RELI 1001 Exam 1 Study Guide

Key is to understands God's "speech," "face," "hands," "eyes," hearing and seeing, "wrath", "throne," friendship, etc. not in an _________________(finite, human-like) sense (anthropomorphism is giving human-like characteristics to God)

"anthropomorphic"

understand contextual approaches to biblical study like feminist interpretation and the concept of a

"hermeneutic of suspicion"

The Abrahamic covenant—three aspects; 3 major covenants or 3 major manifestations of God's covenant with Israel

(Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic)

Studying the Abrahamic religions

- That this course treats these monotheistic religions as worshiping one and the same God of Abraham - Concept of "hermeneutical circle"... faith understanding; belief (orthodoxy) practice (orthopraxy); scripture tradition; etc. - These religious traditions develop in relation to one another in particular historical-cultural contexts and share a common core of moral values and theological tenets - These commonalities allow for valuable interfaith dialogue and cooperation, which may be helpful beyond the classroom

3 parts of the Tanakh

Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim

Muhammad was married to Kadija in

595-619

In ______ He received 1st revelation of Quranic text in cave on Mt. Hira;

610

("what it meant")

exegesis

1st Council of Constantinople (381; affirms divinity of Holy spirit in biblical language; called the "Nicene Creed"; later addition of ____________ which means "and from the Son". This catalyzed split between Roman Cath. and Eastern Orthodox

filioque

(theory or principles of interpretation)

hermeneutics

Council of Nicaea (325; issue of "Son being one in being with the Father"

homoousis

("what it means"

interpretation

= genie, the illiterate could captivate audiences and make or break their own or another's reputation (as in a contemporary poetry slam or rap battle)

jinn

Belief in angels (and other created spiritual beings

jinni

Medieval four senses of scripture

literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical (heavenly)

one who submits/surrenders

muslim

Christian Monotheism: God as one nature (__________) in three Persons (____________) and Jesus as one person in two natures

ousia, hypostasis

Divine name—___________(YHWH = tetragrammaton); ___________ (LORD) and reason for not pronouncing "The Name"

Yahweh, Adonai

report on something Muhammad said or did

Hadith

The devil/Satan figure in Islam

Iblis

"return to the sources" = Interpretation in Renaissance and Reformation—resourcement = "return to the sources" = the original language texts of scripture for translation and interpretation; refocus on the literal sense of scripture and the lay person's ability to understand its saving message; new emphasis occurs against the backdrop of perceived abuses in interpretation and church authority in the Roman Catholic Church (especially indulgences); unfortunately, Reformation splinters the church and leads to many bloody conflicts; these conflicts also help to catalyze the formation of the modern nation state, the Enlightenment, and the historical-critical exegesis of biblical texts

Interpretation in Renaissance and Reformation—resourcement

Gospels of New Testament

Synoptic and John

Qur'an—______ (how many) suras (=chapter-like divisions

114

In _______(year) _______(emigration) from Mecca to Medina and forming of umma (community); 624 victory at Badr, change of qibla (direction of prayer) from Jerusalem to Mecca;

622,Hijra

In ______ conquest of Mecca and Kaaba made monotheistic sanctuary (legendarily built by Abraham and Ishmael)

630

Revelation of Qur'an to Muhammad by Gabriel 610 to the Prophet's death in ______

632

In ______ death of Prophet and _____ ______ named first caliph (deputy/successor)

632, Abu Bakr

from Psalm 2:7; also interpretation of Jesus' metaphorical sonship beginning with his baptism in the Gospels; Jesus' humanity is elevated but not "fully" divine

Adoptionism—

late 4th century overcorrection of Arianism; replaced human soul/mind of Jesus with the Logos; thus, Jesus is fully divine but not fully human

Apollinarianism

named for Arius, who understood the Logos as a created divine being (not fully God)

Arianism

___________(time period) and ___________ (time period) exiles and interpretation of the prophets (Nevi'im) within Deuteronomistic interpretation of history in terms of covenant (instruction/covenant>disobedience>discipline>repentance>redemption); significance of Babylonian captivity and Temple destruction in shift of focus from sacred place to sacred text (leads to canonization of scriptures in Second Temple period = 516 BCE to 70 CE)

Assyrian (722 BCE) and Babylonian (587 BCE)

981 manuscripts discovered b/t 1946-1956; 1st-century BCE Hebrew and Aramaic texts containing all of Tanakh except Esther; most ancient manuscripts ever found

Dead Sea Scrolls

New Testament, Hebrew Tanakh understood in terms of being an Old Testament; until the Protestant Reformation (and still for some denominations), the OT contains the 7 deutero-canonical books in the LXX; early Christian writings soon gain the status of scripture and form a New Testament; Jesus' delayed return (parousia) and persecution from Jews and Romans were two major crises that led to the development of the NT; criteria of canonicity included authenticity (coming from an apostle or the community of that apostle), inspiration by God through the Holy Spirit, acceptance by consensus; crisis of settling on a normative list of NT scriptures was catalyzed by Marcion, who denied the scriptural status of the OT; gnostic gospels also were not included because their spirit/matter dualism contradicted the goodness of creation and the incarnation

Christian scriptures

from Greek verb dokeo = "I seem"—Jesus was God only seeming or appearing to be human; but then how could Jesus save humanity? For refutation see Gregory of Nazienzen, "What is not assumed is not saved"

Docetism

Which chapter of which book does Moses receives divine name YHWH? Passover occurs in which chapter?

