50 free The Crucifixion trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Crucifixion trivia quiz covers the central event of the Christian story from three directions: what the four gospels say, what historians know about Roman crucifixion as a punishment, and how artists and churches have remembered it. The easy questions handle Pilate, Golgotha, Simon of Cyrene, the meaning of INRI and the apostle crucified upside down. From there it moves into the gospel details: the hour Mark gives, the drink offered, the seamless robe, the darkness at noon and the soldier with the spear. The harder end is for Bible readers, church historians and art lovers: the psalm behind the cry of abandonment, the years scholars argue over, the Testimonium Flavianum, the nailed heel bone dug up in 1968, the emperor who abolished the punishment, Grünewald's altarpiece for a hospital, and why Dalí left out the nails. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the crucifixion of Jesus, Roman crucifixion, Good Friday, the relevant places, people and artworks, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our Easter, Bible and Roman Empire quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Roman governor sentenced Jesus to be scourged and crucified?
Pontius Pilate
A Roman historian independently records that Pilate ordered the execution, in a passage most scholars consider genuine.
Q 02What is the name of the place outside Jerusalem's walls where the gospels say Jesus was crucified?
Golgotha
The Latin form is Calvary; Christian tradition has called it a hill only since about the 6th century.
Q 03The name of the crucifixion site, in both its Aramaic and Latin forms, means what?
Place of a skull
The Aramaic Golgolta and Latin calvaria both refer to a skull; the Fathers of the Church argued over why the site got the name.
Q 04Which man was compelled by the Roman soldiers to carry Jesus's cross?
Simon of Cyrene
Mark names his sons Alexander and Rufus, suggesting they were known to the gospel's first readers; the episode is the fifth Station of the Cross.
Q 05Cyrene, Simon's home city, was in which modern country?
Libya
Cyrenian Jews had their own synagogue in Jerusalem, and an ossuary inscribed 'Alexander son of Simon' has been found there.
Q 06According to the Gospel of Mark, at what time of day was Jesus crucified?
9 a.m.
Mark is the only gospel to give the time; he died at about the ninth hour, around 3 p.m.
Q 07What was Jesus offered to drink before being crucified, according to the gospels?
Wine mixed with myrrh or gall
The drink was probably posca, the sour wine of Roman soldiers; later he was offered vinegar on a sponge.
Q 08According to John's gospel, the soldiers cast lots for which item of Jesus's clothing?
His seamless robe
They divided the rest of his garments among themselves and gambled for the robe rather than tear it.
Q 09The letters INRI on crucifixes abbreviate a Latin phrase meaning what?
Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews
John says Pilate's sign was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; the Greek version is abbreviated INBI.
Q 10Per John, how did Pilate reply when the chief priests objected to the sign on the cross?
What I have written, I have written
They wanted it to say he had merely claimed the title; Pilate refused to change it.
Q 11In which gospel does one crucified thief rebuke the other and ask Jesus to remember him?
Luke
In two of the other gospels both thieves mock him.
Q 12What name did later Christian tradition give to the penitent thief crucified beside Jesus?
Dismas
The name first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and may come from a Greek word meaning 'dying'; the other thief is called Gestas.
Q 13How many sayings of Jesus from the cross are traditionally counted?
Seven
No single gospel contains them all, and the number seven has been read as the biblical number of perfection.
The cry 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' quotes the opening of which Old Testament text?
Q 21Who asked Pilate for Jesus's body and buried it in a rock-cut tomb, according to all four gospels?
Joseph of Arimathea
John adds that Nicodemus helped with the burial, bringing myrrh and aloes.
Q 22Most scholars date the crucifixion of Jesus to which two candidate years?
AD 30 or AD 33
Rainer Riesner argues that 14 Nisan, 7 April AD 30, is 'far and away the most likely date'.
Q 23Which Roman historian, writing in the Annals around AD 116, recorded that Pilate executed Christ?
Tacitus
The passage on Nero's persecution of Christians is generally considered genuine and an independent Roman source.
Psalm 22
The gospels record it in Aramaic, using the verb šbq, 'to forsake', which exists only in Aramaic and not in Hebrew.
Q 15Bystanders hearing Jesus cry 'Eli, Eli' thought he was calling on which prophet?
Elijah
In Aramaic the prophet's name is Ēlīyā, close enough to the cry to cause the confusion.
Q 16For how long do the synoptic gospels say darkness covered the land during the crucifixion?
About three hours
From the sixth to the ninth hour; it cannot have been a solar eclipse, since Passover falls at full moon and a total eclipse lasts under eight minutes.
Q 17Which gospel alone mentions an earthquake and the raising of saints at the moment of Jesus's death?
Matthew
Matthew is also the only evangelist to say Roman soldiers were posted to guard the tomb.
Q 18Why did Roman soldiers break the legs of the two men crucified beside Jesus?
To hasten death
One gospel says they did not break Jesus's legs because he was already dead; instead a soldier pierced his side.
Q 19Extra-biblical tradition gives what name to the soldier who pierced Jesus's side with a spear?
Longinus
The name probably comes from the Greek lónchē, 'spear', and first appears written beside the soldier in a Syriac gospel manuscript of 586.
Q 20Legend later claimed the spear-bearing soldier had what affliction, cured by the blood that touched him?
Blindness
The eye-trouble detail appears only after the tenth century; his spear became the Holy Lance, or 'Spear of Destiny'.
Q 24By what Latin name is the disputed Josephus passage on Jesus's execution by Pilate known?
Testimonium Flavianum
Most scholars think it has later Christian additions around an authentic core.
Q 25Which Quranic verse is cited by Muslims who hold that Jesus was not actually crucified?
4:157
It says 'they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them'; some Gnostics similarly claimed another man died in his place.
Q 26A 1968 Jerusalem discovery gave rare physical evidence of crucifixion: the remains of a man named what?
Jehohanan
An 11.5 cm nail was still driven sideways through his heel bone; a similar nailed heel turned up in Cambridgeshire in 2017.
Q 27Which Roman emperor abolished crucifixion in the empire, in 337?
Constantine
He did so out of veneration for its most famous victim; his mother is credited with finding the True Cross.
Q 28After defeating Spartacus in 71 BC, Crassus crucified how many captured rebels along the Appian Way?
6,000
Roman crucifixion was reserved mainly for slaves and rebels; Cicero called it 'a most cruel and disgusting punishment' unfit even to mention near a citizen.
Q 29Alexander is said to have crucified 2,000 survivors after besieging which Phoenician city in 332 BC?
Tyre
He is also reputed to have crucified the doctor who failed to save his friend Hephaestion.
Q 30The word 'excruciating' literally derives from what?
Out of crucifying
The punishment was designed to be slow, humiliating and public, using whatever means were most expedient.