The Four Gospels
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50 free The Four Gospels trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell the same life four times, and no two tellings match. One opens with a family tree, one with a poem, one in the wilderness. A scene that fills a chapter in one book is missing from the next, and the details of the birth, the trial and the first Easter morning shift from writer to writer. Spotting those differences is half the fun of knowing the Gospels well. This quiz sets the four books side by side. It asks who is traditionally credited with each, how and for whom they were written, which famous stories and sayings appear in only one of them, and which people and places run through all four, from the manger to the garden tomb. A handful of questions follow the Gospels into later history, to the bishops and scholars who argued over them. It is written for Bible study groups, Sunday school teachers, confirmation classes and anyone who wants a friendly test of what they remember. Questions run from Christmas-card easy to seminary hard, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Matthew's Gospel never counts the Magi, so the traditional three comes from the number of what?
Gifts
Gifts set the number: gold, frankincense and myrrh made three, so tradition settled on three visitors. In Syriac Christianity the Magi often number twelve instead.
Q 02The word 'gospel' comes from the Old English 'godspel', a translation of a term meaning what?
Good news
Good news is the literal sense, from 'god' (good) and 'spel' (story, message). The term first meant the Christian message itself and only later the books that told it.
Q 03Apart from the resurrection, which miracle of Jesus is the only one recorded in all four Gospels?
Feeding the five thousand
Feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish is told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John alike. Only John says the food was supplied by a boy in the crowd.
Q 04Which teaching form, used constantly by Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke, is all but absent from John?
Parables
Parables make up about a third of Jesus's recorded teaching, yet most scholars find none in John. That Gospel gives him long speeches about himself instead of short stories about farmers and kings.
Q 05Venice's winged emblem is the traditional symbol of the Gospel writer Mark, shown as which animal?
Lion
Lion, usually winged, is Mark's emblem, and Venice took it up after carrying off the saint's remains from Alexandria in 828. Matthew is shown as a man, Luke as an ox and John as an eagle.
Q 06All four Gospels say Peter denied knowing Jesus three times before which bird was heard?
Rooster
A rooster crowing is the signal in all four Gospels, just as Jesus had predicted earlier that night when Peter insisted he would stand by him.
Q 07Matthew is the only Gospel to name the price Judas was paid to betray Jesus: thirty pieces of what?
Silver
Silver, thirty pieces of it, is also the price the book of Exodus sets on a slave. Mark and Luke report the deal but mention no sum.
Q 08The shortest verse in the King James Bible, found in John chapter 11, says only that Jesus did what?
Wept
Wept: the whole verse is two words in English, set as Jesus meets the grieving sisters of a dead friend. In the original language it is not the shortest verse at all.
Q 09Only John's Gospel tells of Jesus raising which friend, the brother of Martha, from his tomb?
Lazarus
Lazarus had been in his tomb at Bethany for four days when Jesus called him out. In John's telling it is this miracle, more than any teaching, that triggers Jesus's arrest.
Q 10Only Matthew and Luke tell of Jesus's birth, and both Gospels set it in which town?
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is the birthplace in both, but the routes differ: Matthew implies the family already lives there, while Luke has them travel from Nazareth and go straight back.
Q 11Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the story of Jesus so alike that scholars group them under which name?
Synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels are books that can be 'seen together': set side by side, the three match in content, order and often wording. John follows a quite different outline.
Q 12Matthew's Gospel gathers the Golden Rule and 'turn the other cheek' into which long speech by Jesus?
Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount fills chapters 5 to 7 of Matthew. Luke has a shorter version of the same teaching, but sets it on level ground after Jesus has come down the mountain.
Q 13In all four Gospels, the crowd before Pontius Pilate wants which prisoner freed instead of Jesus?
Barabbas
Q 21Matthew, Mark and John call the crucifixion site Golgotha, meaning the place of the what?
Skull
Skull in Latin is calvaria, which is why English also knows the site as Calvary. It lay just outside the walls of Roman Jerusalem.
Q 22Mark's Gospel briefly mentions a young man who escapes at Jesus's arrest by leaving behind what?
