Midterm Interpreting the NT

In 587 BCE, the ___ destroyed Jerusalem's First Temple and took many people into exile.

Babylonians. This is the starting point for the later hopes of return and restoration.

The Persian king ___ allowed exiles to return in 538 BCE; the Second Temple was completed around ___ BCE.

Cyrus II; 515. Returning home and rebuilding did not end foreign domination.

The intentional spread of Greek language, culture, education, philosophy, and religion is ___.

Hellenization. Alexander used shared Greek culture to help unify his empire.

After Alexander, the ___ ruled Judea before the Seleucids.

Ptolemies. The slides place Ptolemaic rule in 301-198 BCE and Seleucid rule in 198-140 BCE.

The Seleucid king who persecuted Jews to force Greek religion and culture on them was ___.

Antiochus Epiphanes. His reign was 175-164 BCE; attacks on Jewish practices helped provoke revolt.

In 167 BCE, Mattathias and his five sons began the ___.

Maccabean Revolt. It was a Jewish war of liberation against Antiochus and the Seleucids.

The ___ Dynasty ruled independent Judea from 140 to 63 BCE.

Hasmonean. These descendants of Mattathias combined kingship with the high priesthood, provoking controversy.

Rome seized Judea in ___ BCE following a Hasmonean civil war.

63. Jewish independence gave way to Roman control.

The ruler who governed Palestine for Rome from 37 to 4 BCE and renovated the Temple was ___.

Herod the Great. His kingdom was divided among three sons after his death.

Judas the Galilean led a revolt in 6 CE protesting Roman control and ___.

taxation. The revolt followed the re-establishment of direct Roman rule over Judea.

Jesus's death and resurrection are placed around ___ CE; Paul's letters belong mainly to the late ___ through early ___ CE.

30; 40s; 60s. The slide also places Jesus's birth around 6 BCE and Peter's and Paul's deaths around 64 CE.

The First ___ War (66-74 CE) ended in Jewish defeat and destruction of the ___.

Roman-Jewish; Second Temple. The slide places Gospel and Acts composition approximately in the late 60s-100 CE.

The revolt crushed in the 130s CE was led by ___, who was believed to be the Messiah.

Simon bar Kokhba. Its defeat ended realistic hopes of Jewish independence in this account.

The four Gospels are classified as ancient ___, focused on one person's actions and character.

biographies. Ancient biography concerns both what a person did and what sort of person they were.

A formal speech of praise, a background to ancient biography, is an ___.

encomium. Praise highlights virtuous actions and a person's other good qualities.

The NT book classified as history is ___.

Acts. Ancient history values significant events, eyewitnesses, thorough research, and accurate reporting.

The professor classifies ___ NT books as letters.

19. These are occasion-specific writings with relational ties, conventional greetings/closings, and advice or persuasion.

The two NT sermons/tracts in this classification are ___ and ___.

Hebrews; 1 John. They lack conventional letter features and are less explicitly tied to a particular occasion or audience.

The NT apocalypse is ___.

Revelation. Apocalypses use future visions, symbolism, numerology, and imagery in settings of oppression.

An apocalypse often predicts God's defeat of the community's ___.

enemies. The genre connects present suffering with visions of future divine action.

Ancient historians preferred ___ testimony and careful research.

eyewitness. Luke's preface describes investigation and an orderly account based on earlier witnesses.

A work that does not clearly identify its writer is ___; one possible Gospel motive was to focus attention on ___.

anonymous; Jesus. The Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, and Johannine letters are grouped as anonymous or semi-anonymous.

Writing under someone else's name is ___; the slides mention honoring a ___ as one possible ancient motive.

pseudonymity; teacher. This is different from simply not naming an author.

The seven Pauline letters classified as presumed genuine are Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, ___, and ___.

1 Thessalonians; Philemon. Keep the slide's scholarly classification distinct from an unqualified claim about all scholarship.

The Pastoral Epistles are ___, ___, and ___.

1 Timothy; 2 Timothy; Titus. The slides place these, Ephesians, and 2 Peter in a widely considered pseudonymous category.

Two kinds of evidence used to argue for pseudonymity are vocabulary/style/theology differences and historical ___ or ___.

implausibility; anachronism. These are scholarly arguments presented in the slides, not a claim that a named author alone settles authorship.

A fixed collection of religiously authoritative writings that sets standards for belief and conduct is a ___.

canon. Canon refers to a recognized collection, not just an individual book.

The canonicity criterion linking a book to an apostle or close associate is ___.

apostolicity. This concerns who stood behind the work.

The canonicity criterion asking how early a book was read and respected is ___.

established usage. Early use is different from geographically widespread use.

The criterion asking how widely a book was read and respected is ___.

catholicity. Here catholicity means broad use across Christian communities.

Agreement with other canonical writings and authoritative church teaching is ___.

orthodoxy. This criterion concerns the content of a work.

Canonization happened ___; its effects include leveling authority and minimizing perceived ___.

gradually; differences. The slides also emphasize theological diversity within the resulting collection.

