Loading...The Birth of Christianity, Reli 208
Final Exam Questions
Your final exam is scheduled for Thursday Dec. 9 at (ugh…) 8:00 a.m. It will consist of ten short answer identification questions and two essays. The exam will be closed book, closed notes, and open mind.
The Identifications
The i.d.’s will be terms that we have covered during the semester, either in the reading or in the lectures. You will be allowed up to 100 words to answer each i.d.
As examples, you could be asked to describe: “Canon,” “Anchorite,” “Perpetua,” “The Gospel of Mary.”
You will be given some choice for the i.d.s – for example, I may ask twelve from which you are to answer ten. You should plan on devoting no more than an hour to this part of the exam.
The Essays
You will then have two essay questions , and should plan to devote about an hour to each. In this case, unlike the i.d.s, I am providing (below) the entire range of potential questions. I will choose two of these at random. On the final they will be worded exactly as they are here.
Please make your essays as full, informative, and well-written as you can, basing them on both the reading for the class and the class lectures.
Structure of your essay:
The best essays will state your thesis at the outset. The thesis is the major point that you will want to argue in the essay. It should be short and to the point. The rest of your essay will try to demonstrate your thesis.
For example, if your essay was about the New Testament Gospel of John (which it will not be!) you could state a thesis such as this: “The Gospel of John is different in significant ways from the Synoptic Gospels” or “The Gospel of John does not present a historically reliable portrait of Jesus” or “The Gospel of John presents the most advanced theological understanding of Christ in the New Testament.”
Once you state your thesis, whatever it is, then you begin to present the data and evidence that support it. Make sure that one point/idea flows clearly to the next, and that the entire essay is well organized.
There will be brownie points for (correct) details: names of authors and books, dates, and anything else that seems to contribute to the case you are trying to make.
Possible Questions:
These are the options from which I will choose two, possibly by rolling dice. Hey, wanna see if you would pass my class? Or see if you know enough about early Christianity? Join the blog and see what it would take! Click here for membership options
Are you considered a tough teacher by your students? Or a fun one? Or a little of both?
They seem to like my humor and excitement, but do get a bit nervous about my exams….
I am in New Jersey but I would love to take your course. Is there any way that it can be presented online or do you have a recommendation of any particular text that could give a methodical and solid foundation for historical Bible reading?
It’s not online; my only online courses that deal with this kind of thing are with the Great Courses. For reading you might want to check out the reader I use for my class, After The New Testmaent.
Hi Bart,
I was wondering if you could share the rubric for your essay questions
Haven’t come up with one! But maybe I should…
What, no multiple choice?
Can I assume that “God’s will” is likely not going to be a sufficient response to any of these question?
Not if you want a passing grade….
Your exam instructions for the essay questions provide a path for students to make sure they know a lot of what you want them to learn. I’d have loved to have received Instructions like that in college 50+ years ago.
As someone else once said on this blog, I’m glad I just do this for fun 🙂. Incidentally there was a recent article in The Tablet magazine about female Anchorites. I didn’t realise that they were effectively walled up in a cell and kept as virtual prisoners dependent on others for food and water, otherwise they would starve to death. What a life!
Dr. Ehrman, there is a small ambiguity in the wording of question 6 that you might consider clarifying.
“How can we determine if it was a “genuine” conversion? What difference did it make to the success of the Christian mission?”
The direct antecedent of “it” in the second sentence is “genuine conversion.” Perhaps this is precisely the topic you wish your students to discuss, but I suspect you are more interested in what effect the change of the head of state’s religion had Christianity’s operation and growth.
Cheers!
Do you think that the author of Hebrews had an adoptionist theology?
Also, question 9 seems fun. I’d choose gnosticism because we know very little about it so describing it thoroughly should be a short answer.
I”m not really sure. What makes you think so?
Heard that Hebrews was adoptionist on the net, so it must be true. But that person pointed to Hebrews 5:5 ““You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” This seems to indicate that Jesus was not God’s son before then.
Possiibly. I’d say Hebrews isn’t interested in later theological debates; he sees Jesus as divine but it’s hard to know exactly what he has in mind. Later Christians were happy to use Psalm 2:7 (that’s what Hebrews is quoting) to refer to Jesus but still believed he was the incarnate God.
Do they still use blue books for exams?ha
Somehow we thought just filling them completely out gave us a better chance at a good grade.
I wanted them to but they balked, so I’m setting up an electronic mode so they can type.
Dr. Ehrman, I would really be interested in *your* answer to essay question # 10. Surely you have covered this in one or more of your books. I have most of them. Is there one in particular that I could go back and review?
Almost all these questions are dealt with in the reading students did for class, my books After the New Testament and The Triumph of Christianity
My early odds are set that 1/3 of your class will fail this exam unless a curve is used. It is a great exam, but my faith in the rigor of students in a 200-level class is not strong. I hope I am wrong and that you are forced to hand out only “A”s and “B”s in the final!! The sheer number of potential i.d.s scared me the most.
Nah, they’re gonna nail it. You’d have to take the class to have all the info.
Bart, I am so glad I found you. I won’t go on about how glad I am that I found you, however it has changed my life and brought profound freedom to me.
I heard you say “I am a Christian Agnostic”. You explained that it is because you live by the words and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.. my question is what do you believe the words and teachings of Jesus to be, with reasons why please.
Thank you,
Marcile Petrilli
That would take a book! As it turns out, I”ve written one on it: Jesus; Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. If you want to see other discussions though, there are lots on the blog. Look under the category of Historical Jesus and you’ll see a ton of them.
In another (hopefully!) quick question related to “Forgery and Counterforgery”, and also related to the “Role of women in the early Christian Church” question on the exam above… you discuss the Didascalia Apostolorum and the debate about how much was descriptive and how much was prescriptive, favoring the more prescriptive side (i.e. women/widows really were baptizing, ministering, traveling, etc., and the author of the Didascalia thought that was terrible). My question is… any guess on why all these passages on widows specifically? Even in an era of higher mortality, surely there couldn’t have been that many widows in the early Church? Was “widow” code for a larger group of women? Author assumed married women would already be restricted by their husbands? Just seems a really specific & small group to target.
It’s hard to say, but I think they were bona fide widows. Lots of those in antiqutiy, especially since women were often 20 years younger than their husbands at the time of marriage.
Do non-religious studies students such as engineers take this course? As an engineer I would have failed your course miserably. Between my engineering courses and drinking in my fraternity, there is no way I would have spent the time that your course deserved and required 😃.
Yes, the vast majority of students in my courses are not majoring in religious studies, students from all sorts of majors.
Dr.Ehrman, can you recommend a historical survey or textbook that would be helpful to understand how the Old Testament cannon was developed and when the books were believed to have been composed.
Thanks
It depends how much you want to read. I have part of a chpater devoted to it in my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction, and some further reading suggestions there.