Questions on the Decline of Assyria and the Babylonian Crisis

Zephaniah
1. celebrated the fall of Nineveh to the Medo-Babylonian alliance in 612 BCE
2. composed a short theodicy, struggling to find a purpose in Yahwehís permitting the destruction of Judah by foreigners
3. wrote during the reign of King Josiah, but most of the prophecies date from before the discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the temple
Nahum
1. composed a short theodicy, struggling to find a purpose in Yahweh's allowing the destruction of Judah by foreigners
2. wrote during the reign of King Josiah, but before the discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the temple
3. celebrated the fall of Nineveh to the Medo-Babylonian alliance in 612 BCE
Habakkuk
1. celebrated the fall of Nineveh to the Medo-Babylonian alliance in 612 BCE
2. wrote during the reign of King Josiah, but before the discovery of the Book of Deuteronomy in the temple
3. composed a short theodicy, struggling to find a purpose in Yahweh's allowing the destruction of Judah by foreigners
Which book ends with a psalm that may have been sung in the second Temple expressing trust in God?
1. Habbakkuk
2. Zephaniah
3. Nahum
Which is true of Jeremiah?
1. The king ignored Jeremiah, seeing him as an insignificant nuisance.
2. The king heeded Jeremiah's message, faithfully following the advice he gave.
3. Jeremiah was rejected and condemned as a traitor.
What did King Jehoiakim do when Jeremiah's prophecies were read to him?
1. He ordered that the scribe reading the scroll be executed.
2. As each part of the scroll was read to him he cut it off and burned it.
3. He repented of the injustices he had caused and begged Jeremiah to ask Yahweh to forgive him.
Which of the following is not found in the book of Jeremiah?
1. A description of the Temple and the symbolism of the objects within it
2. A collection of diatribes against pagan nations
3. Biographical sections containing first-person "confessions" and the memoirs of Baruch, the scribe who wrote down Jeremiahís prophecies
4. Poetic oracles issued during the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah
5. An historical appendix closely resembling chapters 24 and 25 of Second Kings
What did King Jehoiakim do when Jeremiah's prophecies were read to him?
1. He repented of the injustices he had caused and begged Jeremiah to ask Yahweh to forgive him.
2. He ordered that the scribe reading the scroll be executed.
3. As each part of the scroll was read to him he cut it off and burned it.
Which of the following best describes Jeremiah's attitude toward the long-term effects of Josiah's reform?
1. While he may have initially supported the reform, he was disappointed by the performance of Josiahís successors, seeing the reform as having become a way to cultivate ritual while covering up deep social injustices.
2. He rejected the reform from the beginning, calling it a pointless focus on ritual that could only detract from the real goal of ethical conduct.
3. He enthusiastically embraced the reform, seeing it as the only real hope for Judah's deliverance from the tragedy that clearly lay ahead.
Where did Jeremiah live out his last days?
1. In Babylon with the exiled community there
2. In Egypt, having gone there after Gedaliah, the Babylonian appointed governor of Jerusalem, had been killed
3. In the ruined city of Jerusalem with the poor people who had been left behind from the Babylonian exile
According to Jeremiah,
1. the God of Judah can only be served adequately in Judah, so removal from the land would be the greatest imaginable catastrophe
2. even if the holy city and all other national religious symbols were destroyed, God would still be present with those who serve him
3. Judahís faith depended directly on outward signs of Yahwehís presence and protection such as the Temple in Jerusalem
Obadiah chastises the residents of what nation for plundering Judah after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem?
1. Ammon
2. Edom
3. Samaria
4. Philistia
Ezekiel was
1. born in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE
2. deported to Babylon in 597 BCE
3. deported to Babylon in 587 BCE
Which of the following is not one of the symbolic acts reported by Ezekiel?
1. He refused to mourn when his wife died, showing that Yahweh would not mourn the loss of the Temple.
2. He lay for forty days on his right side to symbolize the number of years Judah would be punished.
3. He cooked his food over excrement, symbolizing the unclean food that people trapped in the second Babylonian siege of Jerusalem would have to eat.
4. He broke a pottery jar to symbolize Yahwehís breaking of Judahís resistance.
Which of the following best represents Ezekiel's view of responsibility?
1. Yahweh makes children suffer for their parentsí sins.
2. Now that the nation is gone, Yahweh will no longer punish the people collectively for the sins of past generations. Now each generation will be responsible only its own sins.
3. The disappearance of the nation does not excuse the families from their corporate responsibility to follow Yahweh, so Yahweh will continue to punish parents for the sins of their children and children for the sins of the parents unless all are faithful in their time of exile.
In the year before Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, (Second) Isaiah
1. warned the Judean exiles that their lot under the Persians would be no better than under the Babylonians
2. prepared his hearers for a totally new reality by calling Cyrus of Persia Yahweh's "Anointed" ("Messiah"), viewing Cyrus' astonishing conquests as a sign of Godís coming deliverance from Babylonian captivity
3. claimed that Cyrus would succeed in conquering Babylon, but would then become Judahís most formidable enemy
Isaiah of the Exile (Second Isaiah)
1. was a henotheist whose writings became the source material for later monotheists
2. continued a monotheistic theme that was clear from earlier prophets
3. was a committed monotheist
Isaiah of the Exile (Second Isaiah) presents Yahweh as
1. both transcendent and immanent
2. immanent, but not transcendent
3. transcendent, but not immanent
4. neither transcendent nor immanent
Which of the following is not one of the possible interpretations of the suffering servant in Isaiahís servant songs?
1. A single person who represents the covenant people
2. The covenant people
3. A person from outside the covenant community who suffers on behalf of that community