Midterm Short Answers Flashcards
1) What is Philip Davies’ historical answer for the claim that “the Bible” does not exist?
There is not one “Bible” It is a collection of books and not one single book. The term “a bible” is much better, no two bible contain only the canon. Due to various translations and editions.
What does “biblia” mean in English?
it means “books” as in more than one
What are the Names of two of the oldest Hebrew Bible manuscripts and in which century were they made?
The Aleppo Codex in the 10th century ACE, and the Codex Leningradensis in the 11 century ACE
What is a canon?
it is a list of contents, often of texts that some group consider to be sacred texts that have authority
What is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia?
It is a critical edition of books of the Jewish canon with some Masoretic annotations
What is the “Aleppo Codex”?
Is a bound compilation of the Jewish canon from the 10th century ACE
What are the names of 3 minor prophets?
Amos, Joel and Hosea
Describe a Christian anti-Jewish habit of worship that relates to the Hebrew Bible?
We give more honor to the Gospel Reading, often even standing for it, but never for the “Old Testament”
What doe the term “Tanahk” stand for?
It is an acronym for the 3 divisions of the Jewish scriptures: Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim. Which stand for the law, prophets, and writings.
What does the term “Pentateuch” mean?
Penta means five and teuch means scroll cases, so it means 5 books
What are two biblical books considered as part of the “historical Books” in the Christian canon?
Ruth, and Judges
Name three Apocryphal books.
Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees (I and II)
Why do Protestants not include the Apocrypha in their canon?
Because they were not in the Jewish Canon
List Five different Christian canons.
Catholic, Protestant, Ethiopic, Orthodox, and Coptic
What is the translation of “YHWN” as LORD incorrect?
because the word is actually unspeakable and deals with God who does not have a gender and Lord is male.
Three alternative terms of the Old Testament
First Testament, Hebrew Bible, Jewish Canon
Babylonian Exile began
587 BCE
Babylonian Exile ended
538 BCE
Number of Books in the Jewish Canon
22
Three differences between Jewish and Christian Canon
Books are in different order,
Division are different, Christian calls some of the books “Historical”
The Christian has the Apocrypha while the Jewish Canon does not
Three differences between Protestant and Catholic Canon
The Apocrpha is include with the other books in the Catholic Canon, while in the Protestant canon they are pulled out
There are additions to Esther and Daniel in the Catholic canon that do not appear in the Protestant canon
Different book order
What does J. Berlinerblau mean by the concept of “polyauthorism” in regard to the Hebrew Bible
that many contributed to the work in question, in this case the Hebrew Bible, as opposed to anyone author
Why is it important to recognize the “multiplicity” of biblical meanings, according to J. Berlinerblau?
so that we can begin to do away with our modern
Why do we need to get rid of the idea of the “author” who wrote the Bible, according to J. Berlinerblau?
there is no historical proof that there is any one single “author”
What is the significance of Julius Wellhausen’s work in biblical studies?
the documentary hypothesis
What is the “modern-empiricist epistemology” and what are its characteristics?
It is a shift that happened in the 16th century from literal understanding of the world to a more scientific world view. It characteristics are, scientific framework, a focus on history, geopolitical and technological advancement.
What characterizes the postmodern worldview?
is focused on deconstruction. . Part of its origin stems from the emergence of quantum mechanics, and it is interested in multiple, indeterminate, infinite meanings, focus on readers, a linguistic turn.
From what century is the oldest copy of the Codex Leningrad and why is this manuscript important?
the 11th century, it was used to create the many of the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures
What is heliocentrism, and why has it posed challenges to ecclesial biblical authority?
it is the idea that the sun and not the earth is the center of the universe, this started the beginning of science challenging ecclesial biblical authority, which had certin beliefs based on bible passages, and science started to call these beliefs into question.
What is the four-fold sense of scripture and during which time was it authoritative for biblical interpretation?
it has 4 levels of interpretation, the first being Literal/historical, the second Allegorical/dogmatic, 3rd Typological/moral/mystical, and 4th Analogical/eschatalogical
What is traditional date of the exodus event?
Around the 13 century BCE
When was the Babylonian Exile?
587-538 BCE
What date does traditional Bible historians give for the United Monarchy of Israel?
1000-922 BCE
When did the period of the Divided Monarchy begin?
922 BCE
When was the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom, Israel?