His linen cloth
His linen cloth was all he had on, so he runs off naked. Readers since ancient times have guessed at who he was, and one old proposal is the writer Mark himself.
Q 23Luke's Gospel opens with a preface addressed to which named reader, probably the author's patron?
Theophilus
Theophilus means 'lover of God', so the name could refer to any Christian reader. Most interpreters still take him for a real convert who backed the writing of the book.
Barabbas is described by Mark and Luke as a rebel who had committed murder during a riot. His name means 'son of the father', an irony beside Jesus's own title.
Q 14Which bishop of Hierapolis left the oldest surviving claim that Mark wrote down Peter's preaching?
Papias
Papias, quoting an elder, called Mark the interpreter of Peter, who wrote accurately but not in order. The historian Eusebius later judged him a learned collector of traditions but a poor interpreter of them.
Q 15Like the rest of the New Testament, all four Gospels were first written down in which language?
Greek
Greek, in its everyday Koine form, is the language of all four Gospels. Jesus taught mainly in Aramaic, so nearly every saying in them is already a translation.
Q 16Which of Jesus's stories in Luke's Gospel has a despised foreigner rescue a man beaten by robbers?
The Good Samaritan
The Good Samaritan stops to help after a priest and a Levite have both walked past. Jesus tells the story to a lawyer who has asked him who counts as a neighbour.
Q 17In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Roman soldiers force which passer-by to carry the cross for Jesus?
Simon of Cyrene
Simon of Cyrene came from a city in what is now Libya. John never mentions him, and has Jesus go out to the place of execution bearing the cross himself.
Q 18Luke's Gospel dates the census at the birth of Jesus to the term of which Roman governor of Syria?
Quirinius
Quirinius did hold a census, but historians date it to AD 6, years after the death of King Herod, under whom Matthew and Luke both set the birth. The gap is a famous puzzle.
Q 19Which letter do scholars give the lost sayings collection thought to lie behind Matthew and Luke?
Q
Q comes from Quelle, the German for 'source'. No manuscript of it has ever been found: its existence is inferred from sayings Matthew and Luke have in common that Mark lacks.
Q 20In the Prodigal Son story, found only in Luke, the ruined son ends up tending which animals?
Pigs
Pigs are his charge as a hired hand, a degrading job, and he is hungry enough to envy them the carob pods they eat. Only then does he decide to go home to his father.
Q 24Only John tells of which disciple refusing to believe Jesus had risen until he saw the wounds?
Thomas
Thomas gave English a phrase for any stubborn sceptic. John never says he actually touched the wounds: once Jesus appears, the doubter simply declares his faith.
Q 25All four Gospels agree that which follower asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus's body and buried it?
Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea is a rich disciple in Matthew and a respected council member in Mark. Medieval legend later made him the first keeper of the Holy Grail.
Q 26Luke's Gospel gives Mary a song of praise during her visit to Elizabeth, known by which Latin name?
Magnificat
The Magnificat is named from the Latin for 'magnifies', the verb in its opening line about the soul and the Lord. It is one of four hymns found only in Luke's first chapters.
Q 27The New Testament letter to the Colossians gives the Gospel writer Luke which profession?
Physician
Physician is how Colossians describes Luke, a companion of Paul. That one word made him the patron saint of doctors, and tradition adds artists, butchers and brewers.
Q 28John's Gospel sets Jesus's first miracle, turning water into wine, at a wedding in which village?
Cana
Cana hosts the first of the seven 'signs' around which John builds his book. None of the other three Gospels mentions the wedding at all.
Q 29Among the women at the cross and tomb of Jesus, who is the only one named in all four Gospels?
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene is in every account, and John has her come to the tomb alone. Her place as first witness later earned her the title 'Apostle to the Apostles'.
Q 30Luke's Gospel begins the story of Jesus's birth with a census ordered by which Roman emperor?
Augustus
Augustus, says Luke, decreed that all the world should be registered. Historians know of no single empire-wide count under him, which keeps the verse much debated.