UTC New Testament Midterm

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

Apocrypha

A Greek term meaning, literally, "hidden things," used of books on the fringe of the Jewish or Christian canons of Scripture. The Jewish apocrypha comprises books found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible, including 1 and 2 Maccabees and 4 Ezra.

Torah

A Hebrew word that means "guidance" or "direction" but is usually translated "law." As a technical term it designates either the Law of God given to Moses or the first five books of the Jewish Bible that Moses was traditionally thought to have written— Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Gentile

A Jewish designation for a non-Jew.

Sadducees

A Jewish party associated with the Temple cult and the Jewish priests who ran it, comprising principally the Jewish aristocracy in Judea. The party leader, the high priest, served as the highest-ranking local official and chief liaison with the Roman governor.

Pharisees

A Jewish sect, which may have originated during the Maccabean period, that emphasized strict adherence to the purity laws set forth in the Torah. See also Mishnah.

Sicarii

A Latin term meaning, literally, "daggermen," a designation for a group of first-century Jews responsible for the assassination of Jewish aristocrats thought to have collaborated with the Romans. See also Fourth Philosophy.

Beatitudes

A Latin word meaning, literally, "blessings," used as a technical term for the sayings of Jesus that begin the Sermon on the Mount (e.g., "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . ."; Matt 5:3-12).

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

A Passion narrative.

Mithras

A Persian deity worshiped in a mystery cult spread throughout the Roman world.

Suetonius

A Roman historian of the early second century C.E., best known for a multivolume collection of biographies of the Roman emperors, The Lives of the Caesars.

Tertullian

A brilliant and acerbic Christian author from the late second and early third centuries. Tertullian, who was from North Africa and wrote in Latin, is one of the best-known early Christian apologists.

Apostolic Fathers

A collection of noncanonical writings penned by proto-orthodox Christians of the second century who were traditionally thought to have been followers of the apostles; some of these works were considered Scripture in parts of the early church.

Mishnah

A collection of oral traditions passed on by generations of Jewish rabbis who saw themselves as the descendants of the Pharisees, finally put into writing around 200 C.E. See also Talmud.

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

A cosmic figure.

Sanhedrin

A council of Jewish leaders headed by the high priest that played an advisory role in matters of religious and civil policy

L

A document (or documents, written or oral) that no longer survives, but that evidently provided Luke with traditions that are not found in Matthew or Mark. See also Four-Source Hypothesis.

M

A document (or documents, written or oral) that no longer survives, but that evidently provided Matthew with traditions that are not found in Mark or Luke. See also Four-Source Hypothesis.

Signs Source

A document, which no longer survives, thought by many scholars to have been used as one of the sources of Jesus' ministry in the Fourth Gospel; it reputedly narrated a number of the miraculous deeds of Jesus.

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

A dove.

Honi the "Circle-Drawer"

A first-century B.C.E. Galilean who was reputed to have done miracles and had experiences similar to those of Jesus.

Extispicy

A form of divination in Greek and Roman religions in which a specially appointed priest (haruspex) would examine the entrails of a sacrificed animal to determine whether it had been accepted by the gods.

Auspicy

A form of divination in which specially appointed priests could determine the will of the gods by observing the flight patterns or eating habits of birds. See also Divination

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

General History

A genre of ancient literature that traced the significant events in the history of a people to show how their character (as a people) was established. Examples of the genre include Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews and the Acts of the Apostles.

Zealots

A group of Galilean Jews who fled to Jerusalem during the uprising against Rome in 66-70 C.E., where they overthrew the reigning aristocracy in the city and urged violent resistance to the bitter end. See also Fourth Philosophy

Mystery Cults

A group of Greco-Roman religions that focused on the devotees' individual needs both in this life and in life after death, so named because their initiation rituals and cultic practices involved the disclosure of hidden things that were to be kept secret from outsiders.

Herodians

A group of Jewish leaders, according to the Gospel of Mark, who were allegedly allied closely with the family of Herod and were therefore thought to be collaborators with the Romans.

Fourth Philosophy

A group of Jews that Josephus mentions but leaves unnamed, characterized by their insistence on violent opposition to the foreign domination of the Promised Land. See also Sicarii; Zealots.

Gnosticism

A group of ancient religions, some of them closely related to Christianity, that maintained that elements of the divine had become entrapped in this evil world of matter and could be released only when they acquired the secret gnosis (Greek for "knowledge") of who they were and how they could escape. Gnosis was generally thought to be brought by an emissary of the divine realm.

Augurs

A group of pagan priests in Rome who could interpret the will of the gods by "taking the auspices." See also Auspicy.

"I Am" Sayings

A group of sayings found only in the Gospel of John in which Jesus identifies himself. In some of the sayings he speaks in metaphor ("I am the bread of life"; "I am the light of the world"; "I am the way, the truth, and the life"), and other times he identifies himself simply by saying "I am"—a possible reference to the name of God from Exodus 3 ("Before Abraham was, I am"; John 8:58).

Valentinians

A group of second and third century Gnostics who followed the teachings of Valentinus with a set of myths comparable to those of the Sethians, but more closely aligned with the beliefs of proto-orthodox Christians in whose churches they worshiped and from whom it was difficult to distinguish them.

Ebionites

A group of second-century adoptionists who maintained Jewish practices and Jewish forms of worship.

Genre

A kind of literature with specific literary features; in the modern world, for example, there are short stories, novels, and limericks (each with their own distinctive features); in the ancient world there were biographies, epic poems, general histories, and many others. The major genres of the New Testament are Gospels (which are most like religious biographies), Acts (most like general histories), epistles, and apocalypses.

Third John is best understood as:

A letter to an individual in the church.

Second John is best understood as:

A letter to the entire church

Fulfillment Citations

A literary device used by Matthew in which he states that something experienced or done by Jesus "fulfilled" what was spoken of by a Hebrew prophet in Scripture.

Biography (Ancient)

A literary genre consisting of a narrative of an individual's life, often within a chronological framework, employing numerous subgenres (e.g., sayings, speeches, anecdotes, and conflict stories) in order to reflect important aspects of his or her character, principally for purposes of instruction, exhortation, or propaganda.

Apocalypse

A literary genre in which an author, usually pseudonymous, reports symbolic dreams or visions, given or interpreted through an angelic mediator, that reveal the heavenly mysteries that can make sense of earthly realities.

Genius

A man's guardian spirit (that of a woman was called Iuno).

Genre Criticism

A method used to study a literary text by asking how its genre functioned in its historical context and thereby exploring its historical meaning (i.e., seeing how its meaning would have been understood to its earliest readers) in light of its literary characteristics.

Thematic Method

A method used to study a literary text by isolating its leading ideas, or themes, and exploring them, seeing how they are developed in the text, so as to understand the author's overarching emphases.

Comparative Method

A method used to study a literary text by noting its similarities to and differences from other, related, texts, whether or not any of these other texts was used as a source for the text in question.

Socio-Historical Method

A method used to study a literary text that seeks to reconstruct the social history of the community that lay behind it.

Apollonius of Tyana

A pagan philosopher and holy man of the first century C.E., reported to have done miracles and delivered divinely inspired teachings, a man believed by some of his followers to be a son of God.

Asclepius

A popular Greek god known in particular for his ability to heal the sick.

Apology

A reasoned explanation and justification of one's beliefs and/or practices, from a Greek word meaning "defense."

Papyrus

A reed-like plant that grows principally around the Nile, whose stalk was used for the manufacture of a paper-like writing surface in antiquity.

Oracle

A sacred place where the gods answered questions brought by their worshipers to the resident holy person—a priest or, more commonly, a priestess—who would often deliver the divine response in a trance-like state; the term can also refer to the divine answer itself.

The most important event that had occurred within the Johannine community at the time the epistles were written was:

A schism in the community.

Marcion

A second-century Christian scholar and evangelist, later labeled a heretic for his docetic Christology and his belief in two Gods—the harsh legalistic God of the Jews and the merciful loving God of Jesus—views that he claimed to have found in the writings of Paul.

In Luke, Jesus' public ministry begins with:

A sermon in a synagogue.

Four-Source Hypothesis

A solution to the "Synoptic Problem" that maintains that there are four sources that lie behind the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: (1) Mark was the source for much of the narrative of Matthew and Luke; (2) Q was the source for the sayings found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark; (3) M provided the material found only in Matthew's Gospel; and (4) L provided the material found only in Luke

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

A subgenre of the genre of ancient Greco-Roman biograph

Messianic Secret

A technical term used for one of the intriguing literary features of the Gospel of Mark, which is that even though Jesus is shown to be the messiah, he tries to keep his identity a secret (e.g., by silencing those who recognize him and by hushing up the reports of his miracles).

Magic

A term that is notoriously hard to define, "magic" usually refers to religious practices that are not sanctioned by society at large or by the community in which they are found. Sometimes magic is referred to as the "dark side" of religion, involving sacred activities and words that are socially marginalized.

Son of Man

A term whose meaning is much disputed among modern scholars, used in some ancient apocalyptic texts to refer to a cosmic judge sent from heaven at the end of time.

Hanina ben Dosa

A well-known Galilean rabbi of the first century who was reputed to have done miracles comparable to those of Jesus

Apocalypticism

A worldview held by many ancient Jews and Christians that maintained that the present age is controlled by forces of evil, but that these will be destroyed at the end of time when God intervenes in history to bring in his Kingdom, an event thought to be imminent

B.C.E. / C.E.

Abbreviations for "before the Common Era" and the "Common Era" respectively, used as exact equivalents of the Christian designations "before Christ" (B.C.) and "anno domini" (A.D., a Latin phrase meaning "year of our Lord")

Matthew traces Jesus' lineage to:

Abraham.

The earliest account of the early church appears in:

Acts of the Apostles

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.

Roman Empire

All of the lands conquered by Rome and ruled, ultimately, by the Roman emperor, starting with Caesar Augustus in 27 B.C.E.; prior to that, Rome was a republic ruled by the Senate (see also Box 3.3).

Textual Criticism

An academic discipline that seeks to establish the original wording of a text based on the surviving manuscripts.

Covenant

An agreement or treaty between two social or political parties; used by ancient Jews in reference to the pact that God made to protect and preserve them as his chosen people in exchange for their devotion and adherence to his Law.

Hasmoneans

An alternative name for the Maccabeans, the family of Jewish priests that began the revolt against Syria in 167 B.C.E. and that ruled Israel prior to the Roman conquest of 63 B.C.E.

Essenes

An apocalyptic and ascetic Jewish sect started during the Maccabean period, members of which are generally thought to have produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Athanasius

An influential fourth-century Church Father and bishop of the large and important church in Alexandria, Egypt. Athanasius was the first church writer to list our twenty-seven New Testament books (and only those books) as forming the canon.

Dead Sea Scrolls

Ancient Jewish writings discovered in several caves near the northwest edge of the Dead Sea, widely thought to have been produced by a group of apocalyptically minded Essenes who lived in a monastic-like community from Maccabean times through the Jewish War of 66-70 C.E. See also Essenes; Qumran.

Novel

Ancient genre of literature. Novels in the Greek and Roman worlds were fictionalized narratives that normally told of the tragic separation of lovers and of the various mishaps they experienced in their attempts to become reunited. Novels typically included stories of travels, shipwrecks, piracy, banditry, enslavement, and persecution and contained dialogues, speeches, and private letters. Some scholars have argued that the book of Acts is very much like an ancient novel.

Epicureans

Ancient group of followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who maintained that the gods were removed from the concerns of human life and so were not to be feared or placated. Happiness came in establishing a peaceful harmony with other like-minded people and enjoying the simple pleasures of daily existence

Epistle

Another designation for a private letter. Some scholars have differentiated between "epistles" as literary writings in the form of a letter, which were meant for general distribution, rather than for an individual recipient, and "letters" that were a nonliterary form of personal correspondence. This differentiation between epistles and letters is not widely held today, however, so that the terms tend to be used synonymously.

Manuscript

Any handwritten copy of a literary text.

Paganism

Any of the polytheistic religions of the Greco-Roman world, an umbrella term for ancient Mediterranean religions other than Judaism and Christianity.

Divination

Any practice used to ascertain the will of the gods. See also Auspicy; Extispicy.

Christology

Any teaching about the nature of Christ. See also Adoptionism; Docetism.

Heresy

Any worldview or set of beliefs deemed by those in power to be deviant, from a Greek word meaning "choice" (because "heretics" have "chosen" to deviate from the "truth"). See also Orthodoxy.

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.

Daimonia

Category of divine beings in the Greco-Roman world. Daimonia were widely thought to be less powerful than the gods but far more powerful than humans and capable of influencing human lives.

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

Acts is organized

Chronologically

According to Acts, Paul:

Continued to follow Jewish customs

In John, the signs are intended to:

Convince people of Jesus' true identity.

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

Developed over time.

"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.

Isis

Egyptian goddess worshiped in mystery cults throughout the Roman world.

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

Extispicy.

Sethian Gnostics were sexually promiscuous.

False

True/False: Ancient biographies tended to portray the protagonist's character as constant rather than in a state of development.

False

True/False: Ancient biographies were constructed in a manner very similar to modern biographies

False

True/False: Earlier scribes who copied the New Testament were more precise than later ones

False

True/False: Markan priority depends on the Four-Source Hypothesis.

False

True/False: Matthew's Jesus argues that keeping the Law is not necessary for those who believe in him.

False

True/False: Most scholars think the Gospel of John is more historically accurate than the Synoptic Gospels

False

True/False: Redaction criticism is a form of reader-response criticism.

False

True/False: The Gospel of John emphasizes Jesus' power over demons.

False

True/False: The Gospel of Luke emphasizes the atoning power of Jesus' death.

False

True/False: The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus' birth.

False

True/False: The Gospel of Mark was written within a decade of Jesus' life.

False

True/False: The Gospel of Matthew was the first book of the Bible to be written.

False

True/False: The New Testament Gospels all have Jesus getting crucified at the same time of day.

False

True/False: The Pharisees are responsible for Jesus' death in the Gospel of Mark.

False

True/False: The Sadducees looked forward to the resurrection of the dead.

False

True/False: The final third of Acts focuses on Peter's ministry.

False

True/False: The manuscripts of the Nag Hammadi library are written in Greek.

False

Plato

Famous Greek philosopher from fourth-century B.C.E. Athens, many of whose ideas—including the tension between the realms of matters and spirit—influenced Christian thinkers in the early centuries of the church.

Thucydides

Famous historian of Athens of the fifth century B.C.E., best known for his account of the twenty-seven-year Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides' account, like those of other Greek historians after him, contained a large number of speeches, which he frankly admitted to have composed himself as appropriate for the occasion (cf. the speeches in Acts in the New Testament).

Plutarch

Famous philosopher, historian, and biographer of the second century (46-120 C.E.), known particularly for his essays on moral philosophy and the biographies he wrote of famous Greek and Roman men.

Irenaeus

Famous proto-orthodox Church Father and "heresiologist" (i.e., "heresy-hunter") of the second century, whose five-volume work Against Heresies, written around 180 C.E., is a major source of information for Gnostic and other "heretical" groups.

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

First Thessalonians

Josephus

First-century Jewish historian appointed court historian by the Roman Emperor Vespasian, whose works The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews are principal resources for information about life in first-century Palestine.

Golden Rule

Found in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, this is Jesus' saying that you should "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A similar teaching can be found in a range of pagan and Jewish ethical teachings both before and after Jesus.

Canon

From a Greek word meaning "ruler" or "straight edge." The term came to designate any recognized collection of texts; the canon of the New Testament is thus the collection of books that Christians accept as authoritative.

Catholic

From a Greek word meaning "universal" or "general," used of the New Testament epistles James; 1 and 2 Peter; 1, 2, and 3 John; Jude; and sometimes Hebrews (the "catholic" epistles) to differentiate them from the letters of Paul

Passion

From a Greek word that means "suffering," used as a technical term to refer to the traditions of Jesus' last days, up to and including his crucifixion (hence the "Passion narrative").

Messiah

From a Hebrew word that literally means "anointed one," translated into Greek as Christos, from which derives our English word Christ. In the first century C.E., there was a wide range of expectations about whom this anointed one might be, with some Jews anticipating a future warrior-king like David, others a cosmic redeemer from heaven, others an authoritative priest, and still others a powerful spokesperson from God like Moses.

