With Christmas right around the corner, I thought I would put together a short 10-question Christmas quiz and post it on here.  Feel free to take this and test your knowledge of Christmas.  I am including the answers at the end, so you can grade yourself and see how well you did.  Each question is multiple choice.  Some questions indicate that there is more than one answer.  For those questions, in order to get it correct, please select all possible correct answers without selecting an incorrect answer.  No partial credit – although of course I have no way to enforce that, as you are on the honor system while you grade your own quiz.

One other thing about this quiz.  The celebration of Christmas has evolved in our culture over the years to include Santa Claus, presents, giving, spending time with family, vacations, Christmas-themed decorations/movies/music, etc., and sometimes white Christmases with the perfect amount of snow on the ground.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  But while certain extra elements of this can be fun and special in their own right, I made this quiz specific to the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Christ.

Let’s see how well you do…

1. Approximately what year was Jesus born (give or take about one year)?

A)	5 B.C.
B)	The Year 0
C)	5 A.D.
D)	1776

2. Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25?

A)	That’s the day Jesus was born.
B)	The modern calendar was originally designed to make New Year’s Day coincide 
with Jesus’s birthday, but Benjamin Franklin later discovered that the calendar was
one week off due to a miscalculation of the earth’s rotation around the sun, so
Christmas was moved from January 1 to December 25.
C)	Nobody knows the day Jesus was born, so they selected December 25 to
celebrate it on the same day as a pagan holiday.
D)	Nobody knows the day Jesus was born, so they put all the days of the calendar
year in a hat and drew one at random, and December 25 just happened to be the date
that was drawn.

3. Where was Jesus born?

A)	Nazareth
B)	Bethlehem
C)	Jerusalem
D)	Somewhere in Egypt

4. Who told the virgin Mary that she would give birth to a son, and that she was to name him Jesus?

A)	God told her directly.
B)	The archangel Michael
C)	The angel Gabriel
D)	The angel Clarence, who earned his wings by delivering this message.

5. Who were present at the manger on the night Jesus was born?  (Multiple answers, although I’m not telling you exactly how many.)

A)	Mary and Joseph
B)	Shepherds
C)	The Magi (also known as the wise men)
D)	The little drummer boy

6. Concerning those that visited Jesus on the night he was born, how did they hear the news?  (Hint: Only one answer is correct.)

A)	An angel of the Lord appeared to them and told them.
B)	They saw a star and followed it.
C)	The innkeeper sent a messenger to tell the entire town.
D)	They read about it in the evening edition of the newspaper.

7. How many wise men came to see Jesus?

A)	3
B)	4
C)	12
D)	Nobody knows.

8. With what gifts did the wise men present Jesus?  (Multiple answers, although I’m not telling you exactly how many.)

A)	Gold
B)	Silver
C)	Frankincense
D)	Myrrh

9. Who tried to have the child Jesus killed by ordering the execution of all boys two years old and under?

A)	Caesar Augustus
B)	King Herod
C)	Governor Quirinius of Syria
D)	Pontius Pilate

10. Of the four gospels (the books of the Bible that record Jesus’s time on earth), which of them specifically record the story of the birth of Jesus?  (Two answers.)

A)	Matthew
B)	Mark
C)	Luke
D)	John

That’s the end of the quiz.  Short and sweet.  How did you do?  Let’s find out…

Answers

1. Approximately what year was Jesus born (give or take about one year)? The correct answer is A.  Jesus was born around 5 B.C.

This answer is interesting because B.C. stands for Before Christ, so you would think the birth of Jesus would be either a year 0 or the year 1 A.D.  However, historians put his birth at around 4 to 6 B.C., noting that the calendar was a few years off.  Also, there was no year 0 anyway.  If you correctly answered A, give yourself a point.  If you answered D (1776), not only is that incorrect, but now you have to subtract one point from your overall score.

2. Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25?  The correct answer is C.  Nobody knows the day Jesus was born, so they selected December 25 to celebrate it on the same day as a pagan holiday.

Jesus was almost certainly not born in December, although nobody knows the exact date. According to a Britannica article on this subject, December 25 apparently came about as the date of celebration because the festival of Saturnalia was celebrated on that date.  The church in Rome started celebrating Christmas on that date in the year 336 during the reign of Constantine.  Supposedly this was done in an attempt to weaken the pagan celebrations on that date.  But regardless, the specific date doesn’t really matter.  It’s just an interesting bit of trivia.

3. Where was Jesus born?  The correct answer is B – Bethlehem.  Although Jesus lived in Egypt for a period of time at a young age, and grew up in Nazareth, he was born in Bethlehem.

4. Who told the virgin Mary that she would give birth to a son, and that she was to name him Jesus?  The correct answer is C – the angel Gabriel. Incidentally, I hope you did not answer Clarence, as that choice was merely a reference to the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

5. Who were present at the manger on the night Jesus was born?  The correct answer is both A and B.  A was Mary and Joseph, and B was the shepherds.  In order to count this correct, you have to have said both A and B, without saying either C or D.

The Magi (wise men) did follow the star and visit Jesus, but it took them quite some time, perhaps up to a couple years, to come all the way from the east, so they were not there on the night he was born.  We usually see the wise men portrayed with the shepherds at the manger in Nativity scenes, although that’s not quite accurate.  And the little drummer boy is also not correct, as that is merely a reference to a song.

6. Concerning those that visited Jesus on the night he was born, how did they hear the news?  The correct answer is A – an angel of the Lord appeared to them and told them.

The people who heard the good news and visited Jesus that night were the shepherds who were watching over their flocks by night.  The Magi followed a star to come see Jesus, but since they weren’t there that night, the star is not a correct answer for this question.

7. How many wise men were there?  The correct answer is D – nobody knows. Traditionally, there are three wise men portrayed because there were three gifts.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean there were three wise men.  We simply don’t know how many there were.

8. With what gifts did the wise men present Jesus?  There were three correct answers here – A, C, and D.  In other words – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  To count this correct, you have to have said all three answers, without also saying B (silver).

9. Who tried to have the child Jesus killed by ordering the execution of all boys two years old and under?  The correct answer is B – King Herod.

10. Of the four gospels (the books of the Bible that record Jesus’s time on earth), which of them specifically record the story of the birth of Jesus?  (Two answers.)  The correct answer is Matthew and Luke.  (Those were choices A and C.)  In fact, the answers to many of the previous questions are recorded in the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke.

So, how did you do?  Did you get all ten of them right?  Or most of them?  Or do you maybe have a little brushing up to do?  Don’t beat yourself up – I just put this on here for fun.  Although, if this has inspired you to do some brushing up on the gospel accounts of the Christmas story, I will include some recommended reading here:

Matthew chapter 1 (verses 18 through 25) – The Birth of Jesus

Matthew chapter 2 – The Magi Visit Jesus, the Escape to Egypt, and Return to Nazareth

Luke chapter 1 (verses 26 through 38) – The Birth of Jesus Foretold to Mary

Luke chapter 2 (verses 1 through 21) – The Birth of Jesus; The Shepherds Visit Jesus

Finally, have a wonderful Christmas season.  Have fun with the well-deserved vacation from work or school, the decorations, Christmas shopping, family get-togethers, gift exchanges, watching Christmas TV specials and/or the Colts playing on Christmas this year, and whatever festive plans you have in store.  But let’s also take some time to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas!