Lesson 1 & 2

Question 1

Who is the earliest recorded written witness to the gospel of Christ?

Answer 1

Paul

Question 2

When Peter spoke of “calling on the name of the Lord,” to whom would his audience have understood him to be referring?

Answer 2

Yahweh

Question 3

How did the Jewish people ensure that they did not violate the third commandment of Moses?

Answer 3

They never said the name of the Lord

Question 4

Give the names that the translators substituted for YHWH in the OT and NT.

Hebrew: ____________________

Greek: ____________________

Answer 4

a) Adonai

b) Kyrios

Question 5

For many Jews, the words “Jesus is Lord” would have been the essence of what?

Answer 5

Blasphemy

Question 6

What does Paul consider the greatest evidence of Christ’s death and resurrection?

Answer 6

The Scriptures themselves (rather than the eyewitness testimony of the disciples)

Question 7

Why is the hallucination theory (that, in order to cope with their grief, one or all of the disciples simply saw a dream or a vision of Jesus after His death) extremely unlikely?

Answer 7

Over 500 people saw the resurrected Christ

Question 8

What proves that the doctrine that Jesus is Lord was not just a fabrication of the later church?

Answer 8

The gospel had already been around for a couple of decades

Question 9

What informs almost everything we do today?

Answer 9

Christian principles or understandings

Question 10

Finish these two sentences:

Jesus is the single most …

a) _____________________
b) _____________________

Answer 10

a) Influential person that has ever lived

b) Malleable figure in history

Question 11

What has every culture that has come into contact with Christian beliefs done?

Answer 11

Adapted Jesus in their own unique ways

Question 12

List five (5) religious groups in the Second Temple period

Answer 12

a) The Sadducees
b) The Pharisees
c) The Essenes
d) The Zealots
e) Christian sect of Judaism

Question 13

The Zealots formed a political movement that sought to do what?

Answer 13

Eradicate Roman influence and Roman politics/politicians

Question 14

Which two (2) groups believed in a coming Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and the supremacy of Scripture?

Answer 14

a) The Pharisees

b) Christians

Question 15

In the first century, “Greek” was not an ethnicity, but more of a what?

Answer 15

A basic cultural commonality in the Mediterranean world

Question 16

What was the goal of Alexander the Great?

Answer 16

His goal was to conquer the world and spread the Macedonian (Greek) culture to every place

Question 17

What was central to the formation of the New Testament and NT world?

Answer 17

The spread of Koine Greek

Question 18

What was the result of Koine Greek becoming the lingua franca of the entire region?

Answer 18

Commerce and travel increased greatly

Question 19

What sort of religion was Christianity from the outset?

Answer 19

Evangelistic

Question 20

Who is the hinge figure of Christian history?

Answer 20

John the Baptist