The Red Tent
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40 free The Red Tent trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Anita Diamant's The Red Tent takes a woman the Bible mentions in a few verses and lets her speak for herself. Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, tells of the four women who raised her, the love that ended in bloodshed, and the long second act she made for herself far from home. This quiz covers the novel from its first pages to its last: the family's rivalries and loyalties, the people Dinah meets on the road and in Egypt, and the points where Diamant departs from scripture. It also asks about the author, how the book found its readers, and the cast of the 2014 television adaptation. It suits book clubs warming up for a discussion, students revising the plot and characters, and anyone who has finished the last chapter and wants to see how much stayed with them.
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Q 01What sends the women of Jacob's camp into the title shelter of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent for three days?
Their monthly periods
Their monthly periods bring the women there to rest together, and they give birth there too. Diamant acknowledges no evidence that ancient Hebrews really used such a tent.
Q 02Dinah, the narrator of The Red Tent, has her story told in a single brief chapter of which book of the Bible?
Genesis
Genesis tells Dinah's story in a single chapter, its thirty-fourth, and she never speaks a word in it. The novel hands the telling to her.
Q 03In The Red Tent, which calling does Dinah learn from her aunt Rachel and later practice in Egypt?
Midwifery
Midwifery, learned at the side of Rachel and the healer Inna, becomes Dinah's living in Egypt. A friend there spreads word of the gifted foreigner.
Q 04Which Swedish actress, later Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible, played Dinah in the miniseries The Red Tent?
Rebecca Ferguson
Rebecca Ferguson played Dinah a year before her breakout as Ilsa Faust opposite Tom Cruise. She went on to play Lady Jessica in the Dune films.
Q 05In The Red Tent, as in the Bible, Dinah's brother Joseph rises from slavery to which high office in Egypt?
Vizier
Vizier is the post Joseph holds, under an Egyptian name, when Dinah is summoned to his house. Only there does she learn who he is.
Q 06In The Red Tent, what price must every man in Shechem pay before Jacob's family will accept Dinah's marriage?
Circumcision
Circumcision is the price, and the men of Shechem pay it in good faith. While they lie in pain, the brothers slaughter them, as in the Bible.
Q 07In The Red Tent, as in the Bible, Rachel dies on the road giving birth to which last son of Jacob?
Benjamin
Benjamin is born on the road as the family flees after the Shechem killings, and Rachel does not survive. Dinah, already gone to Egypt, learns of it only later.
Q 08Jacob, Dinah's father in The Red Tent, is later given which new name in the Bible, now borne by a nation?
Israel
Israel is the name Jacob receives after wrestling a mysterious stranger through the night. His sons' descendants became the tribes that carried it.
Q 09The 2014 miniseries of The Red Tent recreated the biblical Near East by filming on location in which country?
Morocco
Morocco stood in for Canaan and Egypt when production began in May 2014. The adaptation had been in development since 2011.
Q 10In the miniseries The Red Tent, what bloodied item do the brothers show Jacob as proof that Joseph is dead?
His coat
His coat, smeared with blood, convinces Jacob that his favorite son has been killed. In truth the brothers have sold Joseph into slavery.
Q 11In The Red Tent, Dinah's cousin Tabea, her first friend her own age, is a daughter of which man?
Esau
Esau, Jacob's twin, greets his long-estranged brother with an embrace rather than revenge. Dinah, raised among brothers, delights in meeting Tabea.
Q 12In The Red Tent, what does Rachel carry off from her father's house when the family leaves for Canaan?
His household gods
His household gods go with Rachel, who wants her cruel father to suffer the loss. In the Bible she hides the figures under her camel seat.
Q 13Which American cable network, known for programming aimed at women, aired The Red Tent miniseries in December 2014?
Lifetime
Lifetime showed the adaptation over two nights, on December 7 and 8, as a pair of two-hour episodes.
Q 21In The Red Tent, Jacob's lesser wives are half-sisters of Leah and Rachel, all four fathered by which man?
Laban
Laban fathers the two handmaids by slave women in the novel, as one early commentary also held. The Bible itself calls them only maidservants.