Baptism

From the Greek term baptizo, which means "to immerse." The earliest Christian practice of baptism in water appears to have been an initiation rite (i.e., a ritual that one underwent when joining the Christian community); it probably derived from the practice of John the Baptist, who baptized Jews, including Jesus, in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the end of this age and the coming of the Kingdom of God. (Jewish cleansing rituals were repeated as the need arose; John's baptism, like that of later Christians, appears to have been a one-time occurrence.) Later Christians assigned other meanings to the rite: the apostle Paul, for example, saw it as the mystical act of dying with Christ to sin. See Participationist Model.

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

Fulfillment citations.

Apostle

Generally, one who is commissioned to perform a task, from a Greek word meaning "sent"; in early Christianity, the term was used to designate special emissaries of the faith who were understood to be representatives of Christ. See also Disciple.

Paul's mission is primarily to

Gentiles

Heracleon

Gnostic living around 170 C.E. who wrote a commentary on the Gospel of John, the first known to have been written by a Christian on any part of the Bible.

According to Luke:

God does not recognize a difference between Jews and Gentiles

What genre do the Gospels most closely fit?

Greco-Roman biography

Stoics

Greco-Roman philosophers who urged people to understand the way the world worked and to live in accordance with it, letting nothing outside of themselves affect their internal state of well-being.

The Gospel of John was probably written in:

Greek

The New Testament was written in what language?

Greek

Diaspora

Greek for "dispersion," a term that refers to the dispersion of Jews away from Palestine into other parts of the Mediterranean, beginning with the Babylonian conquests in the sixth century B.C.E.

"Torah" means:

Guidance

John calls Jesus the "Lamb of God" because:

He is killed on Passover.

The author says that:

He used written sources.

The spread of Greek culture and language is known as:

Hellenization.

Scribes, Jewish

Highly educated experts in Jewish Law (and possibly its copyists) during the Greco-Roman period.

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 John, Jesus' teachings focus primarily on:

His identity.

Lares

Household deities commonly worshiped in homes throughout the Roman world, thought to protect the home and its inhabitants, and often identified with the spirits of the family's ancestors.

Penates

Household deities commonly worshiped throughout the Roman world, thought to protect the pantry and foodstuffs in the home.

Aeons

In Gnostic myth, divine beings who are offspring of the one true, unknowable God.

Sophia

In Gnostic mythology, the final (female) aeon who fell from the divine realm, leading to the birth of the Demiurge (Ialdabaoth), who then created the material world as a place to imprison her.

Ialdabaoth

In Gnostic texts, the name of the creator God

Day of Atonement

In Hebrew, Yom Kippur, the one day of the year when the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple, to sacrifice first an animal to atone for his own sins, and then another animal to atone for the sins of the people of Israel.

Haruspex

In Roman religion, a specially trained priest skilled in the practice of extispicy

Prophet

In ancient Israelite religion, a prophet was a person who delivered God's message to his people; eventually the term came to refer to writers who produced literary accounts of God's word (e.g., Isaiah and Jeremiah). In Christian circles prophets were those who spoke God's message in the community's services of worship, possibly, on occasion, in a state of ecstasy.

Son of God

In most Greco-Roman circles, the designation of a person born to a god, able to perform miraculous deeds and/or to convey superhuman teachings; in Jewish circles, the designation of persons chosen to stand in a special relationship with the God of Israel, including the ancient Jewish kings.

Associations, Voluntary

In the Greco-Roman world, privately organized small groups of people who shared common interests and met periodically to socialize, enjoy a common meal, and conduct business; two of the best-known types were trade associations (composed of members of the same profession) and burial societies.

Kingdom of God

In the teachings of Jesus, the Kingdom of God (or God's reign) appears to refer to an actual kingdom that will come to earth to replace the wicked kingdoms that are now in control of affairs, and of God's people, here. This would be a utopian kingdom through which truth, peace, and justice were restored; it would be ruled by God's anointed one (i.e., the messiah).

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

According to Acts, Paul is converted by:

Jesus

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.

Redaction criticism is:

Jesus.

Judas Maccabeus

Jewish patriot who led the family responsible for spearheading the Maccabean revolt. See also Hasmoneans.

