Exam 1 - Lecture Notes Flashcards
What are the two misconceptions about the academic study of religion?
- It’s NOT Sunday School
- It’s NOT about “attacking” faith
Religious Studies
An academic discipline within the humanities
How is phenomenology relevant to religious studies?
Studies the basic beliefs, rituals, practices, etc. of a religion
True or False: the “truth question” doesn’t get in the way of understanding a religion and its history
False: the “truth question” may interfere with understanding the context of a religion and its history
Bracketing the Truth
Practice of switching focus to understanding rather than the “truth question”
What question is asked when scholars bracket out the “truth question”?
“What do the people within the religion see as truth?”
What are the two other disciplines that address the “truth question”?
- Philosophy
- Theology
Philosophy
Asks the “truth question” about everything including religious beliefs
Theology
Asks what people should believe about God and other religious beliefs from a religious perspective
Which discipline adopts a secular POV?
Philosophy
True or False: Books compiled into the Bible were produced by many different writers, storytellers, and editors two to three thousand years ago
True
How do the Books of the Bible connect to the people of their time?
Books reflect their culture, folklore, history, practices, ethics, crises, events, and daily concerns
What were the languages that the authors spoke/wrote?
- Hebrew
- Aramaic
- Greek
Context includes the words surrounding the world and paragraph where the sentence is located and extends to…
- Chapter/section of the book
- Book itself
- Genre
- History
- Culture
What is the primary task of interpretation?
What did the ancient writer intend to communicate to
the people to whom the text was written?
Tanakh
Term for the Jewish Bible or Old Testament in the Christian Bible
What does the T stand for in the Tanakh?
Torah = Law
What does Na stand for in the Tanakh?
Nevi’im = Prophets
What does Kh stand for in the Tanakh?
Kheturim = the Writings
Judaism, Christianity, & Islam began by following the
religion of ________ from southern Iraq
Abraham
What was Iraq known as during time of the ancient Near East?
Babylon
What is the popular definition of myth?
“Not true”
What is the academic definition of myth?
A story that presents “Truth” from the point of view of the culture
How did most people in the ancient Near East believe
as a main element of the story of creation?
Creation started from a chaos of water
The idea of God bringing life through breath to the nostrils is similar with what culture’s account of creation?
Egyptian
True or False: People in the near East didn’t had an issue with multiple explanations of the same event
True
True or False: in the ancient Near East, people believed that deities owned different cities/countries
True
What is the general summary of the Myth of Enki and Ninhursag (Sumerian)?
- Creation occurs over a chaos of water
- Humans are created from clay and are made in the likeness of the deities
What were the names of the original couple in the Enuma Elish creation story?
Apsu & Tiamat
The Enuma Elish Creation Story belonged to what culture?
Babylonians
What brought about the downfall of the original couple in the Enuma Elish creation story?
Apsu = was killed by Ea when he tried to destroy the younger warriors
Tiamat = killed by Marduk for releasing sea monsters after the death of Apsu
What is the Ea-Enki account of the creation of humans?
Ea-Enki - male deity gives birth; humans made from clay with blood of a deity
What is the Nintu-Mami account of the creation of humans?
Nintu-Mami takes saliva from council and mixes it with clay to create humans
What account for the creation of humans involves both Ea-Enki and Nintu-Mami?
Ea-Enki conceives 14 humans with Nintu-Mami and shaped from clay
Why did Enlil want to bring about the flood according to the Babylonians?
Humans were making too much noise and it disrupted their sleep
How does Ea-Enki eventually tells Atrahasis about the upcoming flood?
Talks to himself/Atrahasis in a dream and tells him to build a boat with his animals and family
Why is Enkidu executed in the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Enkidu, along with Gilgamesh, killed the Bull of Heaven sent after them by Ishtar after Gilgamesh rejected her
What happens to Utnapishtim and his wife after the flood?
Enlil grants them both immortality
What was the Earth viewed as before the creation in Genesis?
A dark, formless void until a wind from God swept over the faces of the waters
How was God’s creation of the Earth divided?
Divided up the creation of Earth in seven days
What did God create on the first day in Genesis?
Light and darkness (day and night)
What did God create on the second day in Genesis?
Dome, separation of waters from the waters
What did God create on the third day in Genesis?
Dry land and plant life
What did God create on the fourth day in Genesis?
Sun, moon, and stars
What did God create on the fifth day in Genesis?
Birds, fish, sea monsters
What did God create on the sixth day in Genesis?
Land animals, humans
What does God do on the seventh day in Genesis?
Rests
How does the KJV translation translate the word dome to?
Firmament
How was man created in the creation account in Genesis 2?
God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
How was woman created in the creation account in Genesis 2?
God caused the man to go into a deep sleep and took one of his ribs, close up the flesh, and makes woman from the rib
What is considered to be the Divine, sacred name?
Yahweh
In the Torah, when one finds LORD, this indicates the name is?
