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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Leeming say the Supreme Being is frequently characterized?
(a) As a thunderbolt.
(b) As the earth.
(c) As the sun.
(d) As a snake.

2. To what does Leeming say the oldest myth refers?
(a) Plains where men sow seeds that unite earth and water.
(b) Oceans where life first developed.
(c) Caves where men are reunited with the earth.
(d) Primeval gathering places or mounds that become fused with the sun.

3. What problem or question does Leeming say cultures were addressing in cosmogonies?
(a) The question of how man rose to the summit of power over nature.
(b) The question of birth from nothing.
(c) The question of how life forms evolved and differentiated.
(d) The question of why men are stronger than women are.

4. How does Leeming define gods?
(a) They are projections of human dreams into enduring characters.
(b) They are manifestations of the collective unconscious.
(c) They are immortal beings who personify the transcendence of the laws of nature.
(d) They are metaphors for human experiences.

5. What does Leeming say cosmogonies represent?
(a) Future predictions.
(b) Scientific truths.
(c) Historical realities.
(d) Cultural truths.

6. Where is the Norse pantheon first described in writing?
(a) The Elder and Younger Eddas.
(b) Tacitus' Germania.
(c) The Nibelungenleid.
(d) The Kalevala.

7. What is eschatology?
(a) The study of the end of time.
(b) The study of fears.
(c) The study of Supreme Beings.
(d) The study of prophecies.

8. How does Leeming describe cosmogonies?
(a) As ritual.
(b) As nostalgic.
(c) As prophetic.
(d) As sacramental.

9. What does Leeming say the flood was for in Mayan culture?
(a) Destroying an experimental form of humankind.
(b) As an attempt to avert a war against the gods.
(c) As a way to help cultivate the earth.
(d) As a punishment for sins against the gods.

10. What does Leeming say about cosmogonies?
(a) That they are typically female.
(b) That they are typically allegorical.
(c) That they are typically moral.
(d) That they are typically linear narratives.

11. Who does Leeming say introduced monotheism to Egyptian culture?
(a) Osiris.
(b) Isis.
(c) Re.
(d) Akhenaton.

12. Where does Leeming say the Greek name Zeus comes from?
(a) The Persian for power.
(b) The Sanskrit for light or day.
(c) The Egyptian for thunder.
(d) The Sumerian for death.

13. What does Leeming say was the natural phenomenon at the heart of the Egyptian religion?
(a) The expansion of the desert.
(b) The death of each generation.
(c) The flooding of the Nile.
(d) The birth of new children each generation.

14. When does Leeming say the older Genesis text was likely composed?
(a) 500 BCE.
(b) 110 CE.
(c) 800 BCE.
(d) 950 BCE.

15. What does Leeming say is important about dying gods?
(a) Dying gods explain the seasons.
(b) Dying gods give men reasons to go to war.
(c) Dying gods let cultures experience death and resurrection.
(d) Dying gods protect humans from their feelings about death.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Leeming say the Great Mother personifies?

2. How does Leeming define cosmology?

3. The first recorded creation myth was part myth and part what else?

4. Whom does Leeming say parallels the serpent in the Christian garden in the Norse pantheon?

5. How does Leeming say earth religions still worship the Great Mother?

(see the answer keys)

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