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The Bible as Literature: The Hebrew Bible

BEN52901

104a Review for Final Exam

Format

Study Recommendations

I recommend looking back through the PowerPoint slides and going over the review questions. Also skim back over the passages you read for each week. Know the main characters and main events. Think about what the passages say about God and his character. Consider what writers/redactors may have believed about what they wrote. Try to consider multiple perspectives for the different passages. Pick out verses or short passages that seem to be especially concise or meaningful. Also, for the final, think about different books and stories in relation to each other. Be prepared to compare and contrast books, stories, and characters.

Review questions

1. What are the three main divisions of the Hebrew Bible? Why is the Hebrew Bible divided this way?
2. Which books that we have studied are located in each section?
3. What is the documentary hypothesis? What are the four main sources?
4. What does it mean that the Bible is dialogic? Give an example.
5. Who are redactors? What is their role in producing scripture?
6. Explain the idea that the Bible is written subjectively rather than presenting an objective view of history
7. Who was King David? What makes him special? What important stories is he a part of?
8. How does David's relationship with God challenge some ideas of the deuteronomic hypothesis?
9. What are the Psalms? What are some of the different kinds of Psalms? What topics are commonly addressed?
10. What is the Song of Solomon about and what are ways it has been interpreted?
11. What are the wisdom books? How are they different from other books in the Hebrew Bible?
12. What are three kinds of parallelism commonly used in Hebrew Poetry such as in Psalms and Proverbs?
13. What happened in Israel's history after King David?
14. Who are the three major prophets? What do they have in common and how are they different?
    
15. How is the writing in the prophets different from other books in the Hbrew Bible?
16. What are five kinds of oracles spoken by prophets?
17. What are the stages in the rise and decline of the nation of Israel?
18. What are some of the ways that the beliefs of the nation of Israel are different from those people around them?

1. Why are there contradictions between different parts of the Hebrew scripture? How does that influence the way it has been, and can be read? What are some different ways that readers, over the centuries, deal with these contradictions.
2. Who are the major figures and what did they do?
3. Look at key passages and explain their significance.
4. Know who said what and why they said it.

Books you should know
You should know some key points about each of these books.

• What kind of book is it? How can it be classified: history, poetry, wisdom, prophesy?
• In which part of the TaNaK can the book be found, and why is that significant?
• What major stories and/or ideas can be found in each book?

Characters you should know