Final Exam Review Flashcards - Unit 2

Final Exam Details

• The final exam is worth 25 points out of the total 100 points for the semester grade.
• The exam consists of 75 objective questions, covering the major units studied.
  • 15 questions from the Islam material (Part 1).
  • 25 questions from the Judaism unit.
  • 10 questions from each of the first four units (Units 1–4).
• Students are encouraged to review the material carefully and ask questions in class for clarification.

Unit 2 Material

I. Key Terminology

• Recognize and apply these terms in context:
  • Qafzeh Cave
  • Red Ochre
  • Löwenmensch
  • Totemism
  • Talisman
  • Shamanism
  • Liminal space
  • Venus figurines
  • Baghor Stone
  • Animism
  • Göbekli Tepe
  • Megalith
  • Ayn Ghazal statues
  • Yangshao culture
  • Newgrange
  • Stonehenge
  • Cuneiform
  • Massebah (Standing Stone)
  • Enuma Elish
  • Eridu Genesis
  • Epic of Gilgamesh
  • Dreamtime
  • Songlines
  • Popol Vuh
  • Orisha
  • Olodumare
  • Ashe
  • Syncretism
  • Axial Age

II. The Earliest Religious Expressions – Prehistory

1. Ritual Burial & Symbolic Thought

• Qafzeh Cave (c. 100,000 BCE):
  • The oldest known intentional human burials.
  • Use of red ochre, grave goods, and body placement indicates early ritual and spiritual awareness.

2. Sacred Objects and Artifacts

• Löwenmensch figurine (c. 40,000 BCE):
  • An early totemic or shamanic symbol.
• Venus figurines (38,000–10,000 BCE):
  • fertility symbols, possibly precursors to mother-goddess figures.
• Baghor Stone (India):
  • Sacred outdoor ritual site with feminine symbolism.

3. Sacred Spaces and Shamanic Practices

• Lascaux & Trois-Frères Caves:
  • Home to some of the world’s earliest religious art.
    • Bird-Man of Lascaux: potential shaman in a trance.
    • The Sorcerer: complex hybrid deity/figure in Trois-Frères.
• Liminal spaces like caves:
  • Believed to bridge the human and spirit worlds.

III. The Rise of Sacred Sites and Institutional Religion

1. Megaliths and Astronomical Temples

• Göbekli Tepe (c. 9600 BCE):
  • the first known ritual complex, built before agriculture.
• Newgrange (Ireland) and Stonehenge:
  • Aligned with solstices; reflect sky-watching and seasonal ritual.

2. Ancestor Worship and Urban Complexity

• Ayn Ghazal statues (Jordan):
  • early ancestor veneration.
• Yangshao culture (China):
  • ancestor worship, dragon symbolism, matrilineal burial.
• Urban complexity:
  • Helped crystallize religious doctrine and social hierarchy.

IV. The Indigenous Sacred Way

1. Defining Indigenous Religion

• Indigenous religions are:
  • land-based, orally transmitted, and community-centered.
• Practices are:
  • integrated into daily life — no separation between the sacred and profane.

2. Core Concepts

• Animism:
  • all elements of nature are alive with spirit.
• Oral tradition:
  • knowledge passed through story, song, dance, art, and ritual.
• Spiritual specialists (e.g., shamans):
  • guide the community through vision, healing, and balance.

3. Ethics of Reciprocity and Balance

• Ayni (Inca):
  • give back what you receive.
• Ashe (Yoruba):
  • spiritual energy must be honored.
• Mitákuye Oyás’in (Lakota):
  • “All My Relations” — interdependence and respect.

4. Indigenous Cosmologies

• Dreamtime (Australia):
  • ancestral beings shape and inhabit the land; time is non-linear.
• Popol Vuh (Maya):
  • humans made of sacred maize; blood offerings maintain cosmic balance.
• Yoruba:
  • Orisha embody forces of nature; rituals honor Ashe and sustain community order.

5. Diversity and Syncretism

• Indigenous traditions:
  • varied and adaptable.
• Syncretism (e.g., Vodou, Santería):
  • blends local practice with dominant religions for cultural survival.

V. The Emergence of Writing and Myth

1. Proto-Writing and Religious Authority

• Earliest writing in Mesopotamia (Uruk):
  • began with accounting, then expanded to religious and legal texts.
• Writing:
  • centralized power in temples and made myth portable and permanent.

2. Sacred Texts and Cosmogonies

• Enuma Elish (Babylon):
  • Marduk defeats Tiamat; creates cosmos from her body.
• Sumerian Flood Story / Gilgamesh:
  • Utnapishtim survives divine flood — precursor to Noah.
• Writing:
  • gave myth sacred authority and helped build religious institutions.

VI. The Development of Israelite Religion

1. Standing Stones and Canaanite Origins

• Massebah (standing stones):
  • were common in Canaanite worship.
• Genesis 28:
  • Jacob’s dream at Bethel reframes a Canaanite sacred site as Yahwistic.
• Name Bethel (“House of El”):
  • reveals a layered theological history.

2. Merging El and YHWH

• El:
  • chief god of the Canaanites; YHWH may have started as a southern tribal deity.
• Biblical writers:
  • merged El with YHWH, creating continuity through divine names (El Shaddai, Elohim).

3. Mythic Parallels and Editorial Rewriting

• Creation and flood stories in Genesis:
  • reflect motifs from Mesopotamian texts.
• Psalm 74:
  • echoes Marduk’s chaos battle; Genesis 1 shares cosmic separation themes.
• Editors:
  • reframed earlier stories to claim YHWH as the one true God from the beginning.

4. Egyptian Influence

• Pyramid Texts:
  • reference resurrection, divine judgment, and heavenly ascent.
• These ideas echo in biblical texts:
  • like Psalms, Daniel, and the Exodus narrative.
• Pharaoh’s “divine sonship”:
  • is paralleled in Psalm 2:7.

VII. The Axial Age – A Turning Point in Religious Thought

1. What Was the Axial Age?

• Coined by Karl Jaspers, the Axial Age (800–200 BCE):
  • a global pivot point in religious/philosophical history.
• Traditions turned inward:
  • focused on ethical transformation, personal salvation, and universal truths.

2. Axial Transformations Around the World

• India:
  • Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism — karma, liberation, renunciation.
• China:
  • Confucianism and Daoism — virtue, harmony, cosmic order.
• Greece:
  • Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) — reason, ethics, metaphysics.
• Persia:
  • Zoroastrianism — cosmic dualism, judgment, salvation.
• Israel:
  • Prophets (Amos, Isaiah) — ethical monotheism, covenant justice.

3. Why It Matters

• Many of today’s dominant religions and worldviews:
  • trace their foundations to the Axial Age.
• It marks a shift:
  • from tribal ritual to universal ethics, from mythic storytelling to self-reflection and transcendence.