New Testament Midterm (TQuiz)

Jesus' last words on the cross in the Gospel of Mark are:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

How many books are there in the New Testament?

27

Scholars think Jesus died around:

30 C.E.

In what year did Athanasius name the current twenty-seven books of the New Testament as authoritative?

367 CE

We currently possess about how many manuscripts of New Testament?

5,700

The Gospel of Mark was probably written around:

65-70 C.E.

Which of the following does not take place immediately before Jesus' trial and crucifixion in the Gospel of John?

A Passover meal with the disciples

In first-century apocalyptic Judaism, the term "Son of Man" referred to:

A cosmic figure

When Jesus is baptized, the Spirit of God descends on him in the shape of:

A dove

According to the Jewish-Christian adoptionists, Jesus was:

A man

In non-Christian Jewish circles, the term "Son of God" referred to:

A person especially close to God

The emphasis placed on Jesus' death classifies the Gospels as:

A subgenre of the genre of ancient Greco-Roman biography

The Roman historian Tacitus says that Christianity is:

A superstition

The first New Testament Gospel was written _________ years after Jesus' death.

About 35

In the story from Mark of the women who find Jesus' tomb empty and are instructed by a young man (or angel) to go tell Peter and the other disciples (Mark 16), the last twelve verses were:

Added to the Gospel of mark by a scribe

A redactor is:

An editor

Who lived at about the same time as Jesus, was reported to have had a life and death similar to Jesus, and was considered by his disciples to be the Son of God?

Apollonius of Tyana

Why will scholars always disagree about the end product of their labors; that is, why will their accounts of what happened in the past always be different than other scholars'?

Because the past can never be empirically proved; it can only be reconstructed

Why do most scholars think that Q was a written document?

Because there are long stretches of verbatim agreement between Matthew and Luke

The New Testament Gospels belong to which genre?

Biography

The term "cult" means

Care

Which of the following represents an intentional scribal error?

Changing the text to fit the doctrine

What was the physical sign of the covenant between ancient Jews and God?

Circumcision

Which codex is the most valuable—because it includes all twenty-seven New Testament books, as well as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepard of Hermas?

Codex Sinaiticus

In John's community, the belief in Jesus' divinity probably:

Developed over time

"Diaspora" means:

Dispersion

Hellenism promoted a city-state focused world-view or outlook that discouraged learning about other cultures or sharing information.

False

Which was probably the first book of the New Testament to be written?

First Thessalonians

What genre do the Gospels most closely fit?

Greco-Roman biography

In what language were the New Testament Gospels written?

Greek

The New Testament was written in what language?

Greek

The author of the Gospel of Mark probably spoke:

Greek

The Septuagint is:

Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible

Which of the following best describes Jesus in the Gospel of John?

He is preexistent and divine.

In Mark, what is Jesus' response to his impending death?

He seems to doubt his mission

The spread of Greek culture and language is known as:

Hellenization

In John, Jesus' teachings focus primarily on

His identity

Most historians think Josephus's testimony about Jesus was:

Inserted by a later Christian scribe

Where was Q finally discovered?

It is still hypothetical.

The Gospel of Mark begins with

Jesus' baptism by John

The phrase "Jesus' Passion" refers to:

Jesus' suffering

Which of the following groups thought it was blasphemy to call Jesus God

Jewish-Christian adoptionists

All of the following figures recognize Jesus in Mark except:

John the Baptist

Gnostics believed which of the following brought salvation?

Knowledge

When Mark and Matthew tell the same story, Mark's story is:

Longer

The Jewish response to Antiochus Epiphanes' actions was:

Maccabean Revolt

Which early Christian group believed in two Gods: the just God of the Old Testament and the merciful God of Jesus?

Marcionites

Both Matthew and Luke used _____________ as a literary source.

Mark

Which are considered the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament?

Mark, Matthew, Luke, John

Who assembled all the miracle stories dispersed throughout Mark into one large collection?

Matthew

The argument of "sequence of the narrative" suggests:

Matthew and Luke follow Mark's sequence of stories

According to Mark, Jesus is from:

Nazareth

Did the authors of the Gospels claim to be eyewitnesses to the events that they narrated?

