Study Questions to Chapter 6—Biblical Views
Prepared by Dr. Jan Garrett
Last modification date: August 26, 2009
1. What are "obvious" problems in assessing and interpreting ideas from the Bible? (108)
THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND—HEBREW SCRIPTURES 2. In Genesis, how does God create? What does His naming activity suggest about God's mind? What point is being made by God's judgment in Gen. 1:31? (110)
3. What "soon" happens in Gen. 3, 4, and 6:5-7? What feelings attributed to God "hardly fits" with what later theological conceptions? (110)
4. How is God represented in the early books of the Old Testament (and even in the Book of Job)? Is God ever represented as angry? (111)
5. When interpreters say that claims regarding God's feelings are metaphorical, what literal point about our proper understanding of God are they usually making? (111-112)
6. One way of understanding God is sometimes described as the via negativa, or negative path. Stevenson seems to travel part way on this path on 112-113. What sorts of things is God (generally agreed) not to be?
7. What positive description is usually insisted upon in Judaism and Christianity? (bottom 112) Is His significance only cosmological (G. as creator of the universe)? Explain. (112)
8. How is this positive description usually qualified? (113) This makes it possible for claims about God's existence not to be disproven empirically. At what cost does it come? (113)
9. How does S. characterize the difference between theism and atheism? (113)
THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE—HEBREW SCRIPTURES 10. What difficulties face any attempt to see literal truth in the creation story in Genesis? (114)
11. What two ways of interpreting the "made in God's image" phrase does S. explore? (114)
12. What two distinct messages are conveyed by the "dominion" and "dust from the ground" passages? Does the use of "ruach" (the term sometimes translated "spirit") necessarily imply an immaterial soul, such as Plato teaches? (114-15)
13. What does it mean to consider human beings as persons in the Biblical sense? (Does this imply immortality of the individual soul?) (115)
14. To what extent does Genesis convey a patriarchal perspective on gender relationships? (115)
15. What is "the most crucial point" in the Biblical understanding of human nature? (115-16)
16. What contrasts does S. draw between the Greek philosophical tradition--Plato and Aristotle, chiefly--and the Hebrew understanding of human nature? (16)
DIAGNOSIS—HUMAN DISOBEDIENCE Human disobedience makes sense only in the context of covenant, whereby people (or peoples, such as the Israelites) promise to fulfill God's commandments, and God, in return, will do something for them.
17. What does the textbook tell us about the idea of covenant? What three Biblical covenants does it refer to? (118)
18. What is the Biblical diagnosis of what is wrong with humanity? What negative features of human life are explained as a result of our sinful actions or those of our ancestors? What or who connects sinful actions to bad consequences? (117)
REGENERATION 19. Stevenson describes what God does in order to "restore the relationship"— what specifically? (118) He does not state clearly what humans (or the Israelites) are supposed to do on their side-any ideas? (It also begins with "r".)
CRITICAL DISCUSSION 20. To what danger does Stevenson call attention in the idea of a chosen people? What is problematic about Joshua 8-11? How does Isaiah point beyond tribalism? (118)
THE NEW TESTAMENT 21. How did the coming of Jesus change the conception of God for Christians? What are the three parts of the three in one God? (119)
22. What connotation does LS say that Christian has over and above the idea that Jesus was a very good man or a person of great spiritual insight? What does "incarnation" mean in this context? (119) What is the puzzle about the claim that Jesus is the Son of God? (120)
23. Do spirit and flesh in the New Testament mean what Plato means when he distinguishes soul and body? What sort of behavior corresponds to living on the level of the flesh or the "old nature"? (120-121)
24. Does the New Testament condemn slavery? Does it endorse gender equality? (121) The second question requires a nuanced answer. (Note: many scholars do not regard Ephesians as a genuine letter of Paul.)
25. What does Paul say about the life according to the Spirit that obviously refers to this life? (122) Does eternal life necessarily refer to life after death? (122)
26. What appears to be meant by a "new creation" in Christ? How is this related to the idea of resurrection and the afterlife? (123)
DIAGNOSIS 27. What interpretation of Paul's doctrine of original sin does Stevenson think mistaken? How does he understand it? Does Paul want to absolve the sinner from responsibility? What is the true nature of sin? (123)
28. What interpretation of Christianity (by Nietzsche) does Stevenson criticize as superficial? (123) On what basis? (124) Why does he think it is misleading for Christian writers to personify evil? (124)
SALVATION 29. What is the central claim made by Christianity regarding restoration of humanity to a right relationship with God? (124)
30. What are some difficulties with making sense out of Paul's theory of incarnation and salvation? (124-25)
31. What are various Christian views of what acceptance of this "saving work" amounts to? (125) What are some of the difficulties with these views? (125) Does human free will play a part in the "saving work" of Christ? Is it sufficient? (125-26)
32. How does the Christian idea of the resurrection differ from the Platonic idea of immortality of the soul? What metaphysical puzzles—volving space and time—does the resurrection story generate? (126-27)