How to play
Ask each question, give players time to answer, then tap “Show answer” to see the answer and where it is in the Bible. Quotes are from the King James Version. Play every round or pick the ones that suit your group.
- With your family. Read each question aloud and let the youngest players take the Easy round. Open the answer together and read the verse it comes from.
- In a small group. Split into two or three teams and give each team a moment to agree on an answer before you reveal it.
- At a Christmas party. Print the questions for each table and the answers for the host, then play a round between the other games.
- Keeping score. Give one point for each right answer and add up the scores at the end of every round before starting the next. The team with the most points after four rounds wins.
Print it
Print the questions for the players and a copy with the answers for whoever reads them out.
Round 1: Easy
Warm-up questions about the Christmas story. A good round for younger players. Questions 1–14.
1In which town was Jesus born?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Bethlehem.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7
2What was the name of Jesus' mother?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Mary.
Bible reference: Luke 1:27; Matthew 1:18
3Mary was espoused, or engaged, to which man?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Joseph.
Bible reference: Luke 1:27
4What was the name of the angel God sent to Mary?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Gabriel.
Bible reference: Luke 1:26-27
5What name did the angel tell Mary to give her son?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Jesus.
Bible reference: Luke 1:31
6Where did Mary lay her newborn son?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: In a manger, a feeding trough for animals.
Bible reference: Luke 2:7
7Why was the baby laid in a manger?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Because there was no room for them in the inn.
Bible reference: Luke 2:7
8What was the baby wrapped in?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Swaddling clothes.
Bible reference: Luke 2:7
9Who was keeping watch over their flock by night when an angel appeared to them?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Shepherds.
Bible reference: Luke 2:8-9
10What were the angel's first words to the shepherds?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: “Fear not.”
Bible reference: Luke 2:10
11What did the wise men see in the east that brought them looking for Jesus?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: His star.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:2
12What three gifts did the wise men give Jesus?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:11
13Who was king of Judaea when Jesus was born?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Herod.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1; Luke 1:5
14What does the name Emmanuel mean?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: “God with us.”
Bible reference: Matthew 1:23
Round 2: Medium
A little deeper into the accounts in Luke and Matthew. Questions 15–28.
15Which Roman emperor sent out the decree “that all the world should be taxed”?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Caesar Augustus.
“Taxed” here means registered in a census.
Bible reference: Luke 2:1
16In which town in Galilee did Mary live when Gabriel visited her?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Nazareth.
Bible reference: Luke 1:26-27
17Why did Joseph go to Bethlehem to be registered?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Because he was “of the house and lineage of David,” and Bethlehem was the city of David.
Bible reference: Luke 2:3-4
18When the angel spoke to the shepherds, he gave the newborn baby three titles. What were they?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Saviour, Christ and Lord: “a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
Bible reference: Luke 2:11
19How did the shepherds go to Bethlehem?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: They went “with haste,” as quickly as they could.
Bible reference: Luke 2:16
20Which two Gospels tell the story of Jesus' birth?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Matthew and Luke.
Mark and John don't describe the birth; John's Gospel opens with the Word who became flesh (John 1:14).
Bible reference: Matthew 1-2; Luke 1-2
21What did the shepherds do after they had seen the baby?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: They told others what they had been told about this child, then went back glorifying and praising God.
Bible reference: Luke 2:17-20
22Which city did the wise men go to first, asking where the newborn King of the Jews was?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Jerusalem.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1-2
23Did the wise men find the young child in a stable or in a house?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: In a house.
Matthew says “they were come into the house.” The Christmas accounts never mention a stable.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:11
24How did God warn the wise men not to go back to Herod?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: In a dream.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:12
25Where did Joseph take Mary and Jesus to escape Herod?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Egypt.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:13-14
26What was the name of Mary's cousin who became the mother of John the Baptist?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Elisabeth.
Bible reference: Luke 1:36, 57-60
27What did Elisabeth's unborn baby do when Mary greeted her?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: He leaped in her womb “for joy.”
Bible reference: Luke 1:41, 44
28Which priest, Elisabeth's husband, could not speak until his son was named John?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Zacharias.
Bible reference: Luke 1:5, 20, 59-64
Round 3: Hard
For keen Bible readers, with a few questions where Scripture and tradition part ways. Questions 29–40.
