Bible Trivia: Easter & Resurrection
Palm Sunday to the empty tomb, and the forty days after — a colt from a prophecy, a hymn sung on the way to Gethsemane, a servant girl by a fire, a dream that frightened a governor’s wife, a coat with no seam, guards who fainted, a cover story paid for in silver, and the words “All hail” on the first Easter morning. Twelve questions a round, drawn at random from a bank of forty-six, and every answer shows you the verse it comes from. Play it once for fun, then again to beat your score.
That round walked through the Easter story — the ride into Jerusalem, the last supper and the hymn, a kiss in a garden, a trial, a reed for a sceptre, darkness at noon, a borrowed tomb with a seal on it, a stone rolled back, and the forty days before a cloud took Jesus out of sight.
Easter morning was a beginning, not an ending.
The first thing the risen Jesus did was go looking for his friends — the ones who had run. Walking with him still starts the same way. This free 3-day sample is short daily readings on what Jesus said and did, and what following him looks like in an ordinary week, long after the lilies are gone. Nothing to fall behind on.
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Common Questions About Easter and the Resurrection
What actually happened on the first Easter, according to the Bible?
All four Gospels tell it, each from a slightly different angle. Jesus was crucified on the Friday of Passover week and buried before sunset in a new rock tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathaea, a wealthy follower. Matthew adds that the religious leaders had the tomb sealed and put under guard, because Jesus had said he would rise after three days. Very early on the first day of the week — the Sunday — a group of women came with spices to finish the burial and found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Angels told them Jesus had risen. Over the next forty days, the New Testament records him appearing to Mary Magdalene, to the women, to two travellers, to the disciples behind locked doors, to Thomas, to seven of them by the Sea of Galilee, and, Paul says, to more than five hundred people at once. Everything the church later celebrated as Easter grows out of that one morning.
Why does the date of Easter change every year?
Because Easter is tied to the Passover, and the Passover follows a lunar calendar rather than a fixed date. The Gospels place Jesus’ death during “the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread,” so the earliest Christians marked the resurrection in step with that festival. In AD 325 the Council of Nicaea began the process of settling on a common method, and the rule most Western churches use today puts Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. That means it can land anywhere from 22 March to 25 April. Eastern Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar for the calculation, which is why their Easter often falls a week or more later. The moving date is a quiet reminder that Easter began as a Passover story — Paul even calls Jesus “Christ our passover.”
What is Holy Week, and what happened on each day?
Holy Week is the week leading up to Easter, and the Gospels give it more space than any other stretch of Jesus’ life. It opens on Palm Sunday, when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a young donkey and the crowds spread their coats and branches on the road, shouting “Hosanna.” Over the following days he clears the temple traders and teaches in the temple courts. On the Thursday he eats the Passover meal with his disciples, washes their feet, gives them the bread and the cup, sings a hymn with them and goes out to pray in Gethsemane, where Judas arrives with an armed crowd. Through the night and into Friday come the trials before the high priest, Pilate and Herod, then the crucifixion at Golgotha and burial before sunset. Saturday is the sabbath, silent in the text. And on Sunday morning the tomb is found empty.
Is there evidence outside the Bible that Jesus was crucified?
Yes. The crucifixion is one of the best-attested facts about Jesus, and not only from Christian writers. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing around AD 116 and no friend of Christianity, says the movement took its name from “Christus,” who “suffered the extreme penalty” under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. The Jewish historian Josephus also refers to Jesus being condemned to the cross by Pilate, though parts of that passage were later added to by Christian copyists. The resurrection itself is a different kind of claim — historians can record that the first followers were convinced they had seen Jesus alive, and that they were willing to suffer for saying so, but whether it happened is where history hands the question over to each reader. Paul, writing within about twenty-five years, pointed people to living witnesses they could go and question.
How does this Easter trivia game work, and can I play it more than once?
Each round gives you twelve questions drawn at random from a bank of forty-six, all written specifically about the Easter story: Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the trials, the cross, the burial, the empty tomb and the forty days that followed, along with the Old Testament passages the Gospel writers saw being fulfilled. The answer order shuffles every time. After each answer you see the exact verse it comes from and a line on what is going on in the passage, so a wrong answer still teaches you something. There is no sign-up, nothing is saved, and your score is just for you — or for sharing with your family, church group or class if you want to see who knows the story best. Hit Play Again for a different mix. It works well as a warm-up for an Easter Sunday school lesson, too. Start a round of the Easter trivia above.