1. Who said "Am I my brother's keeper?"
2. What prophet was thrown into the lions' den?
3. How did Samson lose his power?
4. What was significant about "thirty pieces of silver"?
5. Who fought the battle of Jericho?
6. Is the following one of the ten commandments?
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
7. Name five of the ten plagues of Egypt.
8. Who were Adam and Eve's children?
9. Whom did David slay at the beginning of his careeer?
10. What happened to Lot's wife?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: The Bible as a Book
1. How was the Bible put together?
2. Who were the Bible's authors?
3. What do we know about the "J" author?
4. What do we know about the "E" author?
5. What do we know about the "P" author?
6. What do we know about the "Deuteronomist"?
7. How does the Hebrew Bible differ from the Roman Catholic Bible, and the Protestant Bible?
8. When and by whom was the King James version prepared?
9. About what time was the "canon" (or canons) established?
10. In what language(s) were the oldest biblical texts written?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: The Accounts of Creation
Creation Story One:
1. From what original substance did God create the world?
2. How many stages were there in creation? What was created at each stage?
3. Why was man created last? Why not first or second?
4. Can you justify the order of creation?
5. When God said "Let us..." who is being referred to as "us"?
6. What is God's motivation for the creation? Is his reason for creating entirely clear?
7. What was God's charge to man and woman?
8. How might we describe the language of the story? How is it made effective?
9. Why did God need to rest on the seventh day?
1. How does the second creation story differ from the first?
2. What changes do you note in the setting, the language, the portrayal of God, the portrayal of man?
3. Are God's motives more apparent in the second creation story?
4. What is the sequence of creation?
5. Why was Eve created? How was this accomplished?
6. Who names Eve woman?
7. Why was Adam given the task of naming the animals?
8. What was associated with Adam and Eve's lack of shame?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: The Fall of Man
1. What is the significance of the two trees in the middle of the Garden?
2. Why was it forbidden to eat the fruit of only one tree?
3. What did eating this fruit represent?
4. Was there a snake in the garden? How would you describe the serpent?
5. Why did the serpent choose to beguile Eve rather than Adam?
6. The serpent denied God's promise of death for eating of the fruit; what did he say was God's real intention?
7. God stated the consequences of the disobedience to the serpent, Eve, and Adam. What were these consequences?
8. Explain the "dust to dust" statement.
9.. Being cast from the garden, Adam and Eve could not eat from the other tree. What would they have gained had they been able to do so?
10. What was placed at the garden's gate to prevent re-entry?
11. What does the story tell us about the relationship between God and man?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Cain and Abel
1. In this murder story, the murder is fratricide, the murder is irrational, the murder is punished. Explain each of these.
2. Does Cain kill Abel because God likes meat better than vegetables? What is his motive?
3. Cain asks a famous question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" He probably assumes the answer is "No." What is God's answer, implied by the text?
4. In what way might this story be about the importance of the family relationship? Is there any implication that killing a stranger or an alien is acceptable?
5. How does God show mercy on Cain before sending him away?
6. What reason is given in the story for the mark which the Lord sets on Cain? The mark identifies him as a murderer. Is that its intent?
7. What did Cain do after he "went out from the presence of the Lord?"
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Noah and the Flood
1. Why did God resent having made man?
2. How does God propose to rectify his mistake?
3. Why is Noah chosen as the man to survive?
4. What is the principle of selection for who and what goes on to the ark?
5. How does Noah determine that the waters have gone down so that he and those with him in the ark may descend to dry land?
6. What is Noah's first act upon emerging from the ark?
7. What decision does God make after the flood concerning the future of mankind? What covenant does he make?
8. How is this covenant symbolized?
9. Is the God described here more like the God of the first creation or the second? Explain.
10. Noah places a curse on Canaan, son of Ham. Ham had peeked into his father's tent at the wrong time. What do you make of this story?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Tower of Babel
1. What does this story, myth or not, attempt to explain?
2. What is the plan and purpose of the Babel-builders?
3. In this story, the people who were of one language wanted to build a city, and make a name for themselves lest they be scattered around the face of the earth. Was God afraid of their power?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Abraham and Sarah
1. The Abraham cycle begins with Abraham migrating. What does God promise him?
2. Why does the fulfillment of God's covenant seem impossible?
3. What makes Sarah laugh?
4. What plan does Sarah have to resolve the dilemma of her childlessness?
5. What results from this plan?
6. About how old were Sarah and Abraham when Isaac was born? Quite apart from whether the story is historically accurate or such a birth biologically possible, what is the intent of presenting this "miracle"?
7. Who interferes with Abraham's sacrifice?
8. Why was Abraham willing to sacrifice his son? What is the significance of the substitution?
9. As the covenant is renewed after the sacrifice, what is God's part of the deal and what is Abraham's responsibility?
10. Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's backward-glancing wife are common allusions among people who may not associate them with the legend of Abraham, but the story of Lot is an important part of the literary structure of the Abraham story. What is its point?