No

How many first-century pagan authors mention Jesus by name?

None

Which of the following Gospels was written during Jesus' lifetime?

None

The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:59-8:11) is:

Not an original part of any Gospel

Which of the following is least helpful in establishing the original text of the New Testament?

Number of manuscripts

When individuals wished to know the will of a god, they visited a(n):

Oracle

The New Testament Gospels belong to which genre?

Oral sources

The Marcionites particularly liked which of the following apostles?

Paul

Who is the earliest of the New Testament writers?

Paul

Which one of Jesus' disciples comes closest to recognizing Jesus' identity in Mark?

Peter

The Roman who convicts Jesus is:

Pilate

Ancient biographies were especially concerned with:

Portraying the personality of the protagonist

Which of the following best summarizes Jesus' impact on wider society in his own day?

Practically nil

Scholars refer to the first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John as

Prologue

Stoicism, Platonism, and Epicureanism all involved the exercise of:

Reason

The term "canon" means:

Ruler

Greco-Roman religion incorporated which of the following?

Sacrifice

The sect of Judaism that wielded the most political power at the time of Jesus was the:

Sadducees

In Mark, when Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Salome discover the empty tomb, they:

Say nothing

"Synoptic" means:

Seen together

Matthew and Luke

Sometimes change Mark to change theological emphases

An alternative place of worship (to the Temple in Jerusalem) where Jews came together in the community to discuss the sacred traditions of the Torah was called a(n):

Synagogue

n John, Jesus does all of the following to show his divine nature except:

Teach in parables

After chapter 12 in the Gospel of John, Jesus decides not to preach publicly because

The Jews reject him

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is explicitly called all the following except:

The Word of God

Identify one discrepancy in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' Last Supper.

The account in Mark states that it occurs as the Passover meal, while John's account states that Jesus' Last Supper occurred the night before Passover.

Which of the following episodes is most likely historical according to the criterion of dissimilarity?

The baptism of Jesus

The Pentateuch is:

The first five books of the Bible

The most popular scholarly explanation of the Synoptic Problem is:

The four-source hypothesis

What feature typically accompanied the stories of religious figures in ancient Greco-Roman biographies?

The miraculous

Scholars use all of the following criteria to determine the historical reliability of a tradition except:

The more popular books are, the more likely they are to be reliable.

The Johannine Christians most likely were excluded from the synagogue because

The tried to proselytize other Jews

One group of Essenes left Jerusalem because:

They believed the wrong priestly family was running the Temple.

What does the term "heresy" mean?

To choose

Ancient biographies were usually written for what main purpose?

To give instruction on proper behavior.

What was the primary aim of ancient philosophy?

To investigate the best way to live

According to some Gnostics, the Old Testament God was evil.

True

No two existing ancient manuscripts are precisely alike.

True

The Gospel of Mark consistently portrays Jesus as misunderstood.

True

The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as keeping his messianic identity hidden.

True

We do not have the original copy of any New Testament book.

True

Oral cultures tend to

Understand stories as changeable

The earliest copyists of the New Testament were:

Untrained but literate

In the Greco-Roman world, stories about a god having the power to heal:

We're relatively common

Polytheism is the:

Worship of many gods

John, the forerunner of Jesus, proclaims forgiveness of sins and performs

baptisms

Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls so valuable?

because they are nearly a thousand years older than the oldest copies of the Hebrew Scriptures that we previously had

At Jesus' trial in Mark, the Sanhedrin charges him with

blasphemy

What framework were ancient biographies often crafted within?

chronological

In John, the signs are intended to

convince people of Jesus' true identity

Of the four New Testament Gospels, Mark was probably written

first

Biographies written by Christians put a significant amount of emphasis on what event in Jesus' life, which was very unusual for ancient biographies?

his death

How is the War Scroll unique among ancient Jewish literature?

its graphic and detailed description of the future battle that will end the age

Missionary movements in the Greco-Roman world were advanced mostly by:

schools of philosophy

Consistent testimony of many independent witnesses _____________ a case.

strengthens

According to Mark, the messiah must

suffer and die

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus died:

the day before the Passover meal