Genesis Trivia
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109 free Genesis trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
51 free Genesis trivia questions with answers. Genesis is the first book of the Bible and the source of stories almost everyone half-knows: the six days of creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob's ladder, Joseph and his coat. This quiz walks through all fifty chapters in order, from 'In the beginning' to Joseph's bones, with questions on the details that separate a Sunday-school memory from a close reading: which land Cain settled in, how old Noah was, who bore Dan and Naphtali, what Abraham paid for at Hebron. Because a lot of people searching for Genesis mean the band, the last section covers Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Charterhouse School and The Last Domino? tour. Good for a Bible study icebreaker, a youth group night or a pub quiz with a twist. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible; what does its Hebrew name 'Bereshit' mean?
In the beginning
In the beginning is the famous rendering of Bereshit, the book's first word, but the Jewish Publication Society's translation opens 'When God began to create'.
Q 02What did the dove carry back to Noah's ark in its beak?
An olive leaf
An olive leaf, freshly plucked, so Noah knew the flood waters had gone down; a week later he sent the dove out again.
Q 03Genesis 1 says God made the birds on the same day as which other animals?
Sea creatures
Sea creatures: God blessed the swimmers and fliers with 'Be fruitful, and multiply', the same words he later spoke to the first humans.
Q 04According to Genesis 2, God formed the first man from what?
Dust
Dust of the ground, and after the forbidden fruit God told him, 'for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return'.
Q 05What guarded the way to the tree of life after Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden?
Cherubim and a flaming sword
Cherubim and a flaming sword kept the way, so the man could not take from the tree of life, eat and live for ever.
Q 06A river flowing out of Eden splits into four; which river does Genesis name among them?
Euphrates
Euphrates, beside the Tigris, Pishon and Gihon; the historian Josephus took the Pishon and Gihon to be the Ganges and the Nile.
Q 07In Genesis, Cain was a farmer; what was his brother Abel?
A shepherd
A shepherd: Abel offered God the firstlings of his flock, and when God favoured his offering over Cain's, Cain killed him.
Q 08After killing Abel, Cain settled in which land 'east of Eden'?
Nod
Nod: God had sentenced Cain to be a restless wanderer, and put a mark on him so that no one who found him would kill him.
Q 09Who is the longest-lived person in the Bible, dying at 969?
Methuselah
Methuselah: adding up the ages in the Hebrew text puts his death in the very year of the Flood.
Q 10Which patriarch, who 'walked with God' until God took him, fathered the man who lived to 969?
Enoch
Enoch: the New Testament Letter of Jude quotes the Book of Enoch, though most churches don't count that book as scripture.
Q 11How long did the rain of Noah's flood fall, according to Genesis?
Forty days and forty nights
Forty days and forty nights: the waters then took so long to go down that Noah's family spent more than a year inside the ark.
Q 12Which of these was one of Noah's sons?
Shem
Shem: when Noah lay drunk and uncovered in his tent, Shem and his brother Japheth walked in backwards to cover him with a garment.
Q 13Where did the ark come to rest?
On the mountains of Ararat
On the mountains of Ararat: Noah sent out a dove three times, and after it failed to return he removed the ark's covering and saw dry ground.
Q 21Who was the mother of Abraham's son Ishmael?
Hagar
Hagar: after Isaac was born, Sarah demanded that she and her son be cast out, and Abraham sent them into the wilderness with bread and water.
Q 22Overhearing that she would bear a son, what did Sarah do?
Laughed
Laughed: challenged over it, Sarah denied laughing because she was afraid, and was told, 'No, but you did laugh.'
Q 23Who stopped Abraham as he was about to sacrifice Isaac?
The Angel of the LORD
The Angel of the LORD: it called to Abraham from heaven, and he sacrificed a ram caught by its horns in a thicket instead of his son.
Q 14What did God set in the sky as a sign of his covenant never again to flood the earth?
A rainbow
A rainbow: the same covenant let Noah's family eat animals as well as plants, as long as they did not eat meat with its blood still in it.
Q 15Which wood did God tell Noah to build the ark from?
Gopher wood
Gopher wood: the Hebrew word's meaning is uncertain, so the NIV renders it cypress, while the Aramaic Targum Onkelos has cedar.
Q 16In which land did the people build the Tower of Babel?
Shinar
Shinar: the builders there used baked brick instead of stone and tar for mortar, aiming for a tower whose top would reach the sky.
Q 17The name Babel is explained in Genesis by a Hebrew verb meaning what?
To confuse
To confuse: Genesis ties Babel to balal, 'to confuse', though in Akkadian the city's name was read as 'gate of god'.
Q 18Genesis says God brought Abram out of which city, to give him the land of Canaan?
Ur
Ur: when Abram asked how he would know the land would be his, God had him bring animals, and he split the larger ones in half for a covenant ceremony.
Q 19God changed Abram's name to Abraham; what does Genesis say the new name means?
Father of a multitude
Father of a multitude: in the same speech God said the covenant would pass to a son Sarah would bear, rather than to Ishmael.
Q 20What was instituted as the sign of God's covenant with Abraham?
Circumcision of all males
Circumcision of all males: any male left uncircumcised was to be cut off from his people for breaking the covenant.
Q 24What was the final number of righteous people Abraham got God to accept for sparing Sodom?
Ten
Ten: Abraham had opened at fifty and haggled down in five steps, and God agreed not to destroy the city for ten's sake.
Q 25What happened to Lot's wife when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom?
She became a pillar of salt
She became a pillar of salt: Lot and his two daughters fled on to Zoar, then left it in fear to live in a cave in the hills.
Q 26With what did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?
Sulfur and fire
Sulfur and fire: next morning Abraham looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.
Q 27Where did Abraham buy a burial cave that became the tomb of the patriarchs?
Hebron
Hebron: Abraham refused to take the Cave of Machpelah as a gift and insisted on paying Ephron the Hittite 400 shekels of silver.
Q 28Who watered Abraham's servant's camels and married Isaac?
Rebekah
Rebekah: she turned out to be the granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nahor, so the servant bowed and thanked God for leading him to his master's kin.
Q 29Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, is described in Genesis as the father of which people?
The Edomites
The Edomites: Genesis says kings reigned in Edom before any king ruled the Israelites, the descendants of Esau's younger twin.
Q 30Esau sold his birthright to Jacob in exchange for what?
A bowl of stew
A bowl of stew: Esau later cried that Jacob had cheated him twice, taking first his birthright and then their father's blessing.