Comparing OT versions helps explain NT quotations; Acts 15 follows wording closer to the Greek ___ than the MT in its use of Amos.

Septuagint (LXX). The LXX wording speaks of remaining humans and nations seeking God; the MT refers to possessing Edom.

OT Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books and Pseudepigrapha help explain Jewish history and belief between the ___ and Jesus.

return from Babylonian exile. Examples include the Maccabean Revolt, messianic hopes, and tensions with Rome.

The ___ give insight into a Jewish group that separated from mainstream Judaism and practiced communal life.

Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). The slides compare shared resources in the community rule with Acts 4.

___ provides examples of allegorical OT interpretation and integration of Judaism with Greek philosophy.

Philo. His relevance is philosophical and interpretive.

___ is the slides' best historical source for the First Roman-Jewish War and Pharisees and Sadducees.

Josephus. Do not confuse him with Philo.

The Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds, and Midrash belong to ___ literature.

rabbinic. These illuminate Jewish methods of legal and scriptural interpretation.

The Apostolic Fathers and other Church Fathers illuminate Christianity's development ___ the NT period.

after. Useful topics include beliefs, practices, leadership, and the canon.

Nag Hammadi/Gnostic texts and NT Apocrypha show the ___ of early Christian traditions about Jesus.

diversity. They preserve traditions beyond the NT canon.

Greco-Roman literature helps reconstruct the NT's historical, political, philosophical, and ___ context.

literary. Examples in the slides include household relationships and ideas about death.

Ancient/medieval interpretation (100-1500) grounds meaning in ___ intention and approaches Scripture from faith.

divine. Multiple legitimate meanings can coexist in this framework.

The ___ sense asks what a passage reveals historically about past events, subjects, or author.

literal. This is the historical level of the fourfold sense.

The ___ or typological sense asks about theological correspondences between the OT and Jesus.

allegorical. It concerns theological connections rather than simply a moral lesson.

The ___ sense asks how Christians should live.

tropological. Think moral conduct.

The ___ sense asks about God's intentions for the future.

anagogical. Think prophetic or future-oriented meaning.

Modern interpretation (1500-1970) emphasizes a single meaning determined by the human ___'s intention.

author. Historical and linguistic investigation seeks what the author intended to communicate.

Modern scholars also used historical/scientific standards to evaluate the ___ of NT claims.

truthfulness. This goes beyond merely identifying intended meaning.

Postmodern approaches increasingly locate meaning in the literary structures of the ___ and/or the engagement of the ___.

text; reader. The text-focused and reader-focused versions are distinct.

Postmodern interpretation recognizes that interpreters bring unavoidable ___ to their reading.

presuppositions. The slides reject exclusive validity for any single interpretive approach in this framework.

The theoretical study of interpreting texts is ___.

hermeneutics. This is the broad study of interpretation.

The task of explaining a text, or a particular interpretation of it, is ___.

exegesis. The word can name either the activity or its result.

A particular method or lens of interpretation is a ___ (singular).

hermeneutic. Do not confuse a specific lens with the theoretical field of hermeneutics.

Behind-the-text approaches treat the text as a ___.

window. They examine the historical world, authorship/editorial processes, and Jesus's earliest followers.

In-the-text approaches treat the text as a ___.

painting. They analyze plot, characters, rhetoric, symbolism, and other literary features.

In-front-of-the-text approaches treat the text as a ___.

mirror. They examine readers' identities and experiences and the effects of reading.

Historical, social-scientific, form, source, and redaction criticism belong ___ the text.

behind. They examine contexts or processes involved in producing texts and traditions.

The method asking why an author edited or modified a source is ___ criticism.

redaction. Source criticism first helps establish what material an author used.

In this course, ___ criticism is placed in the text and seeks the best reconstruction of original wording.

textual. Use the professor's categories, even if another course organizes them differently.

Narrative criticism studies plot and characterization; ___ criticism studies persuasion.

rhetorical. The OT-in-the-NT approach asks how earlier scriptural material shapes the passage's meaning.

Reader-response and theological interpretation/reception history are placed ___ the text.

in front of. Reader-response asks about reading's contribution to meaning; reception history asks about later interpretations.

Feminist, Black/Womanist, and liberation criticism foreground distinctive reader ___ and concerns.

identities/experiences. Womanist criticism focuses more narrowly on Black female readers; liberation criticism highlights political/economic injustice.

Both the ancient text and its modern interpreter have a ___.

context. Differences in time, language, culture, and social experience complicate communication.

The umbrella approach exploring the historical world behind a biblical passage is ___ criticism.

historical. It includes politics, geography, language, material culture, religion, economics, and literature.

The Jerusalem ___ was the central sacrificial institution, expanded by Herod.

Temple. Its distinct courts controlled access for different groups.

Only ___ could enter the sanctuary; Gentiles and ritually impure Jews could enter the Court of ___.

priests; Gentiles. Other courts served priests/Levites, Jewish men, and Jewish men and women.

Jewish priests were descendants of ___ and performed sacrifices.

Aaron. Roman authorities controlled high-priest appointments by the first century CE.

