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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is a teleological reason for myth?
(a) To compensate for the loss of instinct.
(b) To understand the origins of existence.
(c) To understand the nature of language.
(d) To understand the cause and purpose of existence.

2. Which topic does not fall under cosmology?
(a) Creation
(b) Revelation.
(c) The meaning of life.
(d) The Great Flood.

3. Who is Frigg, in the Norse pantheon?
(a) The goddess of the hunt.
(b) Odin's wife.
(c) The goddess of cultivation.
(d) The earth mother.

4. What does Leeming say the Great Mother personifies?
(a) The process of being born.
(b) Grains.
(c) The pains of childbirth.
(d) The planet earth.

5. For what does Leeming say the struggle among gods in the Egyptian pantheon is a metaphor?
(a) The invasion of Ethiopians in 2,200 BCE.
(b) Historical political and religious conflicts in 4,000 BCE.
(c) The human struggle against evil.
(d) The expansion of trade in the Mediterranean.

6. What does Leeming say about the birth of God?
(a) Leeming says that in almost every myth, God is born of a holy Mother.
(b) Leeming says that gods are born from almost everything in existence.
(c) Leeming says that there is only one God, and he was born of the Virgin Mary.
(d) Leeming says that gods can only be born of virgins.

7. What does Leeming say was the primary difference between the Greek pantheon and the Roman pantheon?
(a) The Romans used the Greek pantheon to justify their wars.
(b) The Romans became more philosophical and contemplative about myths.
(c) The Romans placed more value on the practical results of myths.
(d) The Romans placed more value on the gods as personifications of abstractions.

8. Why does Leeming say cultures give human form to Supreme Beings?
(a) Because humans tend to see their virtues as outlasting them.
(b) Because a Supreme Being protects them from the night.
(c) Because they cannot express the sublimity of existence without giving it a human face.
(d) Because they do not understand anything beyond human limitations.

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

10. Whose child is Horus, in the Egyptian pantheon?
(a) Isis and Amun.
(b) Isis and Osiris.
(c) Anubis and Isis.
(d) Isis and Geb.

11. What evidence does Leeming cite to argue for a single matriarch at the beginning of the Greek pantheon?
(a) Gaia devoured her offspring.
(b) Gaia created her own mate.
(c) Gaia killed her husbands.
(d) Gaia fought to enthrone each of her husbands.

12. To whom does Leeming credit the adaptation of the Greek pantheon the Roman religion?
(a) The Etruscans.
(b) The Trojans.
(c) The Aolians.
(d) The Syracusans.

13. What does Leeming say the Supreme Being represents?
(a) The beginning and end of time.
(b) The laws of creation.
(c) The possibility of redemption.
(d) The embodiment of kingship.

14. Why mystery does Leeming address with regard to human creation?
(a) Why humans have to go through rituals to regain grace.
(b) Why humans see themselves as fundamentally flawed.
(c) Why humans fall from grace so quickly after being created by gods.
(d) Why humans created gods to justify their discontent.

15. How does Leeming define cosmic myth?
(a) Myths that define the history of the earth.
(b) Myths that define the order of the world.
(c) Myths that define the constellations.
(d) Myths that explain the location of different stars.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What does Leeming say suggests a desire to escape from earthly existence?

3. What does Leeming say was the central organizing principle of the Christian Creation myth?

4. How does Bumba create the earth in Boshongo creation myth?

5. Who was the sun god of Heliopolis?

(see the answer keys)

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