Prophets Trivia
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100 free Prophets trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Prophets are the Bible's troublemakers and the Quran's teachers: men and women who told kings what they did not want to hear, acted out their warnings with yokes, broken pots and years of walking barefoot, and were as often ignored as obeyed. Three faiths read their stories, frequently the same stories, under different names. These 100 questions stay off the headline miracles and ask the next layer: the kings and cities each prophet faced, the minor prophets most readers skip, the signs and sayings as the texts quote them, what the Quran calls Jonah, Elisha and John the Baptist, and how Islamic tradition presents Muhammad, from his titles to the hadith that sets out the faith in three questions. It suits a church or mosque quiz night, a comparative religion class, or anyone who has read the stories in a single scripture and wants to see how the others tell them.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does 'minor' mean in 'Minor Prophets', a label as old as Augustine for Hosea, Nahum and ten other books?
Their length
Their length is all 'minor' means: Augustine wrote that the short prophetic books were called minor 'from the brevity of their writings', not their weight. Nahum runs to three chapters; Isaiah runs to sixty-six.
Q 02Which prophet's line 'let justice roll down like waters' did Martin Luther King Jr. echo in 'I Have a Dream'?
Amos
Amos, a herdsman from Tekoa, aimed the line at worshippers whose feasts and songs God refused to hear while justice was missing; King's 1963 speech made it 'until justice rolls down like waters'.
Q 03Which phrase from Isaiah 2:4 is carved on a granite wall facing the United Nations headquarters in New York?
Swords into plowshares
Swords into plowshares is cut into the Isaiah Wall of Ralph Bunche Park, across First Avenue from the UN; in 1959 the Soviet Union gave the UN a bronze of a man hammering a sword into a plough.
Q 04Which animals mauled forty-two youths who jeered at Elisha as 'baldhead' on the road in 2 Kings 2?
Bears
Bears, two she-bears from the woods, mauled the youths of Bethel after Elisha turned and cursed them in the name of the Lord, soon after he took up Elijah's fallen mantle.
Q 05What did Nebuchadnezzar eat during the seven 'times' of madness that Daniel foretold?
Grass
Grass 'like an ox' was the king's diet after Daniel read his dream of a felled tree, and Daniel 4 says his reason returned only when he lifted his eyes to heaven and praised the Most High.
Q 06What is set out for the prophet Elijah at a Passover seder, where the door is opened for him to enter?
A cup of wine
A cup of wine, a fifth beyond the seder's four, is poured for Elijah: the rabbis could not settle whether a fifth cup was owed, so the question was left for the prophet to answer on his return.
Q 07On which Jewish holy day is the whole Book of Jonah read aloud in synagogue as the afternoon haftarah?
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur afternoon brings Jonah to synagogue because a whole pagan city repented and was forgiven, the day's own theme of turning back.
Q 08In Surah an-Naml, which bird brings Sulayman news of a southern queen whose court worships the sun?
The hoopoe
The hoopoe, missed at Sulayman's roll-call of the birds, returns with news of Saba's sun-worshipping queen, and he sends it back with a letter calling her to submit.
Q 09In Surah Hud, who refuses to board Nuh's ark, vowing to take refuge on a mountain, and drowns?
His son
His son drowned with those who denied Nuh's warning, a loss the Quran tells and Genesis, where all three of Noah's sons board, does not.
Q 10In Surah Al Imran, Isa shapes a bird from what, then breathes into it so that it lives by God's leave?
Clay
Clay is the stuff of the bird Isa fashions in Quran 3:49, one of the miracles the Quran grants Jesus along with speaking from the cradle in his mother's defence.
Q 11Which prophet told David his 'house' would be a dynasty, as he would not be the one to build the temple?
Nathan
Nathan first told David to go ahead, then returned with the oracle of 2 Samuel 7: the king who lived in cedar while the Ark sat in a tent would get a dynasty instead, and Nathan later anointed Solomon with Zadok the priest.
Q 12Which prophet names Bethlehem, 'little among the thousands of Judah', as the birthplace of a future ruler?
Micah
Micah of Moresheth, a contemporary of Isaiah, wrote the verse Matthew's Gospel quotes when Herod's scribes are asked where the Messiah is to be born.
Q 13Which six-winged beings cry 'Holy, holy, holy' around the throne in Isaiah's temple vision?
Seraphim
Q 21Which title does the Hebrew Bible give the single scroll that holds Hosea, Nahum, Haggai and the other minor prophets?
The Twelve
The Twelve closes the Prophets as a single book, which is one reason a Tanakh counts 24 books where a Protestant Old Testament finds 39 in the same text.
Q 22Who is the first person Genesis calls a prophet, when God warns King Abimelech of Gerar in a dream?