722 BCE
What is the traditional date for the exodus event described in the book of Exodus?
around the 13 century BCE
List four imperial powers during ancient Israel’s history
Babylon, Persia, Assyria, Hittite (
When was the Iron Age?
1200 -322 BCE
When was the Bronze Age?
3200-1200 BCE
Early 3200-2000, middle 2000-1550 and the late 1550 to 1200
Why can we not consider Abraham and Sarah as historical figures?
Because we do not have any physical historical evidence of them,
Why is Julius Wellhausen important in Old Testament studies?
he created the Documentary Hypothesis model
Name 3 minimalists
Thomas Thompson, Philip R. Davies, Keith Whitelam
Name 3 maximalists
Baruch Halpern, Dr. Freeman, Dr. William Dever
What is the position of the so-called “minimalists”?
the Hebrew bible was put into canonical shape during the Persian Period, does not believe in historicity of Genius to Judges, even goes so far to question historicity of King David.
What is the position of the so-called “maximalists”?
Believe in the historicity of Ancient Israel, will start after Abraham, not believing him to be a real person but will believe that large parts of the Hebrew Bible are from oral and written traditions that have trustworthy data.
What are the names of the 3 kings of the United Monarchy in ancient Israelite “history”?
David, Solomon and Saul
During what centuries did the 3 kings of the United Monarchy reign according to the traditional chronology?
1020-1000 Saul
100-962 David
961-922 Solomon
What were the names of the first two Kings after United Monarchy?
Rehoboam (Israel/Samaria)
Jeroboam (Judah)
What is another name for the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the Divided Monarchy?
Samaria
Jerusalem is the capital of what ancient state?
Judah
What were three socio-political, intellectual, and geo-cultural factors that contributed to the emergence of the modern worldview?
Colonialism, Reformation, the invention of the printing press,
What are the three main methodological approaches in Old Testament Studies?
Historical-critical method (authors and historical events) Literary criticism (the text itself) cultural criticism( readers)
What is the purpose of the Documentary Hypothesis?
To explain the compilation of the Pentateuch/Torah/Five Books of Moses-Miriam, comprehensively articulated by J. Wellhausen in 1878 4 sources: JEDP
Briefly describe a sample text that illustrates the principles of the Documentary Hypothesis?
the two creation accounts; Genesis 1:1-2:4a is from the P source and the Eve and Adam story 2:4b-3:24 is from J. J uses YHWH for God and P has more “historical” data
What are the four translation options for ha-adam?
man, humanity, human creature, earthling
What at stake in translation of Hosea 11:9? explain in 2-3 sentences
it deals with how we translate the words, wither it is “man” or “mortal” it is important because how we translate deals with authority, the “status-co” and ultimately culture. We negotiate not only what the text means but also how we read it.
Why is the date 722/1 BCE important in ancient Israelite history?
Samaria fell to Assyria
Outline the main parts of the book of Genesis.
1-11 Primordial Tales
12-23 Matriarchal/Patriarchal Stories of Sarah, Hagar and Abraham
24-36 Matriarchal/Patriarchal Stories of Rebecca, Isaac, and Leah, Rachel, and Jacob
37-50 Joseph Novella
Which biblical books are included in the Hexateuch?
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua
- Why does Robert P., Carroll maintain that “it would be unrealistic and purely speculative to suggest that by the end of the Persian period the Hebrew Bible had been written, edited and collated, so that it was in existence in a form similar to what we now know it to be by the Greek period.”
It excludes Ben, Sira, Daniel, Esther and other texts of a later period from the collection (ie, there are certain books included that are dated later than the assumed completion date)
- Why is it a problem that “the archaeological record of that (David’s) kingdom is exceedingly sparse” and how do archaeologists like Dr. Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University of Jerusalem try to remedy it?
it is a problem because the record we do have only points to a man name David and nothing about what his rule was like, Dr. Yosef is trying to find more archaeological evidence that will point toward the biblical transmission record being more reliable than was previously assumed. Through potter that points to greater literacy or burned olive pits.
What is the main dispute between the biblical scholars, Albrecht Alt and W.F. Albright, according to J. Maxwell Miller’s discussion in “History of legend? Digging into Israel’s origins”.
The main dispute is how they interpreted the biblical accounts and applied those interpretations to the epigraphical and archeological data. Alt placed little belief in the overall storyline from Genesis through Joshua while Albright thinks it is basically historical, but has no problems adjusting its details.
