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