Abraham
Abraham is called a navi in Genesis 20:7, where Abimelech, who has taken Abraham's wife into his household, is told 'he is a prophet, and he will pray for you'; Islam honours him as Khalilullah, the friend of God.
Q 23Which epithet of Muhammad, meaning 'the Chosen One', is also a common given name across the Muslim world?
Mustafa
Seraphim appear as heavenly beings only here in the Hebrew Bible: each has six wings, two covering the face, two the feet, two for flight, and one touches a burning coal to Isaiah's lips to purge his guilt.
Q 14Peter's Pentecost sermon quotes which prophet's promise that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh?
Joel
Joel's promise that 'your sons and your daughters shall prophesy' follows his lament over a locust plague and drought; Peter opens with it to explain the disciples' speaking in tongues to the Jerusalem crowd.
Q 15Which prophetic book, a single chapter of 21 verses against Edom, is the shortest in the Hebrew Bible?
Obadiah
Obadiah condemns Edom for standing aside and gloating while strangers cast lots for Jerusalem, a betrayal of its 'brother Jacob', and promises that the same will be done to Edom.
Q 16In Nebuchadnezzar's dream statue, which Daniel read as four successive kingdoms, the head was of which metal?
Gold
Gold for the head, then silver, bronze and iron: Daniel tells the king 'you are the head of gold', and a stone cut without hands shatters the whole figure.
Q 17Which archangel does Daniel 12 call 'the great prince who protects your people', the guardian of Israel?
Michael
Michael is named in Daniel 10 too, fighting the 'prince of Persia' beside the angel who speaks to Daniel; Jewish tradition made him the guardian angel of Israel.
Q 18John the Baptist called the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out to his baptism a 'brood of' what?
Vipers
Vipers, in Matthew 3:7, are what John sees in the religious elite coming out to the wilderness, and he tells them to 'bear fruit worthy of repentance' rather than trust their ancestry.
Q 19Which prophet's image of a king 'lowly, and riding on a donkey' do the Gospels quote on Palm Sunday?
Zechariah
Zechariah wrote the verse Matthew cites as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, and his later chapters gave the Gospels the thirty pieces of silver thrown to the potter, a line Matthew credits to Jeremiah.
Q 20Which name does the Quran give John the Baptist, the son granted to the aged Zakariya in Surah Maryam?
Yahya
Yahya is John, a name the Quran says no one had borne before; when his aged father Zakariya asked for a sign, he was told he would not speak to anyone for three nights.
Mustafa, 'the Chosen One', is one of dozens of honorifics for the Prophet, whose own name appears just four times in the Quran; Muslims customarily follow any mention of him with a blessing of peace.
Q 24Toward which port did Jonah sail from Joppa, in the opposite direction from the city he had been sent to?
Tarshish
Tarshish lay the wrong way entirely from Jonah's assignment; the storm, the casting of lots and the great fish followed, and the book never says whether the prophet learned his lesson.
Q 25Which prophet does the Quran call Dhul-Nun, 'the one of the fish', in Surah al-Anbiya?
Yunus
Yunus is Jonah, and the tenth surah carries his name; 'companion of the fish' returns in 68:48, where Muhammad is told to be patient and not to be like the prophet who went off in anger.
Q 26Elijah the Tishbite, who announced a drought to King Ahab, came from which region east of the Jordan?
Gilead
Gilead, the hill country across the Jordan, is where 1 Kings 17 places Tishbe, and Elijah steps from it into the story with no ancestry or introduction, already telling Ahab there will be no rain.
Q 27Isaiah dates his vision of the Lord enthroned in the temple to the death-year of which king of Judah?
Uzziah
Uzziah's death, in the mid-eighth century BCE, dates the call in which Isaiah cries that he is 'a man of unclean lips', then answers 'Whom shall I send?' with 'Here am I. Send me!'
Q 28What is the fire commanded to be, in Surah al-Anbiya, when Ibrahim's idol-worshipping people cast him in?
Cool and safe
Cool and safe is the command of Quran 21:69, 'O fire! Be coolness and safety for Ibrahim', after his people cried 'Burn him'; he had smashed their idols and left only the largest standing.
Q 29What borrowed object did Elisha make float after it sank in the Jordan, by throwing in a stick?
An axe head
An axe head flew off as the company of prophets cut timber for a bigger meeting place, and the man cried out because it was borrowed; Elisha 'made the iron float'.
Q 30What happened to a dead man thrown into Elisha's tomb by mourners fleeing Moabite raiders?
He revived and stood up
He revived and stood up on his feet the moment he touched Elisha's bones, a miracle worked by a prophet already dead, and the last of the many credited to Elisha.