29How many wise men does the Bible say came to see Jesus?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: It doesn't say.
Matthew calls them “wise men” and lists three gifts, which is likely where the tradition of three comes from.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1, 11
30What were the wise men's names?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The Bible doesn't name them.
The names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar come from later church tradition.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1-12
31How many shepherds went to see the baby?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Luke doesn't give a number. He says only “shepherds.”
Bible reference: Luke 2:8-16
32Who was governor of Syria when the taxing was first made?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Cyrenius.
Many modern translations spell his name Quirinius.
Bible reference: Luke 2:2
33Does the Bible give the date of Jesus' birth?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: No.
Luke places the birth during the decree of Caesar Augustus, and Matthew “in the days of Herod the king,” but neither gives a day or a month.
Bible reference: Luke 2:1-7; Matthew 2:1
34How many days after His birth was the baby circumcised and named Jesus?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Eight days.
Bible reference: Luke 2:21
35When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the temple, what sacrifice did the law of the Lord call for?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
Bible reference: Luke 2:22-24
36Which just and devout man in Jerusalem had been promised he would see the Lord's Christ before he died?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Simeon.
Bible reference: Luke 2:25-26
37Which prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of the child to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Anna.
Bible reference: Luke 2:36-38
38What did Herod privately ask the wise men?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: What time the star appeared.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:7
39When Joseph brought his family back from Egypt, he was afraid to go to Judaea because of who reigned there. Who was it?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Archelaus, the son of Herod.
Warned in a dream, Joseph took the family to Galilee and settled in Nazareth.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:22-23
40When the chief priests and scribes told Herod where the Christ would be born, which prophet's words did they quote?
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Micah's.
Matthew says only “the prophet”; the words come from Micah 5:2.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:4-6; Micah 5:2
Round 4: Who said it?
Name the speaker of each line from the Christmas story. Every quote is from the King James Version. Questions 41–50.
41“Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The angel Gabriel, speaking to Mary.
Bible reference: Luke 1:26-30
42“Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Zacharias, when the angel Gabriel told him he would have a son.
Bible reference: Luke 1:18-19
43“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Elisabeth, when Mary came to visit her.
Gabriel's greeting to Mary also says “blessed art thou among women” (Luke 1:28), but this whole line is Elisabeth's.
Bible reference: Luke 1:41-42
44“My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Mary, while visiting Elisabeth.
Bible reference: Luke 1:46-47
45“Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The angel of the Lord, in a dream.
Matthew doesn't name this angel.
Bible reference: Matthew 1:20
46“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The angel of the Lord, speaking to the shepherds.
Luke doesn't name this angel.
Bible reference: Luke 2:9-10
47“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: A multitude of the heavenly host: the angels.
Luke says they were “praising God, and saying” these words.
Bible reference: Luke 2:13-14
48“Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The shepherds, to one another.
Bible reference: Luke 2:15
49“Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: The wise men, when they came to Jerusalem.
Bible reference: Matthew 2:1-2
50“Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.”
Show answerHide answer
Answer: King Herod, sending the wise men to Bethlehem.
Herod had other plans: an angel later warned Joseph to take the child to Egypt (Matthew 2:13).
Bible reference: Matthew 2:7-8
What the Bible says, and what tradition adds
Some details in Christmas carols, plays and pictures aren't in the Gospels. After the game, here is what Scripture itself does and doesn't say.
- Three wise men. Matthew lists three gifts but doesn't say how many wise men came (Matthew 2:1, 11).
- Their names. Scripture doesn't name the wise men (Matthew 2:1-12).
- A stable. Luke mentions a manger and no room in the inn, but no stable (Luke 2:7). Matthew says the wise men found the young child in a house (Matthew 2:11).
- A donkey and an innkeeper. Neither appears in Luke's account of the journey and the birth (Luke 2:1-7).
- Singing angels. Luke says the heavenly host was “praising God, and saying” (Luke 2:13). He doesn't mention singing.
- December 25. Neither Matthew nor Luke gives a date for the birth.
Keep playing
Want more questions after Christmas? There are three new Bible trivia questions every day in Find Jesus, our free Bible game app for iPhone.