Test 3 Study Guide Flashcards
What are the 3 prophetic themes of promise?
- Promise of land; rooted in patriarchal traditions
- Election-Redemption- People of God
- Promise to David and Election of Zion “Jerusalem tradition”
How does Isaiah formulate his theme of promises?
- for the future in terms of Jerusalem traditions, the election of Zion and David
- does NOT speak of patriarchs, exodus, or Sinai covenant
Define Apocalyptic
revelation, discourse, unveiling
What are the characteristics of apocalyptic literature?
- pseudonymous
- 2 ages: this age, age to come
- elaborate symbolism (requires interpreter)
- expectation of imminent end of history
- concept of salvation discontinuous w/ history
How does Apocalyptic tradition view the concept of time?
God breaking into history and changing it.
How are prophecy and apocalyptic tradition mixed?
Apocalyptic witness extension of prophetic tradition, blurs line between classical prophecy and proto-apocalyptic
What is the most famous example of apocalyptic tradition?
Revelation
What are Child’s claims about prophecy vs. Apocalyptic?
- New apocalyptic features stand in both continuity and discontinuity w/ the earlier prophetic material
- redactor concealed own identity (pseudonymous), never introduced as independent author
- literary composition, NOT delivered as oracles in manner akin to pre-exilic prophecy
- Symbolism typifying good and evil
- does not conform to precise form-critical category
What is the evidence for the redactor concealing his identity?
- historical and sociological setting unclear
- difficult to date material
Describe the symbolism used in apocalyptic literature?
- general enough to be recycled not specific enough to attach to a given historical event w/ certainty
What is the canonical setting of the book of Daniel?
- Masoretic Text: 3rd in writings, between Esther and Ezra
- Septuagint: Prophets
What are the interpretative challenges of Daniel?
- Chapters 1 through 6 are narrative in 3rd person and chapters 7 through 12 are visions in 1st person
- literary and historical setting
- Who Daniel the person was: not presented as prophet; does not address an audience of hearers interprets visions
What are the wisdom traditions?
- Job
- Proverbs
- Ecclesiastes
- Song of Solomon
- Apocryphal: Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon
According to Childs, who functions as the traditional source of wisdom in the OT?
Solomon
What are the arguments for a late wisdom movement?
- late 19th century/early 20th century OT scholarship
- foreign importation into Israel
- Reason: Canonical Wisdom said nothing about Israel’s sacred history, cult, or covenant
What are the arguments for an early wisdom movement?
- during the early monarchy, wisdom appears to have been nurtured in royal court and as a didactic tool for the education of children (wisdom of parents)
Early wisdom
- short, pithy statements
- secular
- international
Late wisdom
- long didactic poems
- religious language
- Israelite
What is the assumption of form criticism?
somewhat substantiated by Apocryphal Wisdom which unlike canonical wisdom, mentions Israel’s sacred history
What is wisdom’s unique approach reality?
- stems from an experience w/ typical elements of created order
- wisdom penetrates all of Israel’s sacred traditions
- the historical and prophetic traditions exerted little influence on wisdom corpus (conclusion wisdom is as old as others)
What is William McKane’s assumption on the development of the wisdom tradition?
secular, non-traditional stage of old wisdom -> later religious appropriation
What was William McKane’s analysis of Proverbs?
A material: focus on individual
B material: focus on group, targets anti-social behavior
C material: theological language, reinterpretation of material
What are the final observations about the Wisdom Traditions?
- Wisdom is a gift from God.
- One acquires wisdom through diligent search of it in this world.
- Wisdom is a mediator of God’s self-revelation in the world.
What is the scope of the Psalms Tradition?
- forms of liturgical poetry appear outside the Psalter (song of Moses)
- genres it appears in are law, history, and prophecy
Who is the Patron of the Psalms?
David
- psalter extend from Israel’s earliest to latest periods
- often impossible to date: compositions to specific historical events
Describe the Psalm Tradition
- ongoing reflection of whole span of Israel’s life before God
- fluctuates from moments of high exaltation to those of deepest grief and despair (every kind of experience and emotion, reflects what life is: ups and downs and in between)
- God as the point of reference, therefore the object of praise or complaint
- Israel expressed itself as living between past and the future in its experience with God
What are the sociological settings of the Psalms according to Gunkel?