Q 22Which of Dinah's four mothers in The Red Tent is the eccentric, spiritual one who bears the twins Gad and Asher?
Zilpah
Zilpah has little use for men, and after the hard birth of her twins she tells Jacob she will never lie with him again.
Q 23The Bible calls Dinah's prince Shechem, like his city; what name does Anita Diamant give him in The Red Tent?
Shalem
Shalem is a prince Dinah truly loves and marries willingly in the novel, a reversal of the Bible's account of an assault.
Q 14Which Oscar-nominated Good Will Hunting actress played Leah, Dinah's mother, in the miniseries The Red Tent?
Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver played Leah, the capable first wife who runs Jacob's camp. Her Oscar nomination came for playing Skylar opposite Matt Damon.
Q 15Which Scottish actor, Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones, played the patriarch Jacob in the miniseries The Red Tent?
Iain Glen
Iain Glen played Jacob during his long run as the exiled knight Jorah Mormont. He is also the villain Dr. Isaacs in the Resident Evil films.
Q 16In The Red Tent, Dinah follows a friend to which famous Egyptian site, where she marries the craftsman Benia?
The Valley of the Kings
The Valley of the Kings is where pharaohs' rock-cut tombs were dug for nearly 500 years. Dinah spends her happiest years there with Benia.
Q 17Which two of Dinah's brothers lead the slaughter of the men of Shechem in The Red Tent, as in the Bible?
Simon and Levi
Simon and Levi lead the killing, calling Dinah's marriage a defilement. She curses her father's whole house and walks away for good.
Q 18In The Red Tent, the gentle Benia, who becomes Dinah's second husband in Egypt, works at which trade?
Carpenter
Carpenter Benia and Dinah are drawn to each other at once, yet three years pass before they meet again and marry.
Q 19After the massacre at Shechem in The Red Tent, who takes the grieving, pregnant Dinah away to Egypt?
Queen Re-nefer
Queen Re-nefer, mother of the murdered prince, is Egyptian-born and heads back to her homeland. She wants Dinah's child raised there as a prince.
Q 20After slow early sales of The Red Tent, Anita Diamant urged her publisher to give leftover copies to whom?
Female rabbis
Female rabbis received the spare copies, and clergy went on to praise the novel from the pulpit. Word of mouth made it a bestseller with no advertising budget.
Q 24In The Red Tent, what unusual feature of Leah's face makes many people afraid to meet her gaze?
Eyes of two colors
Eyes of two colors, one blue and one green, unsettle nearly everyone but Jacob. The Bible says only that Leah had tender eyes.
Q 25Which Brazilian-born actress, known from Firefly and Homeland, played Rachel in the miniseries The Red Tent?
Morena Baccarin
Morena Baccarin played Rachel, the cousin Jacob loves at first sight. She went on to play Vanessa in the Deadpool films.
Q 26Which star of An Officer and a Gentleman played Jacob's proud mother in the 2014 miniseries The Red Tent?
Debra Winger
Debra Winger played the matriarch, whom the young Dinah finds testy and harsh. Winger has three Best Actress Oscar nominations.
Q 27Before turning to fiction with The Red Tent, Anita Diamant spent two decades working in which profession?
Journalist
Journalist was her trade from 1975, writing for magazines including Parenting, Yankee and Ms. The novel was her debut as a fiction writer.
Q 28Which later novel by Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent, follows Addie Baum, born in 1900 to immigrant parents?
The Boston Girl
The Boston Girl appeared in 2014 and became a New York Times bestseller. Addie's parents distrust America and its effect on their three daughters.
Q 29Jacob, the father whose camp fills The Red Tent, is the grandson of which biblical figure?
Abraham
Abraham and Sarah are Jacob's grandparents through his father Isaac. In the novel, Dinah hears the lore of her father's family from Joseph.
Q 30In The Red Tent, Jacob disowns which eldest son after finding him in bed with Bilhah?
Reuben
Reuben, Leah's firstborn, is cast out, and Jacob strikes Bilhah. In the Bible, the affair costs him the birthright of an eldest son.