Biblical Analysis: Old Testament Narratives and Themes - Prof. S. Irvine, Exams of World Religions

Download Biblical Analysis: Old Testament Narratives and Themes - Prof. S. Irvine and more Exams World Religions in PDF only on Docsity! FIRST TEST ANSWERS 1. Torah, Prophets, the Writings. 2. a 3. d 4. b 5. b 6. e 7. b 8. (a) Jahwist; (b) Elohist; ( c ) Deuteronomic; (d) Priestly 9. (a) Jahwist; (b) Jahwist; ( c ) Priestly; (d) Priestly; (e) Jahwist 10. (a) Priestly; (b) Jahwist; ( c ) Jahwist; (d) Priestly. 11. oral, genre 12. saga; e 13. (a) divine promise; (b) delay in fulfillment of the divine promise; ( c ) faithfulness of Abraham 14. b 15. (a) Noachic; (b) Mosaic Sinai ; (c) Abrahamic; (d) Noachic; (e) Mosaic Sinai 16. d 17. rivalry between hunters and shepherds; or rivalry between in-laws; or success of the unpromising (ACinderella@ motif) 18. Edomites 19. c 20. the fulfillment of the divine promise of the land. 21. Jahweh, Pharaoh 22. cultic legend; annual celebration of combined festivals of Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. 23. Ramses II, 13th century. 24. king, God 25. b, Mt. Sinai 26. d 27. a 28. It includes the 39 books of the Jewish canon, but arranges them according to the four sections of the Catholic OT. 29. (a) Both accounts understand the creation as a matter of bringing order out of a primordial Awatery@ chaos. (b) The two accounts present similar stages in creation; e.g., light, then the sky, then dry land, and so on. 30. In Genesis 2, humans and the earth are closely related since they share the same substance (Aearth, dust@). Also, the man=s vocation is to till the soil. A word play reinforces the close relationship between humans and the earth: the man is an Aadam@(earthling) from the Aadamah@ (earth). 31. The Epic of Gilgamesh dates to 1700 BCE or earlier, and it contains a flood story that is strikingly similar to the biblical version in Genesis. 32. An etiology tells the origin of some aspect of life in the writer’s time, e.g., a custom or name (a) The divine curse on the woman explains the origin of the pain in childbearing and also the origin of the subordination of women to their husbands. (b) The divine curse on the earth explains the origin of hardship in farming. ( c ) The story of the tower of Bable explains the origin of the many human languages. 33. Genesis 12 narrates a divine call for a departure that will lead to the blessing of the patriarch. Genesis 22 narrates a divine call for a departure that will lead to the cancellation of the blessing of the patriarch. Each divine call begins with the distinctive expression, AGo for yourself.@ 34. God frequently promises many descendants and the land, but repeatedly the fulfillment of the promise is delayed or threatened. Thus the true intentions of God seem obscure. 35. The end of the poem supposedly alludes to Yahweh=s temple in Jerusalem, which Solomon built ca. 960 BCE. 36. Josiah. 2 Kings reports the cultic reforms that Josiah made on the basis of the discovered law book, and those cultic reforms match the cultic prescriptions in the book of Deuteronomy. Also, 2 Kings indicates that the discovered law book contained divine threats. Such threats can be found in the list of curses at the end of Deuteronomy. 37. Jahweh is the divine suzerain of Israel, and Israel is the vassal of Jahweh. The covenant laws are the stipulations of the treaty between Jahweh and Israel, and the blessings and curses are the consequences for abiding by or breaking the treaty. Thus the covenant theology in Deuteronomy has distinctive political connotations. 38. a. Genesis 1 is not directly dependent on the Enuma Elish. The two accounts are similar because they share in a common, near eastern heritage of ideas about creation. b. The structure of the Atrahasis Epic suggests that (1) the biblical flood is a divine solution to an antediluvian problem, and (2) the nature of that problem is reflected in how the world changes after the flood. Seen in this light, the biblical flood appears as God=s attempt to cleanse the earth from the pollution caused by the shedding of human blood, i.e., murder. 39. a. In the Jacob cycle, the patriarch and other members of his family continually deceive each other. Every act of deception is followed by an ironic recompense later in the narrative. The narrative glorifies God as a deity who can work through anyone, even despicable people like Jacob. b. At the beginning of the Jacob cycle, the narrator states that Jacob is an