How Israel’s Bible Quiz Makes Studying the Bible Fun

There is an amazing tradition in Israel that on its Independence Day (May 15 this year), in Jerusalem they hold the finals of the competition of the Chidon HaTanakh, (HEE-doan ha-ta-NAHK), the International Bible Quiz. (Chidon means “quiz.”)

Jewish students from around the world compete in their home countries to learn the Hebrew Bible, what Jews call the “Tanakh” and Christians call the “Old Testament.” Two finalists from each country win a free trip to Jerusalem to take part in the final competition.

Middle school and high school students take part. (They have had an adult competition too, some years.) Each year the quiz panel chooses a different selection of books of the Bible to quiz on, from the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. Middle schoolers need to study about 70 chapters, high schoolers about 90 chapters. Here’s what middle schoolers (6-8th grade) had to learn this past year:

Leviticus: Chapters 19, 23-25
Numbers: Chapters 9-17, 20-25, 27, 35-36 ,31-32
Joshua: Chapters 1-11, 14, 22-24
Judges: All
Ezra: 1,3, 7-10
Nehemiah: 1-6, 8-10, 12-13

High Schoolers (9-12th grade) had to study all the chapters above, along with Isaiah 1-2, and 60-66.

The final competition is a big deal! The Prime Minister of Israel and other leaders and well-known people attend. Various celebrities read the questions to the students. The Prime Minister always reads the final quiz question.

Here’s a brief (1:49) video showing the excitement at the national final competition in the US last year. The room is electric! Check it out:

You can see that the students who take part have an absolute ball studying the Bible.

They have sample questions in English but in the real competition the questions are all in Hebrew, which they’ve all grown up studying in the synagogue. Of course the OT biblical text is all Hebrew so it makes sense to discuss it that way too. Translation differences just aren’t an issue this way.

In the video, one of the contestants says,

“When I arrived at the national finals the first time, the amount of love and passion for Torah was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The words of Tanakh are literally ‘in my mouth’ because of Chidon. I look forward to using the Tanakh skills I gained from the Chidon to master the limitless world of Torah.”

Note that “in my mouth” is a hint to Deuteronomy 30:14, “But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” Biblically, to have words in your mouth is to have memorized them by saying them over and over. Also, the word Torah is being used in the broad sense of meaning all of God’s teaching – throughout the Bible and in Jewish religious study down through the ages.

The contest moderator then says,

“In the age of ChatGPT, you know a lot more than a computer because you have the fluency.
You have the Tanakh at your fingertips.
You can literally be a parshan (a Bible commentator) on your own!
L’dibair bam, that is what we are accomplishing here today.

L’dibair bam means “to talk about them” and it’s from Deuteronomy 6:7 that is recited every morning and evening as part of the Shema. It says,

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk about them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

By working with their kids to study for the Bible quiz, Jewish parents are fulfilling the command to talk about the Bible at all times of the day and night. And their kids are having fun and learning massive amounts of Bible intensively and deeply! I find this amazingly cool.

Can you imagine Christians doing this?

You know, Jesus expected his listeners to have a very good knowledge of their Scriptures, our Old Testament. Often he “hinted” to them, just like you’ve seen above, where the words “in your mouth” remind people of Dt. 30:14, and “to talk about them” remind people of Dt. 6:7. If you don’t know your Scriptures, you can easily miss Jesus’ point.

I should mention that the Bible Quiz isn’t an ancient Jewish custom. It was conceived by David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, as a way to reinforce Jewish young people’s knowledge of their Scriptures as the holy Text that unites the people of Israel. The first quiz was held in 1958. (More on their Wikipedia page.)

The Bible Quiz may not be ancient, but it shows the amount of desire and expectation that Orthodox Jews have for knowing their Scriptures and teaching them to their children.