Judas Iscariot Trivia
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48 free Judas Iscariot trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Judas Iscariot trivia quiz covers the apostle whose name became a byword for betrayal. The easy questions are the ones any Sunday-school pupil knows: how many pieces of silver he took, how he identified Jesus to the arresting party, where the arrest happened and who replaced him among the Twelve. From there it moves through what the four gospels actually say, the two irreconcilable accounts of his death, the potter's field, and the meaning of the name Iscariot. The harder end is for Bible scholars and art lovers: the prophet Matthew names when he seemingly means Zechariah, Papias's grotesque account of Judas's swelling, the roasted chicken that crows in the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Coptic codex that surfaced in 2006, the circle of Dante's Hell named after him, why Leonardo threatened to paint the prior of the convent as Judas, the tree that supposedly blushed and the goat that leads sheep to slaughter. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Judas, the Gospels' accounts, the Gospel of Judas and the works of art and literature that portray him before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Bible, Twelve Apostles and Leonardo da Vinci quizzes next.
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Q 01At the Last Supper, what does Jesus hand to Judas to single him out as the betrayer?
A piece of bread
A piece of bread, dipped in the dish: 'What you do, do quickly,' Jesus tells him, and nobody else at the table grasps why Judas then walks out into the night.
Q 02How did Judas identify Jesus to the armed crowd that came to arrest him?
He greeted him with a kiss
He greeted him with a kiss, the signal agreed in advance; the Greek verb in Matthew and Mark implies a warm, fervent one, not a formal peck.
Q 03Where was Jesus arrested after Judas led the guards to him?
Gethsemane
Gethsemane was a place Jesus often went with his disciples, which is how Judas knew where to bring the guards that night.
Q 04Which two gospels suggest that Judas was possessed by Satan when he betrayed Jesus?
Luke and John
Luke and John: Luke has Satan enter Judas before he bargains with the priests, John at the supper table itself, while Mark and Matthew speak only of money.
Q 05According to Matthew, how did Judas die?
He hanged himself
He hanged himself, Matthew says, after confessing 'I have sinned' to the priests and hearing only 'What is that to us? You see to it.'
Q 06How does the Book of Acts say Judas died?
He fell headlong and burst open in a field
He fell headlong and burst open in a field he had bought with his reward, Peter tells the disciples, with no word of the remorse found in Matthew.
Q 07What name was given to the plot of land bought with Judas's silver?
Field of Blood
Field of Blood, or Akeldama in Aramaic, has two origins: Matthew says the name came from the money that bought it, Acts from Judas's own death there.
Q 08What did the priests plan to use the field for when they bought it with Judas's returned silver?
Burying strangers
Burying strangers: the plot had been a potter's field, which is why English still calls a paupers' cemetery by that name.
Q 09Who was chosen by lot to fill Judas's place among the Twelve Apostles?
Matthias
Matthias beat one other nominee when the disciples prayed and drew lots, and the New Testament never mentions him again.
Q 10In each gospel's list of the twelve apostles, where does the name of Judas Iscariot appear?
Last
Last, every time, and never without a tag: Matthew and Mark add 'who also betrayed him', and Luke 'who also became a traitor'.
Q 11One theory links the name Iscariot to the Sicarii, Jewish rebels named after which weapon?
A dagger
A dagger, or sica: the Sicarii struck in crowds with blades hidden under their cloaks. The rival reading makes Iscariot simply 'the man from Kerioth'.
Q 12Judas is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Judah, which carries what meaning?
Praise
Praise: in Genesis, Leah names her fourth son Judah with the words 'This time I will praise the Lord', and the name of his tribe later gave us the word Jew.
Q 13Which gospel says Judas kept the disciples' money bag and used to steal from it?
John
John alone calls Judas a thief who dipped into the common purse, yet it is the one gospel in which no one offers him money for the betrayal.
Q 21In which language is the only surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas written?
Coptic
Coptic: the copy, made in Egypt around the year 300, is itself a translation of a lost Greek original written before 180.
