New Testament First Exam (Multiple Choice Chapters 1-10)

Scholars estimate literacy in antiquity to have been:

10-15 percent

The Maccabean revolt began around the year:

167 B.C.E.

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 C.E.

The Gospel of Mark was probably written around:

65-70 C.E.

Although we cannot know for certain, many scholars believe Q probably did not contain:

A Passion narrative

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.

What is the earliest surviving manuscript of the New Testament to date?

A fragment of the Gospel of John

What is the term for a category of literature in which texts share a range of conventions?

A genre.

In Luke, Jesus' public ministry begins with:

A sermon in a synagogue

Redaction criticism is:

A study of how an author changes his source.

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

A subgenre of the genre of ancient Greco-Roman biography

Matthew traces Jesus' lineage to:

Abraham

Name one of the people Plutarch wrote about.

Alexander the Great

By what means have early Christian truth claims been handed down from one generation to the next?

All of the above

In Mark, the Temple curtain rips:

At Jesus' death

What ritual was necessary for new converts to Christianity to undergo?

Baptism

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

Baptisms

Why, in the Gospel of John, does Pontius Pilate have to conduct the trial of Jesus through lengthy conversations between the prosecution and the defendant?

Because the Jewish leaders refuse to go into Pilate's residence, so they send Jesus in alone, leaving Pilate to go back and forth between them

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.

According to Luke, Jesus' death itself:

Causes people to repent

Which of the following represents an intentional scribal error?

Changing the text to fit doctrine

Which of the following would an ancient reader of a biography not expect to find in the text?

Character development

What framework were ancient biographies often crafted within?

Chronological

"Diaspora" means:

Dispersion

If genre criticism uncovers the same points uncovered by redaction criticism, then why use the redactional approach?

Editorial activity provides more empirical evidence for the aim of the text.

In Rome, the priestly art of reading the entrails of sacrificed animals was called:

Extispicy

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

First Thessalonians

Scholars refer to Matthew's use of Hebrew Scripture to show Jesus is the messiah as:

Fulfillment citations.

What genre do the Gospels most closely fit?

Greco-Roman biography

The New Testament was written in what language?

Greek

"Torah" means:

Guidance

The author says that:

He used written sources

The spread of Greek culture and language is known as:

Hellenization

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.

In Matthew, John the Baptist:

Is hesitant to baptize Jesus

When it is time for Jesus to die in Luke, he:

Is ready

Luke is different from the other Gospels because:

It has a sequel

Which of the following stories is only found in Luke?

Jesus teaching in the Temple when he is twelve years old.

The Gospel of Mark begins with:

Jesus' baptism by John

Most scholars believe that Q contains mostly:

Jesus' sayings

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

In Luke's temptation narrative, Jesus' final temptation is:

Jumping from the top of the Temple.

What does the term "gnosis" mean?

Knowledge

The word "epistle" means:

Letter

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

Longer

Of the following, the most important reason Matthew makes Jesus' identity public is to:

Make the Jewish leaders culpable for Jesus' suffering.

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

The "Four-Source Hypothesis" relies on the idea that:

Mark was written first

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

Matthew

In Matthew, Jesus' birth story is most reminiscent of whose birth?

Moses

Pagan religions that required initiation were:

Mystery cults

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

No

How many original copies of books of the New Testament do we have?

None

In the story of Jesus in the last minutes before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:43-44), the account of his "sweating blood" while contemplating his imminent suffering is most likely:

Not an original part of any Gospel

The Gospel of Matthew was probably written:

Outside Palestine around 80-85 C.E..

The Gospel of Luke came to be attributed to a man who was thought to have been:

Paul's companion.

The Christian mission was conducted primarily:

Person to person

Which of the following occurs only in Matthew?

Pilate's washing his hands of Jesus' blood.

State priesthoods in the Roman Empire were:

Political appointments

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

Reason

From the beginning, Luke's Jesus expects to be:

Rejected

One of the most popular pagan authors of the second century, Plutarch, wrote fifty biographies of prominent Greek and Roman men. His main aim in these accounts was to:

Reveal their characters

Who created the verse divisions that we have today?

Robert Stephanus

The term "canon" means:

Ruler

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

Sadducees

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus' birth narrative parallels that of:

Samuel

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

Schools of philosophy

What is the style of writing called that leaves out punctuation, capitalization, paragraph divisions, sentence divisions, and spaces between words?

Scriptio continua

"Synoptic" means:

Seen together

New Testament manuscripts do not:

Show a lack of passion for their topics

The Roman Empire began as a(n):

Small farming village

Why did God instruct Moses to have every Israelite family sacrifice a lamb and paint their doorframes with its blood?

So the angel of death would pass over those houses

According to Mark, the messiah must:

Suffer and die

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

What is the name of the academic discipline devoted to the study of ancient manuscripts to determine the most likely earliest readings?

Textual criticism

The most popular scholarly resolution to the Synoptic Problem is:

The Four-Source Hypothesis

At the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to teach the gospel and baptize the nations. Scholars call this:

The Great Commission

The Marcionites believed Jesus came to save people from

The Jewish God

The Jewish response to Antiochus Epiphanes' actions was:

The Maccabean revolt

Most copies of New Testament manuscripts come from what time period?

The Middle Ages

In Matthew, Jesus explicitly teaches against:

The Pharisees' hypocrisy

Identify one discrepancy in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' crucifixion.

The account in Mark has it occurring at 9:00 a.m., while John's takes place after noon.

For Matthew, the core of the Law is:

The commandment to love.

At the end of what century did Christians begin to call Jesus' words Scripture?

The first century C.E.

The Pentateuch is:

The first five books of the Bible

Who was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies?

The high priest

Which traditional symbol is the Gospel author Mark associated with?

The lion.

How did pagan literature of the first century refer to the events surrounding Jesus?

There weren't any references made to him

How did the ancient Jews feel about keeping the Law embodied in the Torah?

They considered it a great joy.

What does the term "heresy" mean?

To choose

Ancient biographies were usually written for what main purpose?

To give instruction on proper behavior.

Oral cultures tend to:

Understand stories as changeable

Polytheism is the:

Worship of many gods

Which of the following was thought to be the most powerful of the gods?

Zeus