Synagogue

Jewish place of worship and prayer, from a Greek word that literally means "being brought together."

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

Antitheses

Literally, "contrary statements," used as a technical term to designate six sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:21-48) in which he states a Jewish law ("You have heard it said . . .") and then sets his own interpretation over it ("But I say to you . . .").

Pentateuch

Literally, the "five scrolls" in Greek, a term used to designate the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Torah or the Law of Moses.

Scribes, Christian

Literate Christians responsible for copying sacred Scripture.

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

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

Mark was written first.

Both Matthew and Luke used _____________ as a literary source.

Mark.

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.

Beloved Disciple

Nickname for the "disciple whom Jesus loved" in the Gospel of John, who plays a prominent role in the Passion narrative but is never named. Older tradition identified him as John the son of Zebedee and claimed that it was he who wrote the Gospel.

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.

Chapters 13 through 19, the second part of the Gospel of John, take place over:

One day

Justin Martyr

One of the earliest "apologists," Justin lived in Rome in the mid-second century.

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

First John is most likely a:

Persuasive essay.

Which of the following occurs only in Matthew?

Pilate's washing his hands of Jesus' blood.

Qumran

Place near the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1946, evidently home to the group of Essenes who had used the Scrolls as part of their library.

State priesthoods in the Roman Empire were:

Political appointments

Proto-orthodox Christianity

Previous cardFlip cardNext card Toggle termsand definitions HelpShuffle deck Remove card Restore cards Chapter 1 A form of Christianity endorsed by some Christians of the second and third centuries (including the Apostolic Fathers), which promoted doctrines that were declared "orthodox" in the fourth and later centuries by the victorious Christian party, in opposition to such groups as the Ebionites, the Marcionites, and the Gnostics.

House Churches

Private homes where, for centuries, Christian communities met for worship, instruction, fellowship, and the celebration of rituals such as baptism and Eucharist. Often it was the owner of the home who was the leader of the church.

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

Pontius Pilate

Roman aristocrat who served as the governor of Judea from 26 to 36 C.E., and who was responsible for ordering Jesus' crucifixion.

Tacitus

Roman historian of the early second century C.E., whose multivolume work The Annals of Rome provides substantial information about Roman history from the beginning down to his own time.

The term "canon" means:

Ruler

Herod the Great

Ruler of all of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea (and so "king of the Jews") from 40 to 4 B.C.E.; this Herod was allegedly ruling when Jesus was born and is known in Christian history for killing all the baby boys of Bethlehem in an attempt to destroy the infant Jesus (based on the account in Matthew)

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

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

Scriptio continua.

Christ

See Messiah.

Augustus, Caesar

See Octavian.

Law

See Torah.

"Synoptic" means:

Seen together

Cult

Shortened form of cultus deorum, a Latin phrase that literally means "care of the gods," generally used of any set of religious practices of worship. In pagan religions, these normally involved acts of sacrifice and prayer.

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.

Herod Antipas

Son of Herod the Great, and ruler of Galilee from 4 to 39 C.E.; this is the Herod who executed John the Baptist and who was involved with the trial of Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke (and the Gospel of Peter).

At Pentecost, the disciples:

Speak in the native languages of those gathered

The first martyr in Christian history was:

Stephen

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

"We" Passages

Term used to describe a set of four passages in the book of Acts in which the author stops speaking in the third person about what Paul and his companions ("they") were doing and speaks instead in the first person about what "we" were doing. Some scholars take these passages as evidence that the author of Luke-Acts was a companion of Paul; others believe that in these passages the author of Luke-Acts utilized a travel narrative as a source (much as he utilized other sources, such as Mark and Q, for his Gospel).

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.

Synoptic Gospels

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which narrate so many of the same stories that they can be placed side by side in parallel columns and so "be seen together" (the literal meaning of "synoptic").

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.

In John, Jesus tells the disciples that after he leaves:

The Holy Spirit will come to instruct them

The Marcionites believed Jesus came to save people from

The Jewish God

Maccabean Revolt

The Jewish uprising against the Syrians and their king, Antiochus Epiphanes, starting in 167 B.C.E., in protest against the forced imposition of Hellenistic culture and the proscription of Jewish practices such as circumcision. See also Hasmoneans.