11. What sequence of events leads to Lot's residence in the city of Sodom?
12. Why does Lot's wife turn into a pillar of salt?
13. What happens between Lot and his daughters and why?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Isaac and Rebekah
1. As this segment begins, what does Abraham require of his trusted servant?
2. Does Isaac have anything to say about this marriage?
3. Where is Rebekah from?
4. Who is Rebekah's brother, and how does he respond to the emissary of Abraham?
5. On what basis do the members of the family finally decide to let Rebekah marry?
6. Why does Rebekah cover herself with a veil before meeting Isaac?
7. What is significant about Isaac's taking a bride from his father's homeland?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Jacob and Esau
1. Describe the birth of Jacob and Esau.
2. In the family feud, who was on whose side?
3. For what did Esau sell his birthright? What was a birthright?
4. Why did his parents dislike Esau's choice of a wife?
5. What was the blessing Jacob stole?
6. How would you describe Jacob's character?
7. How did Isaac react when he discovered he had been deceived?
8. Why did Jacob flee? Where did he go?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Jacob and Rachel
1. What did Jacob see in his dream at Bethel?
2. What did the Lord God of Abraham promise to Jacob and his descendants in the dream?
3. After the dream, what did Jacob vow?
4. When he comes to the house of Uncle Laban, who does Jacob want to marry?
5. What deal does Laban set up for Jacob?
6. In this somewhat dysfunctional family, who gives birth to Jacob's sons?
7. Jacob has to leave Laban's house in a hurry. Why?
8. On his perilous journey back to meet Esau in Canaan, Jacob has another bad night. What happens, and with whom does he get into a wrestling match?
9. Jacob won the match and gets a name change. What is it?
10. The only daughter, Dinah, is raped, and the family is naturally upset. What did the brothers do to get revenge?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Joseph and his Brothers
1. Joseph is obviously the pampered son. What does his father give him?
2. Are our sympathies early in the story with Joseph or with the brothers?
3. What was Joseph's first dream that he told his brothers? How did his brothers interpret the dream? What did the dream prophesy for the future?
4. What was Joseph's second dream? How did the second dream reinforce the prophecy of the first?
5. Why didn't the brothers slay Joseph? Who "saved" him?
6. How did the brothers finally dispose of Joseph? What did they tell their father?
7. How does this part of the tale provide a set-up for what follows?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Judah and Tamar
1. The Joseph saga is interrupted by this tale. Why? What is its purpose?
2. Who was Judah?
3. What happens to Judah's first two sons? Who was married to the first?
4. Why does Onan spill his seed on the ground?
5. Tamar is rather crafty. We have another story of deception. How does she get even with Judah?
6. Tamar has twins. Who is the father?
7. One of the sons becomes a progenitor of Jesse, the father of David. Why is this significant?
8. Did the significant descendants who were later important in Israel's history come through Joseph? Why, then, is so much time devoted to his tale?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Joseph in Egypt
1. Why was Joseph made overseer over his master's house?
2. What reasons does Joseph give for ignoring the demands of Potiphar's wife? What were these demands?
3. How does Potiphar's wife explain to her husband why she has Joseph's garment in her possession?
4. What happens to Joseph as a result of this deception?
5. What evidence do we have in this episode that the Lord is with Joseph?
6. What meaning does Joseph give to the dreams of the butler and the baker?
7. After saying that interpretations of dreams belongs to God, why does Joseph then proceed to explain the meanings of the dreams?
8. What does he request of the butler when his dream is fulfilled? Is the request granted?
9. What are Pharaoh's dreams? How does Joseph interpret them?
10. How does Joseph advise Pharaoh to plan for bad days ahead?
11. How does this work to Joseph's advantage?
12. Why does Jacob send his sons to Egypt?
13. With what does Joseph charge his brothers? How are they to disprove the charge?
14. Why do they not realize that Joseph understands their conversation?
15. How did the brothers second trip to Egypt differ from the first?
16. Why did Joseph place the silver in Benjamin's sack? What was Judah's response to the discovery and the demanded punishment?
17. How does Joseph disclose himself to his brothers?
18. Jacob is brought down to Egypt, and after many years Jacob and Joseph die. What eventually happens to Jacob's bones?
Questions of Fact/Questions to Consider: Judges
QUIZ360.HM
1. What is the significance of Deborah being a judge? What is the Song of Deborah?
2. What are the reasons behind Jephthah's vow?
3. What happens to Samson's hair? Who betrayed Samson and how? If Delilah supposedly loves Samson why should she continually try to make him weak? What were Samson's mother's instructions from the angel of the Lord? What did Samson eat from the carcass of the lion?
4. What is the "gift" that Ehud delivers to Eglow the King of Moab? What does he do with it?
5. Who killed Sisera? Why and how?
6. What two signs did Gideon request of God to show him he would be the one to save Israel from the Midianites? How were the final 300 men that went with Gideon chosen? Gideon made an unusual request of Jethro, his son. What was it?
7. Why did Ambimelech command his armor bearer to kill him with his sword?
8. What message was sent to the twelve tribes of Israel to show the wickedness of the Benjamite?
9. Who is Baal? Is this just a name for a heathen God? What does the term Sons of Belial mean?
10. It seems that these tales have more testing of God than the previous ones, where Abraham, Jacob, etc., just believed in God. An example: the tests Gideon sets for God. Is there any significance in this?
11. God's role seems changed in Judges. Now there are visits from the Angel of the Lord, and not from God himself. Also, there is a terrible fear of looking at God, or his Angel, and being struck dead. Why?
12. Something I have always wanted to know, beginning with he Exodus stories: what is the significance of unleavened bread?
13. The first two stories in Judges, on Ehud and Deborah, seem very different from the previous stories and those that follow. They have little character development, nor story development, and their cruelty, though in effect no less than others, seems more barbaric. They are almost jarring. Are they of a much different age? Is there some reason for this?
14. When Israel was strong, what happened to the Canaanites?
15. Why were the Israelites so ready to follow other gods? What are social implications?
16. Thou shalt not commit adultery is one of the Ten Commandments. Why does Gideon have many wives as well as a concubine while considering himself as one living under the rule of God?