Local Jewish places for prayer, scriptural study, and social/legal activity were ___.

synagogues. They were more accessible to Gentiles, women, and others than the Temple.

Educated scholars who taught, interpreted, and copied Scripture were ___, sometimes called lawyers.

scribes. This is an occupational/intellectual role.

The ___ upheld oral tradition, enjoyed popular respect, and affirmed resurrection of the righteous dead.

Pharisees. Josephus also describes a balance between divine providence and human free will.

The ___ emphasized written Torah, rejected Pharisaic oral tradition, and denied an afterlife.

Sadducees. They overlapped with the priesthood, appealed to wealthy Jews, and stressed human free will.

The ___ often lived in isolated communal settings, shared property, and emphasized divine providence.

Essenes. According to Josephus they affirmed the soul's immortality, but not bodily resurrection.

Identifying the Dead Sea Scroll community as Essene is presented ___ in the slides.

conditionally (if that identification is correct). Only under that qualification do the slides add rejection of Temple legitimacy and community-centered prophetic interpretation.

The ___ or Fourth Philosophy advocated violent resistance to Rome.

Zealots. They drew inspiration from the Maccabeans.

The ___ lived between Galilee and Judea and disputed Torah and Temple issues with Jews.

Samaritans. They claimed descent from Israel's ten northern tribes.

The Jerusalem-based Jewish ruling council/court was the ___.

Sanhedrin. The NT portrays priests/Sadducees and Pharisees among its members.

Circumcision marked God's covenant with ___ and was performed on a male infant's ___ day.

Abraham; eighth. Genesis 17 supplies the covenant background.

A central Acts 15 dispute asks whether ___ converts must be circumcised to be saved.

Gentile. Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 7:19 emphasizes keeping God's commandments rather than circumcision status.

Sabbath rest is on ___; its OT rationales include God's creation rest and compassion toward ___.

Saturday; slaves. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 offer these two explanations.

In Mark 2, the Sabbath was made for ___, rather than the reverse.

humankind. The later Jewish examples show how seriously Sabbath restrictions were taken.

Ritual purity laws govern food and fitness to approach the ___ or ___.

tabernacle; Temple. They are not simply modern rules of physical hygiene.

The Qumran community maintained purity standards normally associated with the Temple and ___.

priesthood. Their approach was unusually strict.

Mark 7 shifts attention from food entering the stomach toward defilement connected with the ___.

heart. The passage challenges the complaint about unwashed hands and includes the statement that all foods were declared clean.

The Hebrew word Messiah means ___.

anointed one. In the OT the category includes kings, priests, and others, not only one future figure.

Later Jewish messianic expectations included a Davidic king and, in one Qumran text, messiahs of ___ and ___.

Aaron; Israel. The slides illustrate diverse expectations rather than one universal model.

The NT examples connect Jesus with good news for the poor and expectations of the kingdom of ___.

David. Luke 19 also depicts followers expecting the kingdom immediately.

The leading Olympian sky god was ___ in Greek and ___ in Roman religion.

Zeus; Jupiter. Greco-Roman religion was polytheistic, with deities overseeing different aspects of life.

Household religion included meals, shrines, prayer, and family rituals; civic religion centered on temples, sacrifices, and ___.

festivals. Civic and private practices placed worship throughout daily life.

The ___ was the priestess/prophetess of ___ at ___.

Pythia; Apollo; Delphi. She was a particularly revered source of prophecy.

Secret societies with initiation rituals and promises of enhanced life or afterlife were ___.

mystery cults. These differed from ordinary civic temple worship.

The ___ cult promoted worship of Roman emperors as semi-divine.

imperial. Refusal could appear politically disloyal or treasonous.

In the slides' account of Plato, the material world is a shadow of a higher reality and the soul is ___.

immortal. Bodies are presented as inferior material prisons of the soul.

The ___ taught that reality, including the soul, is material; gods are detached; and the highest human good is pleasure.

Epicureans. The slide denies an immortal soul or afterlife in their system.

The ___ taught pantheism, pervasive divine reason/spirit, and cycles of destruction and rebirth.

Stoics. The slide contrasts this with belief in personal gods.

Acts 17 depicts Paul debating ___ and ___ philosophers in Athens.

Epicurean; Stoic. The speech describes a creator who does not live in human-made shrines and is not far from people.

The slides estimate ___% wealthy/powerful, ___% middle class, and ___% near/below subsistence.

3; 7; 90. Learn these as the lecture's figures.

The economy of Roman Galilee and Judea was largely ___.

agricultural. Seeds, fields, vineyards, harvests, and hired labor in Gospel stories reflect this setting.

Judean Jews faced Roman tribute, annual ___ tax, local Herodian taxes, and transport ___.

Temple; tolls. Collectors were often disliked as cheats and collaborators with Rome.

A powerful provider of money, resources, or advancement was a ___; the lower-status recipient was a ___.

patron/benefactor; client. Clients reciprocated through honor, political support, and loyal service.

Voluntary groups sharing a trade were professional ___.

associations. Members paid dues and often shared allegiance to a deity.