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

The most significant archaeological find for the study of Gnosticism was:

The Nag Hammadi library

In Matthew, Jesus explicitly teaches against

The Pharisees' hypocrisy

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

The Prologue

Antiochus Epiphanes

The Syrian monarch who attempted to force the Jews of Palestine to adopt Greek culture, leading to the Maccabean revolt in 167 B.C.E.

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..

Scriptio Continua

The ancient practice of writing without using spaces to separate words.

Polytheism

The belief that there are many gods, a belief that lies at the heart of all of the ancient pagan religions.

Monotheism

The belief that there is only one God (sometimes distinguished from "henotheism," which acknowledges that other gods exist but insists that only one is to be worshiped).

Ignatius

The bishop of Antioch, Syria, in the early second century. He was arrested by the Roman authorities for Christian activities and sent to Rome in order to be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena. On his journey to martyrdom, he wrote seven letters, which still survive. These letters are included among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.

For Matthew, the core of the Law is

The commandment to love.

Johannine Community

The community of Christians in which the Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles were written. We do not know where the community was located, but we can reconstruct some of its history using the socio-historical method.

Resurrection

The doctrine originally devised within circles of apocalyptic Judaism that maintained that at the end of the present age those who had died would be brought back to life in order to face judgment: either torment for those who had opposed God or reward for those who had sided with God. The earliest Christians believed that Jesus had been raised and concluded therefore that the end of the age had already begun (see Firstfruits of the Resurrection). In Christian apocalyptic thought it was believed that the rewards and punishments of the future resurrection would hinge on one's relationship to Christ, as either a believer or a nonbeliever

Farewell Discourse

The final discourse that Jesus delivers in the Gospel of John (and not found in the Synoptics), chaps. 13-16 (sometimes thought to include Jesus' prayer of chapter 17 as well); this discourse may have been created by combining two different accounts of Jesus' last words to his disciples before his arrest.

Octavian

The first Roman emperor, 27 B.C.E.-14 C.E. Octavian was the great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, and a great general who brought unity to Rome after it had experienced prolonged and bloody civil wars. Early in his reign Octavian assumed the name "Caesar Augustus," which means something like "most revered emperor."

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.

Talmud

The great collection of ancient Jewish traditions that comprises the Mishnah and the later commentaries on the Mishnah, called the Gemarah. There are two collections of the Talmud, one made in Palestine during the early fifth century C.E. and the other made in Babylon perhaps a century later. The Babylonian Talmud is generally considered the more authoritative.

Alexander the Great

The great military leader of Macedonia (356-323 B.C.E.) whose armies conquered much of the eastern Mediterranean and who was responsible for the spread of Greek culture (Hellenism) throughout the lands he conquered.

Who was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies?

The high priest.

Holy of Holies

The innermost part of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which was completely empty but in which God's presence on earth was believed to dwell. No one could enter this room except the high priest on the Day of Atonement, to make a sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Greco-Roman World

The lands (and culture) around the Mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great to the Emperor Constantine, roughly 300 B.C.E. to 300 C.E. (see also Box 3.2).

Chief Priests

The leaders of the priests in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Many of them would have been actively involved in the Sanhedrin; their ultimate leader was the high priest.

Which traditional symbol is the Gospel author Mark associated with?

The lion.

Historiography

The literary reconstruction of historical events; the writing of history; and the study and analysis of historical narrative.

Passover

The most important and widely celebrated annual festival of Jews in Roman times, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt.

Autograph

The original manuscript of a literary text, from a Greek word meaning "the writing itself."

Theophilus

The person to whom "Luke" addresses both of his volumes, the Gospel and the book of Acts. Scholars debate whether Theophilus was a real person—possibly a highly placed Roman administrator—or whether the name is instead symbolic. It literally means either "beloved of God" or "lover of God." If symbolic, it would refer to the Christian individuals or communities who were the author's intended audience.

Synoptic Problem

The problem of explaining the similarities and differences between the three Synoptic Gospels. See also Markan Priority; Q.

According to Gnostics, the world was:

The result of a cosmic disaster.

Equestrian

The second-highest socioeconomic class of ancient Rome (below the senator class), comprising wealthy aristocrats.