- Hymn
- Complaint
- Royal
- Thank offering song
What is the critique to Gunkel’s theory?
less successful in penetrating the theological dimension of the Psalter
What are the Hermeneutical Observations of the Psalm Tradition? (5)
- not a system of doctrine nor description of ancient religious piety
- study of Psalter can’t be limited to sociological analysis of religious culture nor psychological probings into emotional responses
- regardless of genre, the psalms remain focused on God’s rule, mercy, righteousness, and power
- the agony of the Psalmist intensifies when he’s unable to comprehend his own suffering in the light of his unswerving commitment to his faith
- Atheism wasn’t an option
What are the theories behind the psalms of mixed forms?
Gunkel: part of the process of deterioration
Modern Approach: change, growth, loosening of traditional conventions
Why do we have a privileged status with the Bible?
- vehicle through which Early Church bore witness to Jesus as the grounds of faith and practice
- functions authoritatively for successive generations (their witness, our confession)
Kerygma
preaching, proclamation
Didache
teaching
Nature of the NT material
- NT literature is kerygmatic
- NT is not a continuation of traditional trajectories from OT (not midrash, not last chapter of story)
How are the OT and NT different?
- distinctive tradio-historical development
- wide range of diversity
- discrete historical context
- different tradent (church not synagogue)
What is the distinctive features of the NT?
- witness arose from early church’s encounters w/ resurrected Jesus, NOT from scholarly reflection on sacred texts
- New revelation of God’s will has been made in terms of its relation to God’s prior commitment to Israel
What’s the proper function of the diachronic?
- usefulness of recovery depth dimension w/in kerygma
How does the proper use of the diachronic aid the interpreter in understanding direction in which tradition grew?
- optically: facts of gospels preceded witness of Paul
- historically: Paul’s witness preceded composition of gospels
- NT tradition developed from primary witness to exalted Christ (Paul) to a theological concern to relate witness to earthly Jesus w/ resurrected Lord
What else does the proper function of diachronic aid?
- aids in correlating the witness to the concrete life of the EC w/ its changing historical and cultural situation
- aids interpreter in understanding the range of kerygmatic diversity and establishing nature of unity
What is the nature of the church’s earliest proclamation? (3)
- not moral exhortation or instruction
- not continuation of Jesus’ teaching
- ## reviewing of events of Jesus’ earthly life
What are the common features of Kerygma according to CH Dodd?
- Birth
- Death
- Burial
- Resurrection
- Exaltation
- Coming again as judge and savior
- Reconstructed from fragments from Paul’s letters
- the fulfillment of prophecy of new age inaugurated by Christ
What was Dunn’s critique on kerygma?
- Abstracting a pattern that NEVER functioned that way in any NT text
- Diversity of earliest Christianity demands that the term kerygma be replaced by kerygmata
- He contemplated the relationship between the preaching of the earthly Jesus and the proclamation of the church to the exalted Christ
What was Bultmann’s critique of Kerygma?
- emphasized diversity
- to heighten the theological diversity to emphasize the elements of discontinuity and change
- believed the witness evolved, became more complex as gospel moved geographically and between cultures
- went too far
What is Child’s critique of Bultmann’s critique on Hellenism?
- allow the true elements of diversity or unity to emerge through detailed historical study of the individual elements of the early tradition
- Hengel: fluid relationship between Judaism and Hellenism; avoid using geographic terminology to chart a major theological difference
Orthodoxy in the NT?
- never was a uniform concept of orthodoxy
- different factions competed hegemony throughout the 2nd century
- when one party emerged as victor, it laid claim to orthodoxy and stigmatized the opposition as heretical
- “orthodoxy”= whatever the people in power decided was right
What are Henry Turner’s thoughts on orthodoxy?
- fluid line between orthodoxy and heresy
- common rule-of-faith at the heart of the Early Church
What did the earliest level of the EC’s tradition reflect?
the faith of those who bore testimony to the resurrection and to the exalted Christ
How did witnesses use the kerygma?
