Hebrews: The Biblical Hall of Faith Quiz

Answer: Abel

Hebrews 11:4. The story of Cain and Abel appears in Genesis Chapter 4. Cain grew crops, and brought "some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord." Abel was a shepherd, and brought "fat portions from some of the first-born of his flock." The Lord was pleased with Abel's offering, but not with Cain's. (Note: Abel brought the best of what he had; the text is not explicit but one can assume that Cain withheld the best and certainly did not make his offering with a pure heart.) Cain became angry, and the Lord warned him that sin was crouching at his door.

In the very next verse (Gen 4:8-9), Cain kills Abel and then lies to the Lord about his whereabouts with the famous line "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain is then cast out to the east of Eden to be a restless wanderer.

Answer: Enoch

Hebrews 11:5. There is more than one person in the Bible named Enoch - in fact, Cain had a son named Enoch (Genesis 4:17). The Enoch mentioned in Hebrews is later; his father is Jared and his son is the long-lived Methusaleh. Enoch is praised because he "walked with God" for 300 years and then God took him away (Gen 5:18-24).

He is thus one of two people in the Bible described as escaping death - Elijah is the second. Three apocryphal books thought to date from the 1st through 5th centuries AD are attributed to Enoch; in this tradition and some Jewish mysticism, Enoch is called "chief of archangels" and is thought to have provided Moses with God's revelation.

Answer: Noah

Hebrews 11:7. Noah's story is a familiar one, appearing in Genesis chapters 6-9. God noted the wickedness of mankind and decided to wipe the slate clean and start over, but Noah "found favor in the eyes of the Lord." Noah demonstrated faith when believed the great flood would come as God had promised, and he put his faith to action by building the ark as instructed. An often missed part of the story is that God also promised that the animals would come to Noah - frequently illustrations wrongly depict Noah rounding up the animals. Unclean animals came two by two, but seven of each clean animal were brought aboard. Noah was still human, as he demonstrated in Gen 9:20-27, which follows immediately after God's establishment of the covenant with Noah and bestowal of the rainbow as a sign. Noah planted a vineyard and pretty quickly made wine and got drunk, leading his sons to cover up his nakedness.

Some early church fathers excused Noah's drunkenness by explaining that he was the first human to drink wine and thus would not have known its inebriating effects.

Answer: Abraham

Hebrews 11:8. Abraham is mentioned additional times in Hebrews, for being the ancestor of many despite his childlessness at an advanced age, and for trusting God when he was asked to sacrifice his miracle son Isaac. The verse quoted in this question relates to his initial call (Genesis 12:1-5), when the Lord said to him "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." Abraham left Haran for Canaan, and eventually the Lord establishes a covenant with him, promising that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars (Gen 15:1-6).

Answer: Isaac

Hebrews 11:20. Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah, just as the Lord had promised. Traditionally, when a father neared death he would announce his heir by pronouncing a blessing upon him. By waiting until death was imminent, the decision about who would receive the birthright was final.

This was usually the elder son, but in this case Jacob was chosen above his older brother Esau, albeit through deceit. Isaac had faith that God's promises to Abraham would be fulfilled, and he had faith that his own sons had God's protection in the days to come.

Answer: Jacob

Hebrews 11:21. Like his father before him, Jacob (also called Israel) blessed "out of order," bestowing his blessing on his grandsons by his son Joseph, skipping a generation and birth order. (See Genesis 48:9-22) Although Manasseh was firstborn to Joseph, Jacob blessed his younger brother Ephraim first. Also like his father, Jacob had not moved permanently to the promised land - he was an exile in Egypt at this point and his father had been a nomad when he died.

They both had faith that God's promises would be fulfilled for their descendants.

Answer: Joseph

Hebrews 11:22. Third in the series of dying patriarchs listed in Hebrews, Joseph died in Egypt (Genesis 50:22-26) after achieving high authority and power there, which put him in the position to save his family from famine. He lived to age 110, which allowed him to see his great grandchildren, a glimpse of the promise God gave to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Like his father before, he knew that Egypt was not his homeland, and he made his descendants promise to carry his bones to the promised land.

This was achieved - Moses carried his bones with him out of Egypt (Exodus 13:19).

Answer: Moses

Hebrews 11:23. In the first chapter of Exodus, we learn that the "sons of Israel" had become numerous, and the king of Egypt worried that they would rise up to fight with Egypt's enemies, so the king put in several modes of repression of the Hebrews. They were forced to labor in building projects and in the fields.

The king decreed that all boys born to the Hebrews were to be killed. Moses' family were Levites, the priestly class. When Moses was born, his mother hid him for three months but finally placed him in a basket coated with tar and pitch and floated it in the Nile, conveniently near where Pharaoh's daughter was bathing. Moses was rescued and reared in the palace, but as the author of Hebrews reminds us in 11:24-26, by faith "he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God." By faith he left Egypt, kept the Passover and crossed through the Red Sea (11:27-29).

Answer: the prostitute Rahab

Hebrews 11:31. Rahab is the one woman listed as acting "by faith" in Hebrews 11. Sarah is mentioned earlier as the mother of Isaac despite her former barrenness, but that verse focuses on Isaac's father Abraham rather than including Sarah as a woman of faith (11:11). Rahab's story appears in Joshua chapter 2; she lived in Jericho and hid the two spies Joshua sent to scope out the city, and begs them to promise the Lord's protection for her and her family.

It was not uncommon for an inn and a brothel to be present in combination, and such an institution would serve as a great source of intelligence for spies.

The spies tell Rahab to tie a scarlet cord in the window to mark her house for safekeeping; this is often noted as the source of the concept of a "red-light" district.

Her name appears in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:5.

Answer: David

Hebrews 11:32-33. You might note US President Obama's first name (slightly different spelling) in this list - Barak's story is told in Judges 4 and 5; he led 10000 men to fight the Canaanites as he was directed by his leader, Deborah. He slew them all, except their leader Sisera. That was a job for a woman; Jael dispatched him with a tent peg.

The list is full of people who faced great odds but had faith the Lord would support them despite the difficulty. King David is described as "a man after God's own heart" - he was a younger son sent to be a shepherd but was then called by God to serve as King.