THEO Test 1

Vocab List of Definitions and People

apocrypha (aka deuterocanonical)

Books found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible.

These books were never accepted as canonical by the Jewish community. They are given a secondary canonical status by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

apostle

in the early church it designated them as the central authorities within the church. Most generally it means one who is sent. Others could be apostles in the sense that they were sent on missions by their churches.

Athansius

bishop of Alexandria, first person to list as a group the books now found in the New Testament (wrote these in his Festal Letter of Easter).

Babylon

located in today’s Iraq.

biblical languages

The texts of the Hebrew Bible are written mostly in Hebrew with a few chapters written in Aramic; the New Testament and the Apocrypha are written in Greek.

canon

is the standard (collection of writings) by which a religious community evaluates beliefs, practices, and ethical behavior.

Constantine

Roman Emperor who was first granted toleration to the church and began to favor it because he thought the God of the church had granted him the victory that enabled him to take control of the empire.

Some people thought that he had a role in the development of the canon, he did not, it was mostly already decided before he even came on stage.

Council of Trent

Anti-Reformation Council that met in response to Martin Luther’s questioning certain New Testament books.

Council included the first official declaration about which books of the Bible were canonical (In this decision they were following the lead of the Vulgate).

dead sea scrolls

The manuscripts found in 1947 in the Qumran caves around the Dead Sea. These scrolls provide some of the earliest evidence for the form of the text of the Hebrew Bible.

deuterocanonical (aka Apocrypha)

books included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons but do not possess as much authority as other canonical books.

Exile (of Judah)

When the kingdom of Judah fell at the hands of the Babylonians in 587 BCE

the Babylonians forced the leaders and people of Judah to move to Babylon.

Gnostics

beleivers in Gnosticism which emphasized personal spiritual knowledge above the church’s teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.

“Seek god inward”. Church obv hated this cus now they got no job lol

Hebrew bible (aka Protestant Old Testament)

Huldah

woman recognized as a prophet who validates a scroll, called “the book of the law [or covenant],” found in the temple during repairs ordered by King Josiah

Jerome

scholar who translated the Bible into Latin (Vulgate) which became the church’s standard translation for centuries.

Josephus

1st century Jewish historian whose writings give us important info about 1st century Judaism and the war in which the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed.

Judah

name of the southern Kingdom in ancient Israel, founded by the tribe of Judah. Capital was Jerusalem. Israel Canon only started to form 35 years before the kingdom of Judah fell.

Marcion

Went to Rome and tried to win a bid to become a bishop. He argued that the Hebrew Bible came from a different god than “jesus”. His proposed canon consisted of the 10 letters of Paul and an edited version of Luke. Rejected all of Hebrew Bible.

Messiah/christos

annointed one; appointing someone to do a certain task.

The early church narrowed the definition so that it only designates Jesus.

Muratorian canon

a list of canonical writings set down in the late 2nd century in Rome.

oldest known list of the books of the New Testament.

New Testament

the collection of 27 writings that the church added to the Hebrew Scriptures to complete their canon.

Old Testament

a Christian designation for the Hebrew Bible

Pentateuch

first 5 books of the Bible, aka the Torah.

Polytheism

worship of multiple gods.

Qumran

a settlement at the north end of the Dead Sea. The Dead sea scrolls were found in caves close to this compound.

Second Temple Judaism

the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Septuagint

a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around 2nd century BCE

Theological

term refers to understanding things from a religious perspective and understanding the world in relation to God.

Torah

the name used in Judaism for the first 5 books of the bible, aka the pentateuch

Vulgate

5th century translation of the bible into Latin. Becomes standard of church for many years.

Christology

the study of the nature and work of Christ. This field of study considers what it means to talk about Jesus Christ as human or divine and defines what the ministry and death of Christ accomplished.

Chester Beaty Papyri

12 volumes and contain most of the New Testament. These papyrus sheets are among the most important for determining the New Testament.

Codexes

manuscripts in the form of books rather than scrolls or loose leaves

codex sinaticus

the oldest complete codex of the New Testament.

Codex vaticanus

4th century codex of the Bible housed in the Vatican. It is one of the most reliable manuscripts for books of the New testament. However books at both the beginning and the end of the bible are missing from this codex.

Copyist

person whose job it was to replicate documents by hand to produce multiple copies of it.

dynamic equivalence

a type of translation in which the translator tries to convey the original meaning of the originating text and does not concern themself with retaining much of the original wording.

formal correspondence

a type of translation in which the translator tries to stay as close to a word-for-word translation as possible.

King James Version

translation of the bible into English in 1611. standard of english translation through out 20th century.

Masorectic text

the standard text of the Hebrew Bible that comes from the scholars known as the Masocretes who meticulously copied the text to preserve its integrity.

Also added vowels and accents to make the text easier to read.

papyrus

a type of paper made from reeds.

earliest copies of New Testament were written on this.

Scribes

anyone who copies documents by hand. In biblical sense, they are usually religious professionals.

Textual criticism

field of biblical studies whose primary purpose is to establish the most accurate form of the biblical text.

textus receptus

a greek text produced in 1516 by the scholar Erasmus. It became the basis for the 1611 King James Version. Recently found out that this text contains many errors and major additions.

Uncials

copies of the New Testament that are written all in uppercase and on vellum (leathery writing material)

Tanakh/ TaNaK

a common name for the hebrew bible within the Jewish community. Acronym based on the 3 parts of those texts Torah (T) the Nebi’im (N) and the Ketubim (K)

allegory

a literary technique in which an extended metaphor or story draws parallels between elements in the story and nonfictional characters and events.

Jewish scholars interpreted texts by using this technique, which is interpreting smth to reveal a hidden meaning

autograph

the original writing from the hand of the author. None of these exist for biblical books, only copies of copies exist.

John Calvin

He rejected allegorical readings and insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible, leading Calvinists on later centuries to develop the understandings of inspiration found at the beginning of the Fundamentalist movement.

John Chrysostom

Bishop of Constantinople and theologian. He advocated finding the “spiritual” meaning of biblical texts. (supported plenary inspiration)

The Enlightenment

18th century movement that said humans should rely on reason and empirical knowledge for truth.

Fundamentalism

a movement that originated in the 19th century in opposition to the use of Enlightenment methods and thought in the areas of theology and biblical studies.

inerrency/inerrant

term used of Scripture to claim that it is without any mistakes of any kind.

inspiration

the belief that God was involved with the writing and/or is involved with the reading of the Bible.

infallible

the belief that what the Bible says regarding matters of faith and Christian practice is wholly useful and true

God’s word is incapable of error.

Martin Luther

leader of Protestant Reformation who questioned a number of teachings within the Catholic Church at the time. He translated the Bible into German and wrote an influential commentary on many theological topics. Argued against allegorical interpretations of biblical texts.

Origen

Biblical scholar and theologian known for seeing 3 levels of meaning in Scripture: literal, moral, and allegorical. He thought that allegorical meaning was more important than the literal.

Philo

Jewish writer and philosopher. Known for his platonic and allegorical interpretation of the biblical texts of Hebrew Bible.

Plenary Inspiration

the view that Scripture is full of meaning, so a single text has multiple meanings (literal, allegorical, and spiritual)

the Reformation

movement that questioned the authority of the teaching and hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The movement gained significant momentum when martin Luther publicly questioned things.

verbal inspiration

refers to the view that the words of the Bible come directly from God and so contain no scientific, historical, geographical, or any other sort of mistake.

“How can a perfect God make a un-perfect Bible when that is from God?????”