Freedom to expand and elaborate the message to fit with different audiences and situations (core content of the message not the outline)
What was the growth of the Kerygma rooted in?
in a genuine historical process (not a rewrite of history, not an ideological retrojected into the past by some faction)
Where did the testimony grow from?
from the Post-Easter experience and this kerygma was transmitted in a variety of ways as a missionary message beyond the circle of believers
Where did the origin of the Gospel tradition arise from?
from the explosive power which the resurrection had on the disciples
What begun with the resurrection?
- sharp discontinuity w/ Israel’s tradition
- the old came to an end; the new began
What was the role of the OT for the early church?
- OT had authority over the early church only in so far as it was interpreted by the Gospel
- OT was a depository of imagery functioning as a prophetic warrant for the Christ event, modified, altered, even rejected (large portions) for the sake of its new role in the church
- OT fundamentally shaped NT
What shaped the NT?
NT was fundamentally shaped by the OT
Final observations of the discrete witness of the NT
- exegetical techniques employed by Christians were held in check by the substance of the OT witness
- Controversy between Christians and Jews regarded the reality to which the OT pointed
For Christians, what was the witness of the OT?
- God’s purpose revealed in the history of Israel continuing in the life, death, resurrection of Christ
What was an essential part to the Early Church’s kerygma?
bearing witness to the saving events of Jesus Christ that occurred according to the Scripture
What was the critique of the Christological Titles?
growing skepticism that unilinear developmental schemata can be sustained by historical evidence
Assumptions of Christological titles
- primitive brain
- no movement of ppl or ideas (static)
- Existence of self-contained communities (isolated, secluded)
Prophet
- Jewish Concept
- Jesus is regarded as the final eschatological prophet in later Christian writings
Servant
- Jewish concept
- connected w/ Jesus’ usage of Son of Man
High Priest
- NOT a self-designation of Jesus, implied during his dialogue with the High Priest caiaphas
- fully developed later by the writer Hebrews
Messiah
- Greek equivalent
- avoided by Jesus, used in reference to Jesus’ parousia
- “Christ” became a confession of the early church
Son of Man
- Jesus favorite self-designation used by him as a first person singular pronoun
- reference to Jesus in earthly ministry, passion, parousia
Lord
- Jewish and Hellenistic Concept
- reference to Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation
- “Lord” became a confession of the early church
Word
- Jewish and Hellenistic Concept
- in Jewish thought, Word symbolized God’s presence
- used only in Johannine Writings
- reference to Jesus in pre-existence, co-existence with God, and role as Creator
Savior
- used rarely
- redundant, serving the same function as “Lord”
Son of God
- Jewish and Hellenistic concept
- part of Jesus’ own consciousness
- references to Jesus’ work and person
God
- inferred from the titles “Word” “Lord” and “Son of God”
- coincident with Jesus’ exaltation to lordship and status as the divine revelation
Diaspora
- Jews outside Palestine, scattering of Jewish People
What is the overview of Paul’s life?
- Conversion
- Missionary Activity
- Taken to Rome and martyred under Nero
What is Paul not linked to and linked to?
- not linked to church in Jerusalem
- linked to Hellenistic Church of the Diaspora
Characteristics of Hellenistic Church
-Greek replaced Hebrew and Aramaic
- LXX was the Bible
- Impact of Hellenism different philosophical thought patterns, cultural institutions, and religious traditions
What was Hengel’s critique of the idea of hellenism?
- No pure, hellenistic gentile Christianity
- from the 3rd century BC, the whole of Judaism, including the Judaism of Palestine, must be characterized as hellenistic Judaism
Paul’s specific antecedents
- jewish: pharisaic training, rabbinic background
- Christian: received traditions (historical, confessional, liturgical)
- Therefore, Saul/Paul is a hybrid
- Jew (Tribe of Benjamin) from Tarsus; Roman citizen; apostle to the Gentiles
How did Paul formulate his understanding of the Christian message?
terms of the “gospel”
Gospel
- Homer: reward given to a herald of good news
- Hellenistic Greek: good news (secular); sacrifice to the gods for good news (religious)
- good news announced by a herald
What does Paul bear witness to?
the eschatological meaning and explosive power of the Resurrected One for past, present, and future times
Differences between Jesus’ and Paul’s message
Jesus: Dawning of the Kingdom of God
Paul: establishment of salvation and God’s rule which had come
Why can’t the differences be resolved?