Q 22Which magazine gave the Gospel of Judas dramatic worldwide exposure in April 2006?
National Geographic
National Geographic unveiled it with the line that Christ's betrayer was 'his truest disciple', a reading the scholar April DeConick soon attacked as a mistranslation.
Q 23Where did the only known copy of the Gospel of Judas sit crumbling for years while a dealer sought a buyer?
A bank safe-deposit box
Q 14In the fourth gospel, what did Judas say had been wasted on Jesus instead of given to the poor?
Expensive perfume
Expensive perfume, a pound of pure nard that Judas priced at 300 denarii: the gospel adds that he cared less for the poor than for the cash he could skim.
Q 15Which prophet does Matthew name for the thirty pieces of silver, though the passage matches Zechariah?
Jeremiah
Jeremiah is the name Matthew gives; Jerome and Calvin called it a slip, while others think he blended in Jeremiah's own story of buying a field with silver.
Q 16In Exodus 21:32, thirty pieces of silver was the compensation price for what?
A slave
A slave: Exodus fixes that sum as the payment owed to a master whose servant is gored by an ox, so the price Matthew names was the going rate for a life in bondage.
Q 17Where does Matthew say the remorseful Judas flung down his thirty coins before he went away?
In the Temple
In the Temple: the priests gathered the coins up again but ruled that such money could never go back into the sacred treasury.
Q 18Which dinner-party superstition is often traced to Judas's place at the Last Supper?
Thirteen at a table is unlucky
Thirteen at a table is unlucky, the saying goes, because Judas made thirteen; yet the Bible gives no seating order, so nothing in it makes him the thirteenth to sit down.
Q 19In Matthew's account of the arrest, what does Jesus call Judas as the guards close in?
Friend
Friend: 'why are you here?' is all Jesus says to him, and when a follower draws a sword a moment later, Jesus tells him to put it away.
Q 20The Gospel of Judas, which casts the betrayal as obedience to Jesus, belongs to which tradition?
Gnostic
Gnostic writings prize secret knowledge: here Judas is the one apostle who truly understands Jesus, who laughs at the others as they pray over their meal.
A bank safe-deposit box in New York state kept it in damp air for years, and a later owner froze it; by the time it was rescued it lay in over a thousand pieces.
Q 24In the King James Bible, Jesus says none of his disciples is lost except 'the son of' what?
Perdition
Perdition, or 'destruction' in modern versions: Jesus adds that Judas was lost 'that the scripture might be fulfilled', as if the betrayal had long been written.
Q 25Which day of the week before Easter is nicknamed 'Spy' day because Judas's betrayal is mourned then?
Holy Wednesday
Holy Wednesday recalls the day Judas struck his bargain and turned 'spy' among the Twelve; Orthodox Christians fast on Wednesdays all year in memory of it.
Q 26In Dante's Inferno, who gnaws on Judas for eternity at the centre of Hell?
Lucifer
Lucifer has three mouths: Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's killers, hang from two, but Judas gets the worst, chewed head-first in the middle for betraying Christ.
Q 27In Dante's Inferno, what encases the traitors of Judecca, the innermost zone of Hell named after Judas?
Ice
Ice: Dante's deepest hell is not a furnace but a frozen lake, where those who betrayed their lords lie sealed under the surface, unable even to speak.
Q 28What is Judas clutching in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper?
A small bag
A small bag, read as his thirty coins or the apostles' purse: Leonardo also sets him in shadow and makes him the only figure with an elbow on the table.
Q 29Whom did Leonardo threaten to use as the model for Judas when the friars said he worked too slowly?
The prior of the refectory
The prior of the refectory had complained to the Duke of Milan about the delay; Leonardo's reply, Vasari says, sent the Duke into fits of laughter.
Q 30How is Judas often distinguished in Last Supper paintings?
He is the only apostle without a halo
He is the only apostle without a halo in many versions; some painters gave him a dark one instead, a reminder that he had once been an apostle like the rest.