Sermon on the Mount

The sermon found only in Matthew 5-7, which preserves many of the best-known sayings of Jesus (including Matthew's form of the Beatitudes, the Antitheses, and the Lord's Prayer).

Which of the following sources was probably written to convert Jews?

The signs source

Which of the following methods seeks to uncover how a community's history affects the way it writes its history?

The socio-historical method.

Q

The source used by both Matthew and Luke for the stories they share, principally sayings, that are not found in Mark; from the German word Quelle, "source." The document no longer exists but can be reconstructed on the basis of Matthew and Luke.

Hellenization

The spread of Greek language and culture (Hellenism) throughout the Mediterranean, starting with the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Redaction Criticism

The study of how authors modified or edited (i.e., redacted) their sources in view of their own vested interests and concerns.

Septuagint

The translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, so named because of a tradition that seventy (Latin: septuaginta) Jewish scholars had produced it.

Docetism

The view that Jesus was not a human being but only appeared to be, from a Greek word meaning "to seem" or "to appear."

Adoptionism

The view that Jesus was not divine, but a flesh-and-blood human being who was adopted at baptism to be God's son.

Markan Priority

The view that Mark was the first of the Synoptic Gospels to be written and was one of the sources used by Matthew and Luke.

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.

All of the New Testament letters were written:

To particular communities to address specific issues.

In Matthew, Jesus provides the true understanding of the Jewish Law and shows how it must be kept.

True

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke most likely used the Gospel of Mark as a source.

True

True/False Jesus claims to be divine in the Gospel of John.

True

True/False: A wide variety of religious expression was tolerated across the Greco-Roman world.

True

True/False: According to some Gnostics, the Old Testament God was evil.

True

True/False: First John is better categorized as a persuasive essay than as a letter.

True

True/False: In the ancient world, books were almost always read aloud.

True

True/False: Jesus' genealogy in Luke is significantly different from the one found in Matthew

True

True/False: Luke puts more emphasis on Jerusalem than the other New Testament Gospels do.

True

True/False: Most ancient Jews were not a member of any particular sect.

True

True/False: Most of the Sermon on the Mount comes from Q material.

True

True/False: Revelation is an example of a Christian apocalypse

True

True/False: The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as keeping his messianic identity hidden.

True

True/False: The Pharisees did not have significant political clout.

True

True/False: The author of Acts chose to remain anonymous.

True

True/False: The author of Acts sometimes uses first-person narrative.

True

True/False: There are more differences between the manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament.

True

True/False: Valentinian Gnostics were often difficult to distinguish from proto-orthodox Christians.

True

True/False: We do not have the original copy of any New Testament book.

True

True/False: When society at large approves of a cultic practice, it is called "religious," while more marginal practices are called "magical."

True

Oral cultures tend to:

Understand stories as changeable.

Nag Hammadi

Village in upper (southern) Egypt, near the place where a collection of Gnostic writings, including the Gospel of Thomas, were discovered in 1945.

According to Gnostics, Christ:

Was completely divine.

According to Gnostics, the world:

Was created by an inferior, ignorant God.

Gospel

When this word is capitalized, it refers to a literary genre: a written account of the "good news" brought by Jesus Christ, including episodes involving his words and/or deeds (e.g., the Gospel of Luke or of Peter).

Polytheism is the:

Worship of many gods.

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

Zeus.

Pesher

an ancient Jewish way of interpreting Scripture, frequently used in the commentaries from the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which a text was explained as having its fulfillment in persons or events of the present day.

Tradition

any doctrine, idea, practice, or custom that has been handed down from one person to another.

On the way to Rome, Paul:

is involved in a shipwreck

Gnostics believed that ____________ was essential for salvation.

knowledge

Temple

n pagan circles, a temple was any holy place devoted to one or more divine beings where sacrifices could be made in accordance with established religious principles. For Judaism there was only one legitimate Temple, the one in Jerusalem, an enormous complex that contained the holy sanctuary and, within it, the Holy of Holies, where God's presence on earth was believed to dwell.

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

schools of philosophy

The book of Acts focuses primarily on:

the spread of the Christian religion

True/False: Pieces of writing that share a range of conventions are classified together as a trope.

true