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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What does Mack claim both Marcion and Valentinus offered?
2. What did Clement argue about the "new song" of Christianity?
3. What does Mack claim are the building blocks of the Gospel of John?
4. What does canon mean?
5. Who defended the centrist Christian position from those who challenged it?
Short Essay Questions
1. Explain the observations Mack claims are important about Mark's use of the pronouncement stories.
2. What evidence does Mack put forth that the attempts to move into mainstream Christianity worked?
3. What is Mack's argument about why John wrote Revelations?
4. What does Mack say about the "overwhelming concern" in the Didache about the practice of alms, gift giving, and supporting those who ask for hand outs?
5. What two strong desires drove Christianity?
6. Explain Mack's discussion of when the Epistles of Peter and Jude were written. What references does he use to attempt to date the pieces?
7. What were the two key arguments that the centrists tried to use against the non-centrist positions of Valentinus and Marcion?
8. What are the standard writing conventions used in the Acts of the Apostles?
9. What was Valentinus' story of the tragedy of the birth of the world?
10. What were the common values contained in both the temple system of sacrifice and the family system of rituals that allowed the translation of one into the other?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Explain, in detail, the mythologies that were used to provide the logic for the concept of Jesus' death and resurrection. Be sure to include information about the Greek myth of noble death, the Jewish concepts of martyrdom, the Jewish myth of the persecuted sage, examples of each, and how these myths tied into the Christ cult's concept of the death and resurrection.
Essay Topic 2
Compare and contrast two of the following Gospels. Be sure to include the time of the writing, the location, the portrayal of Jesus, the use of other documents to form a basis, and the individual additions of each author to the main story line. How are the two similar, and how are they different?
• The Gospel of Mark
• The Gospel of Matthew
• The Gospel of Luke
Essay Topic 3
Explain, in detail, Paul's letters to the Romans. Why did it differ from other letters? How does Paul explain the human problem that the gospel answers? How does he describe the Christ myth? What does he say about the resurrection? How did Paul tie in the Greek concept of self control? How did he change the view of apocalypse to fit the Greek concept?
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This section contains 1,055 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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