Exodus ch.3. Exodus ch.12

one of the) oldest biblical passages = hymn to Yahweh the warrior who freed the Israelites from Egypt; this experience of salvation led these people to give exclusive devotion to one G/god; this redeemer G/god is inferred to be the one G/god of creation—redemption as an act of creation and creation as an act of redemption; other popular god(esse)s of the time were Baal, El, and Asherah;

Exodus chapter 15

God gives Law (10 commandments = Decalogue = "10 words") to Moses on Mt. Sinai; two tables of the Law summarized in the 10 commandments have to do with who/how to worship (orthodoxy) and how to love/act justly toward others (orthopraxy); 20:8-11 commands Sabbath rest because God rested from creating on the 7th day; chs. 32-33 = the golden calf and an early example of the Deuteronomistic cycle of instruction/covenant>disobedience> discipline>repentance> redemption

Exodus chapter 19-20

_________ (bible verse) The Israelites insist here that their God—Yahweh Elohim (2:4)—is the creator and that no other gods are involved in creating; thus, God can create the world without violence against other gods; this theological development is especially powerful in the context of Exile over against the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish; placed "in the beginning" of the newly forming canon of Hebrew scriptures, these passages would have been a powerful reminder for the Israelites to stay resilient during their captivity in expectation of Yahweh's redemption from Babylon; in saving Israel from Babylon, Yahweh invalidates Marduk, Babylon's creator god

Genesis 1-2

Arabic terms (and their definitions) derived from s-l-m root

Islam, Muslim, salām

___________(bible verse): prophetic oracle given between ______________ and_______________ exiles; exile was interpreted as God's discipline for ____________ abandoning _____________ for other gods, especially the Baalim; section of text bears the overall structure of a covenant lawsuit; metaphors for worshiping other gods include adultery, prostitution, being and animal in heat, acting like a thieving servant rather than a child of the house, etc.

Jeremiah 1-4, Assyrian and Babylonian, Israel abandoning Yahweh

_________- experience of disciples/apostles and early church reframes the Jewish concept of Messiah (review ways how this is the case); Jesus not simply bringer of divine revelation, he is God's self-revelation; John 1- Jesus as the ___________ _______(Logos) of __________

Jesus,John 1—incarnate Word (Logos) of God

Common call to "struggle" = to understand, live, and defend the faith (note on the "greater" and "lesser")

Jihad (greater and lesser)

This means "Anointed One"; title used for kings and other figures in Tanakh; after fall of Davidic dynasty, Messianic redemption was interpreted more and more in 2nd Temple period "as the culmination of God's original plan for Creation, [...] presided over by a divinely appointed figure who would be sent to the world by God to signal the end of history, restore all Israel to its Land, preside over the resurrection of the dead, and inaugurate the final Kingdom of God" (JCM, 59)

Messiah

(having 1 phusis = nature)—Jesus' human nature being overwhelmed or negated by the divine; better than Nestorianism at maintaining the one person, but at the expense of the two (distinct but inseparable) natures

Monophysitism

bound volume/book; contrast scroll

Mushaf

perhaps an exaggeration of Nestorius' own teachings, this is the view that the union between the divine and human did not constitute Jesus' whole personhood—his "hypostasis" (hence the term "hypostatic union")—but that the Logos maintained a "moral union" to Jesus' soul, which directed his actions Thus Mary would not properly be the "Mother of God" (theotokos) but only the "Mother of Christ" (Christotokos) "theotokos" affirmed at Council of Ephesus (431 CE) N's 2-persons-2-natures Christology was discarded for a 1-person-2-natures Christology (at Chalcedon 451 CE)

Nestorianism

= no sacrificial rituals; Rabbis ("teachers") refocus religious devotion to self-sacrificial practices of prayer, study, and obedience to written and oral Torah; rather than a stone building, the "tradition is a fence ___________ ____ _____" (Avot 3:13 [14]); _________ and concept of the tradition building a "fence" around the Law; Kabbalistic interpretations focusing on secret mystical meaning of texts

Oral Torah and Rabbinic tradition—2nd Temple destroyed by Romans 70 CE, around the Law, Mishnah

____________ - ("the 70";LXX) 2nd-century BCE Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures; contains original Greek texts retained in Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament

Septuagint

Five Pillars of Islam

Shahada, salat, zakat, sawm, hajj

27 books in Koine Greek

The New Testament writings

Muhammad was born in

ca. 570 in Mecca

Revelation and Scripture—concept of ________ (Gr. "reed"; "measuring stick"); oral & written traditions come to be finalized as regarded as authoritative/normative/canonical

canon

Major ____________ (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel ["wrestles with God"], Joseph)—concept of divine election and the irony in God's choice of the younger of 2 or more brothers (contra primogeniture); main genre of literature in Genesis 12-50 is saga (main genre of primeval history (Genesis 1-11) is myth); covenant sign of circumcision (Genesis 17); Genesis 22 = binding of Isaac = Akedah

patriarchs

antonym of tawhid; means "association" of anything creaturely with the Creator, whether in blatant polytheism and idolatry or Christian understandings of Christ and Trinity; __________ = idolater

shirk; mushrik

What plays into biblical interpretation? and especially in what?

source criticism, Torah/Pentateuch = JEDP (the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly sources

Islam means

submission/surrender to the one and only God Allah

"custom" or living example of the Prophet preserved in literary form of the ḥadīth

sunna

"explanation" = traditional, authoritative Qur'anic exegesis developed by 900s

tafsīr

Witnessing to the divine unity

tawhid

Acts written by

the Synoptic Gospel writer Luke