More argument about biblical prophecy runs through Daniel than through any other book. Before any of that argument makes sense, it helps to know what the book actually contains. Twelve questions, three levels, no interpretation required.
Open “Bible Trivia: The Book of Daniel” on its own page — if the module does not load.
Every question, with the answer and the reason
The interactive module above runs in a sandbox of its own, which means its text is not part of this page. So here is the whole thing in full: all 12 questions, the options as they appear, the answer, and why that answer and not the one beside it. Nothing is held back to make you play first.
Easy
These turn on something stated outright in the text. If you have read the book, you have met the answer.
What did Daniel ask to eat instead of the king’s food?
- Vegetables and water — correct
- Bread and wine
- Fish and figs
- Nothing at all
Answer: Vegetables and water
Daniel 1:12. He proposes a ten-day trial on vegetables and water rather than the king's rich food and wine, and the steward agrees because the risk is his own head. At the end of the ten days the four look better than those who ate the royal rations.
Who was thrown into the fiery furnace?
- Daniel alone
- Daniel and Belshazzar
- Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — correct
- Gabriel and Michael
Answer: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to bow to the golden image, and Nebuchadnezzar has the furnace heated seven times hotter. Daniel is not in this scene at all — he is thrown to the lions three chapters later, under a different king and a different charge.
Which king saw writing appear on the wall?
- Nebuchadnezzar
- Darius
- Cyrus
- Belshazzar — correct
Answer: Belshazzar
Daniel 5, during a feast at which the vessels taken from the Jerusalem temple are being drunk from. Belshazzar is the last Babylonian ruler in the book; Nebuchadnezzar is the king of chapters 1 to 4, and Darius takes over in chapter 6.
What was Daniel thrown into?
- A fiery furnace
- A den of lions — correct
- A cistern
- A prison in Babylon
Answer: A den of lions
Daniel 6. The satraps engineer an edict against praying to anyone but the king, Daniel keeps praying at his open window three times a day, and the sentence follows automatically. The cistern belongs to Jeremiah 38 — a different prophet, a different hole, and a common mix-up.
Medium
These need a detail held in place — a name, a sequence, a number that only means something next to another number.
What did the writing on the wall say?
- ALPHA AND OMEGA
- ICHABOD
- MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN — correct
- MARANATHA
Answer: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
Daniel 5:25. The words are units of weight — a mina, a mina, a shekel and half-shekels — and Daniel's interpretation reads them instead as verbs: numbered, weighed, divided. The threat is not in the writing but in how it is pointed, which is why nobody else could read it.
In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, what is the head of the statue made of?
- Gold — correct
- Silver
- Bronze
- Iron
Answer: Gold
Daniel 2:32. The materials descend in value from head to feet: gold, then silver, then bronze, then iron, then iron mixed with clay — and it is the mixture at the feet that the stone strikes. The descent is the argument: each successive kingdom is presented as less than the one before.
Which angel is named as explaining a vision to Daniel?
- Raphael
- Uriel
- Gabriel — correct
- Metatron
Answer: Gabriel
Daniel 8:16, and again at 9:21 where he comes 'in swift flight' during the evening sacrifice. Michael is also named in Daniel, at 10:13 and 12:1, but as a prince who contends rather than as an interpreter. These are the only two angels the Hebrew Bible names.
What happens to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4?
- He lives outdoors and eats grass like an ox — correct
- He is deposed by his son
- He dies in battle
- He converts and abdicates
Answer: He lives outdoors and eats grass like an ox
Daniel 4:33. He is driven from human company, lives outdoors, eats grass like an ox, and his hair and nails grow long — for seven periods, until he acknowledges heaven. His reason and his kingdom are then both restored, which is unusual: the story ends in recovery rather than in judgement.
Hard
These turn on what the evidence actually supports, which is not always what the story is remembered as saying.
Besides Hebrew, in which language is a large section of Daniel written?
- Greek
- Akkadian
- Persian
- Aramaic — correct
Answer: Aramaic
The book switches to Aramaic at Daniel 2:4, at the moment the Chaldeans address the king, and stays there through the end of chapter 7 before returning to Hebrew. It is a plain textual fact before it is anything else, and every theory about the book's composition has to account for it.
How many “weeks” are decreed in Daniel 9?
- Seven
- Seventy — correct
- Twelve
- Four hundred
Answer: Seventy
Daniel 9:24 — seventy weeks, or seventy sevens, decreed upon the people and the holy city. The passage then divides them into seven, sixty-two and one, and splits the last in half. That subdivision is where nearly all of the interpretive argument lives, in every tradition that reads it.
In Daniel 7, what title is given to the figure seated on the throne?
- The Son of Man
- The Ancient of Days — correct
- The Prince of the Host
- The Watcher
Answer: The Ancient of Days
Daniel 7:9. The Ancient of Days takes his seat, clothing white as snow, throne of fiery flames. 'One like a son of man' is a distinct figure in the same vision who comes with the clouds and is presented before him. Collapsing the two loses the whole structure of the scene.
Which ruler is named as taking the kingdom in Daniel 6?
- Cyrus the Persian
- Artaxerxes
- Nabonidus
- Darius the Mede — correct
Answer: Darius the Mede
Daniel 5:31 and 6:1 name Darius the Mede as receiving the kingdom at about sixty-two years old. Cyrus is also named in the book, at 6:28 and 10:1, so the question rewards reading rather than recall. No Darius the Mede is attested outside Daniel, which is one of the book's standing historical difficulties.
What this quiz draws on
Books in play: Daniel. Each of those leads to what the book contains, who has been proposed as its author, and how it is dated.
Themes: Dating, Eschatology.
Answers here are drawn from the biblical text and, where an external record bears on the question, from the artefact or publication that carries it. How this site reads a text and how this site is written set out the rules, so you can check the reasoning rather than take the answer on trust.