Yahweh
In the Torah, when one finds Lord, this indicates the name is?
Adonai
What are the four sources identified for the Torah?
J - The Yahwist
E - The Elohist
D - The Deuteronomists
P - The Priestly Writer
What are the characteristics of the J source?
Source likes to use the name “Yahweh” over and over
What are the characteristics of the E source?
Prefers Elohim (generic name) when talking about God
What are the characteristics of the D source?
Book of Deuteronomy
What are the characteristics of the P source?
Frequently includes items that would be of interest to a priest
What five books of the Bible are in the Torah?
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
What is the academic POV for history?
History is our attempt to reconstruct what happened
Pre-History
Events go far back that there’s not enough reliable evidence for them either way
What does the first account of creation in Genesis focus on?
Emphasizes the idea of one God that speaks thing into existence and the Sabbath as a day of rest
What does the second account of creation in Genesis focus on?
Primarily focuses on humans
What were the punishments given after the Fall?
The Snake = will no longer have legs
Eve = increased pain in childbirth
Adam = will have to work for a living
What was the sign of the covenant God makes with Noah after the flood?
A rainbow
What was Abraham’s part of the covenant God made with him?
Obey God
What was God’s part of the covenant He made with Abraham?
A Nation - God will give Abraham descendants who will become a mighty nation
The Land - God will give Abraham the land of Canaan as a place for this land to live
A Blessing to the Nations - they will be a blessing to the other nations of the world
What was the basic concept of God’s Chosen People?
- Basic idea is that God takes one man who obeys God
- From the man and his wife, God develops a nation of people who obey
- Living in their land, they become an example to the rest of the world of what it means to obey God
What did God asked Abraham, his son, and slaves to do as part of the covenant?
Be circumcised
What are the three parts of Exodus?
Egypt - Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel chapters 1-12
Mt Sinai - institution of a system of worshiping Yahweh ch. 19-40
The Wilderness Trek - 12:37-19:2 serves as a linking of the two settings
What was the name that Abraham, Isaac, and Israel knew God as?
“El on the Mountain”
In Exodus, how many plagues did Moses cast onto the Egyptians?
10
In Psalm 78, how many plagues did Moses cast onto the Egyptians?
7
In Psalm 105, how many plagues did Moses cast onto the Egyptians?
8
What was the plague that finally made Pharoah to let the Israelites go?
The death of every Egyptian’s firstborn child or animal
How would the messenger know not to kill the firstborns of the Israelites?
Israelites had to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood on their doorposts
The events of the Exodus would form the basis of what holiday?
Passover
The Exodus are told in how many versions?
3
Which version told of Moses stretching out his hand to part the waters?
P - The Priestly Writer
Which version told of God driving back the sea with an east wind?
J/E sources
Most scholars date the events of Exodus occuring in what timeframe?
About 1290 - 1250 BCE
What are some of the historical issues concerning the Exodus?
- Doubts over a population growing from 70 to 2-3 million by the time of Exodus
- Questions over how a 600,000 army would fear the Egyptians
- No record of the Exodus occurred in Egyptian history
- No archaeological evidence of the Israelites living in Egypt or wondering the wilderness
True or False: Israel’s case laws are clearly copied and adapted from law codes of other, older countries
True
What king of Judah discovered the law code of what was some of the chapters from Deuteronomy?
Josiah
What does DTR1 refer to?
Deuteronomy (1st edition), which contained edits to the law code and add material to it
When was DTR2 created?
Around 560 BCE during the exile
What additions/differences were in DTR2?
Edited DTR1 and added some more material
Which chapters in Deuteronomy comprised DTR1?
Chapters 5-30
What chapters in Deuteronomy comprised DTR2?
Chapters 1-5 and 31-34
Pseduonymity
Placing someone else’s name on a book as though that person wrote it
Why was El never attacked in the Bible?
Evidence seems to prove that they knew El was the
original God of Israel worshiped by people in the past
What is the name of the first book in the Nevi’im?
Joshua
What are the three major sections of the Nevi’im?
- Historical books/former prophets
- Major prophets
- The 12/Minor prophets
When did the events in Joshua occurred according to scholars?
1250 - 1200 BCE
What summarizes the main actions in the Book of Joshua?
Joshua and the armies of Israel attacking and destroying city after city to take over the land of Canaan
What is the name of the woman in Jericho who hid the Israelite spies and who her and her family were later protected?
Rahab
What was the role of corporate identity in ancient Israel?
The individual is identified with the group and the group with the individual
How does the Book of Judges depict Joshua and the Conquest?
One finds the tribes of Israel living the land, surrounded everywhere by Canaanites and Philistines, and gets in local wars as they gradually take over Canaan
Herem
To destroy something in religious devotion
How is Mesha’s Stele similar to the Book of Joshua?
Mesha believed that Kamosh tells him to attack and kill Israelites