- a cultural shift in tradition
- a new sociological setting of Gentile Christianity
What does Paul develop and not develop
- developing the Christian gospel as the proclamation of justification by faith alone
- does not develop a systematic theology or philosophy of history
- argues theologically concerning implications of the gospel for Jew and Gentile
Who does Paul not address?
just individuals nor list himself to the christian church; lays claim to entire cosmos in the name of the gospel
Polemics
strong written or verbal attack on someone or something (offense); complements apologetics (defense)
What are the Jewish exegetical methods
- allegory
- typology
- midrash
- peshner (seeing how scripture is fulled in modern context
- catena (scripture to back up point)
What writings does Paul depend on?
- LXX
- does not cite apocrypha
Where does Paul quote from?
- 80% are form Pentateuch, Psalms, and Isaiah
- Favorite books: Genesis and Isaiah
- focused on Adam and Patriarchs
- little attention given to Wilderness period, conquest, judges, or monarchy
What subjects does Paul focus on?
- election of Israel and the nations
- Righteousness of God and the Law
What is central to Paul?
Christology
two fundamental assumptions of Paul’s use of the OT
- Paul takes for granted authority of scripture (yet it is his point of Terence and authoritative form him)
- Paul’s not interested in the OT for the sake of itself
What was Scripture for Paul?
scripture has (present tense) voice which speaks; living word confronting hearers now
What is the center of the divine promise?
Jesus not Torah
What is Paul not?
existentialist nor philosopher of history
Sui Generis
of its own kind; unique
What is the pattern that all four gospels follow?
Begin with John the Baptist and end with the passion
Do most scholars support the Q Theory?
YES
What are the 4 continuities between the gospels?
- Written by believers from a confessional stance
- Writers wrote with the knowledge that Jesus was resurrected
- Set the tradition of the earthly Jesus within context of OT messianic promise
- Used the form of a gospel, not a dogmatic tractate nor historical life of Jesus
What are the 3 discontinuities of the gospels?
- set forth revelation of exalted Christ in strikingly different manner to form varied Christological perspective
- Each function w/out explicit cross-reference
- Each evangelist (writer) brought own witness without depending on one another
Priority of Mark
Theory that Mark was written first
Messianic Secret
literary technique to overcome diverse theological traditions within church (“Don’t tell anyone what you have seen?”)
Why would Jesus try to hide who he is?
- Silencing demons (should they spread the good news)
- “Christ” is loaded term; substitute “Son of Man”
- Timing
Mark’s Programmatic introduction
Mark summarizes the content of his entire message as the “gospel of Jesus Christ”, a theological interpretation of the meaning of Jesus’ ministry
What half is the climatic half of Mark?
- second half
- passion is the climax, foreshadowed throughout
What “ology” is Matthew?
- ecclesiology
- only gospel that uses noun “church”
- fuses time of earthly Jesus and church
Which gospel quotes the OT the most?
Matthew
What is the purpose of Matthew?
sought to portray Church’s access to Jesus
Matthew formula citation for OT quotes
- “to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets”
- starts with historical event, then follows it by referring to prophecy
What provides a theological context for the NT?
The OT
What is central to Matthew’s gospel?
the Law
What is the purpose of Luke?
Bear witness to salvation that was promised to Israel and its been fulfilled through life, death, and resurrection
How does Acts extend the book of Luke?
Relates to Christ’s disciples proclaimed this salvation (connected by Holy Spirit)
Priority of Luke
Holy Spirit
Climax of Luke
Emmaus story
Purpose of John
bearing witness to Jesus’ earthly life in presence of followers, gospel is for those not yet to be disciples
What are the unique qualities of John?
- long speeches of Jesus
- Jesus going back and forth from North to South
- John calls Jesus the Word (uniquely applied by John)
- theme of witness
What are the growing problems during the birth of the church?
- separation of Christianity and Judaism
- Threats: Heresy (internal) and Roman Rule (external)
- shifting eschatological understanding of the early church w/ its receding expectation of parousia (2nd return) shaping institutional life of the church
