I. The Books, Their Interpretation and Their Message Flashcards
What is the oldest book in the Bible?
Job. Written in the time of the patriarchs.
What book omits reference to God by name? Why is it in the canon?
Esther. Esther shows how God preserved the line of the Messiah. The lack of God’s name is a device that the author uses to show that though the people are in exile and God is seemingly absent, he is nonetheless working by his providential hand. This is often how God works in the lives of ordinary people.
Who were the major judges?
Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson
List the books of “The Former Prophets.”
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings
Identify the pre-exilic prophets and the post-exilic prophets.
Pre-Exilic: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah
Post-exilic: Haggai, Zechariah Malachi
List and describe 3 Messianic Psalms.
- Psalm 2:7 You are My Son, today I have begotten you.”
- Used in Hebrew 1:5 to describe the Messianic Kingship of Jesus.
- Psalm 110:1 The Lord said to my Lord. “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool.”
- Used by Jesus as an apologetic against the Pharisees (Matt 22:44), as well as Peter in Acts 2:33-34, Hebrews 10:13.
- Psalm 22:1
- 1: My God my god why forsaken Words of Jesus matthew 27:46
- 7-8: Shaking their heads. Matthew 27:39 People passed by revealing him and wagging their heads.
- 15: Strength dried up John 19:28 Jesus’ Thirst
- 16: pierced hands and feet
- 18: parted garments, for my clothing they cast lots, Matthew 27:35
List at least three persons who were prophets or prophetesses who did not write a book of the Bible.
Elijah,
Elisha,
Nathan,
Deborah
What abuses in the Corinthian church did Paul address in his first letter to that group?
- Pride and worldly boasting,
- Divisions based upon pastors,
- Incest,
- Lawsuits among believers,
- Sexual immorality and marriage,
- Food sacrificed to idols,
- Lord’s Supper,
- Spiritual gifts,
- no resurrection
Explain what the following sentence means and why it is crucial to “handling accurately the word of truth.” The Scriptures must be read historically, organically, and practically.
- Historically: Relevant and specific to its original audience. The letter to Corinth is not written to me personally in the 21st Century.
- Organically: as a growing, seamless whole that progressively unfolds and reveals the themes and truths that were present in seminal form in the earlier parts.
- Practically: Word is useful not just for theology or truth but teaching, reproof, rebuke, training in righteousness. All Scripture must challenge our sin and call us to faith and repentance in Jesus.
Discuss the “Documentary Hypothesis”.
Hypothesis for the writing of the Torah. Divides Scripture into 4 author types, JEDP. Denial of Scripture’s self-attested Mosaic authorship and the testimony of Jesus, Luke and Paul. Undermines the organic nature of the Scriptures and attack the inspiration of the Bible and deny the ideas that the text explicitly expresses like authorship, dating etc.
What is the difference between “higher criticism” and “lower criticism”?
Higher criticism is an attempt to get behind the text of the Bible to it’s original forms: criticism like form criticism (where the original sources came from- Gunkel), genre criticism, Redaction (how the redactor composed scripture using prior sources), oral transmission, etc. These forms of criticism usually end up destroyed the texts themselves.
Lower Criticism or textual criticism uses extant manuscripts to determine what the original manuscripts would have looked like. As we tie inerrancy and infallibility to the original manuscripts, this is a helpful and important task.
What is the difference between a “historical-critical” approach to the Bible, and the “historical-grammatical” approach?
Historical Critical is essentially higher criticism in an attempt to get behind and judge the text. Historical grammatical seeks to discover the authors original meaning
Explain the typology of the book of Jonah.
Historical Correspondence: both Jonah and Jesus descend for three days and are restored to full life. Though Jesus will actually die, Jonah was merely in the belly of a fish. Jesus reveals himself to be the greater resurrection story because he truly dies. Both Matthew and Luke use this typology to condemn the Pharisees for their failure to repent at the preaching of Jesus like the Ninevites did in response to the preaching of Jonah.
Discuss the authorship of Isaiah; what are the issues at stake here?
Higher Critics have challenged the book’s self-attested authorship by Isaiah son of Amoz, largely because of supernatural predictions like those regarding Cyrus etc.
They break Isiah into three parts first (1-39) second (40-55) third (56-66) based upon theme and foretelling of historical events concerning Babylon.
At stake is the Scriptures integrity as it would be lying in claiming to be Isaiah writing to 8th Century Judea. Second, best evidence for splitting is a naturalistic understanding of predictive prophecy. Does not square with the NT usage of this book which sees the one Isaiahic authorship.
What is the “synoptic problem” and how is it solved? With respect to the four-fold gospel, enumerate some key similarities and describe the unique focus of each writer.
- The Synoptic Problem is a way of stating that Matthew, mark and Luke are so similar in wording and order that they seem to have shared source material. The Problem can be solved in numerous ways, including the Q Hypothesis–which states that matthew and Luke relied upon mark and a source called Q. Other like the Farrar theory thinks Matthew used Mark and and the Luke then used Matthew.
- Matthew - to Jewish, Jesus as Missainci Davidic king who fulfills OT Promises. Kingdom of Heaven, fulfilled
- Mark - to Romans, Jesus as authoritative Son of God. God’s triumphant envoy come to suffer and die to claim victory over sin and death. Immediately/now.
- Luke - to Hellenists, Jesus as perfect Son of Man, –saves and minister to all nation by the power of God and the HS. Son of Man
- John - to Greco Roman. Jesus as fully divine Son of God before Creation. The I ams through whom we receive eternal life. Believe/eternal life.
