CHR 150: Exam 1 Study Guide

1. What is hellenization? Describe the various responses Jews made to hellenization in the centuries leading up to the birth of Christ.
2. Compare and contrast the institutions of the temple and the synagogue in early Judaism. What purposes did they serve? How were they led and/or organized?
3. Discuss the "problem of the historical Jesus" and how scholars have addressed this problem in modern times.
4. Be able to describe the period of oral transmission of the Gospels. How do scholars envision stories of Jesus being circulated in the oral period? What factors eventually led to the Gospels taking written form?
5. What are some of the major themes of each of the four Gospels? How did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John depict the person of Jesus? What did they want their readers to understand about him? What strategies did they use to communicate their message?
6. Discuss the ministry of John the Baptist and its significance for our understanding of Jesus. In particular, discuss Jesus' baptism by Jesus as it is depicted in the four Gospels. How was this baptism a "problem" for the early church? What are the options for understanding what Jesus intended by submitting to John's baptism?
7. What did Jesus mean by the phrase, "kingdom of God"? What is the Jewish background for this expression? How did Jesus see his ministry as a demonstration or vehicle for the kingdom of God coming into the world?
8. Discuss Jesus as a Teacher. How is Jesus' teaching ministry portrayed in the Gospels? What, how, and where did he teach? What was the central thrust of his message?
9. Discuss the literary, historical, and hermeneutical aspects of the parables of Jesus. How does attention to these aspects enhance our appreciation of the parables? Cite examples from some of the parables from the assigned reading.
10. Describe the significance of the miracles of Jesus. How did the Gospel writers depict Jesus' ministry of healing and casting out of demons? How has modern theology approached the subject of the miraculous in the New Testament?
    

1. What role did Hellenization play in creating the world into which Jesus was born? Who were the key figures and what were the key events in the encounter between Judaism and the broader Hellenistic culture? What influences--positive or negative--did Hellenization have on the development of the Jewish faith in the time leading up to the New Testament era?
   
2. Albert Schweitzer's critique of the Old Quest of the historical Jesus was that 19th-century scholars had modernized Jesus and remade him in their own image. To what extent do Christians today fall into the same trap? To attempt to answer this question, discuss the "problem of the historical Jesus" and scholarly attempts to address that problem in modern times. How have the various quests helped to refine the contemporary understanding of the Jesus of history?
   
3. Discuss the process by which the Gospels most likely came to be written. In particular, what can scholars know about the period of oral transmission between the death of Jesus and the first written Gospels? What is your understanding of the degree of historical accuracy available to us in the four Gospels? What evidence would you offer to defend this understanding?
   
4. Discuss the significance of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus. Specifically, what did Jesus understand by this term, and how did he communicate his vision of the kingdom of God in his words and deeds?
5. It has been said that parables were the characteristic medium by which Jesus conveyed his message. What precisely do scholars mean by the term "parable"? What factors do modern readers need to keep in mind as they seek to interpret the parables of Jesus?