Judith as what?
A theological novel
Its historical anachronisms, such as Nebuchadnezzar ruling the Assyrians, led to it being called perhaps the first historical novel.
Q 251 Maccabees is best known for recounting the origin of which Jewish festival?
Hanukkah
It describes the recapture of Jerusalem and rededication of the Temple in 164 BC.
Q 26Which Seleucid king's bans on Jewish practices provoked the Maccabean revolt?
Antiochus IV
The Hasmonean dynasty that resulted ruled an independent Judea until Rome arrived.
Q 27Which parts of 2 Maccabees resonated most with early and medieval Christians?
Its martyrs and the resurrection
Eleazar and the mother with seven sons became models for Christian martyr sermons; Luther disliked doctrines the book supported.
Q 28Unlike 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees was originally written in which language?
Greek
An unknown diaspora Jew in Egypt wrote it around 150-100 BC; it is not a sequel but an independent account.
Q 29By what Latin name, roughly 'church book', is the Book of Sirach also known?
Ecclesiasticus
Ben Sira wrote it in Hebrew around 180 BC; he is the only biblical author to sign his work.
Q 30Who translated Ben Sira's Hebrew wisdom book into Greek around 117 BC, adding a prologue?
His grandson
The prologue is the earliest witness to the three-part Hebrew canon of Law, Prophets and Writings.