A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.

i24 News – Israel held its International Bible Quiz for Youth on Thursday, and two teenagers tied for first place.

After beating out 14 other contestants, Dvir Merzbach, a 17-year-old from Safed, and Hillel Cohen, 16, of Jerusalem, went toe-to-toe in the final round.

Neither was able to beat the other, leaving the competition with tied winners for the first time since 2013.

The competition has contestants answer trivia questions about details from biblical books, such as locating or completing fragments of biblical verses. Other questions include identifying who said which quotation and to whom or naming geographical elements of ancient Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Issac Herzog attended the competition, held on the country’s Independence Day, with the latter’s mother, Aura, founding the competition in 1958.

“She always told me that she wanted it to be written on her headstone that she was the founder of the Bible contest,” Herzog said, according to the president’s office. Herzog also asked several questions to contestants during the competition.

Bennett joked that “there isn’t tension like this in politics.”

“There are always those who enter the arena and act, and there are those who sit in the stands chirping harsh criticism about those who are doing,” the prime minister told the contestants.

“I want the youth to know — writing a sharp sentence on TikTok isn’t action. Action is volunteering at charitable organizations, enlisting for military service or national service, helping another person.”