July Quiz: Apocrypha or Deuterocanon

1. What does the term "Apocrypha" mean?

a) False Inscription
b) Inspired
c) Extraneous
d) Hidden

2. The term deuterocanonical means

a) having to do with the second coming of Jesus
b) hidden; not to be read
c) belonging to a second canon

3. What did Tobiah use to keep the demon from the bridal chamber when he married Sarah?

a) A sheep's gall bladder
b) Warm bird droppings
c) A magical incantation
d) A fish's heart and liver

4. Who was pulled by the hair of his head by God and taken from Judea to Babylon to give Daniel lunch when Daniel was in the lion's den?

a) Zerubabbel
b) Jeremiah
c) Habakkuk
d) Elijah

5. Why did Tobit send his son Tobia to Media?

a) To claim a fortune deposited there
b) To seek out and marry Sarah
c) To find a cure for his blindness
d) To avoid death at the hands of Sennacherib

6. How did Judith assassinate Holofernes?

a) She stabbed him during intercourse
b) She beheaded him while he was drunk
c) She prayed to God and he was miraculously killed
d) She drove a tent peg through his chest

7. Two Jewish elders, out of lust for this woman, tell her to have sex with them or risk being accused of committing adultery with a young man.

a) Susanna
b) Esther
c) Judith
d) Baruch

8. Verses from this passage are used in the liturgy of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., as part of the "Rite One Morning Prayer."

a) Song of the Three Young Men
b) Susanna
c) Bel and the Dragon
d) Wisdom

9. In the additional parts of Esther, what character has a dream vision?

a) Esther
b) Mordecai
c) Vashiti
d) Haman

10. The Wisdom of Solomon is the only book of the Roman Catholic Old Testament that professes a belief that would have enormous importance in the history of the Christian West, namely,

a) Explicit monotheism.
b) A spiritual interpretation of the messianic hope.
c) The possibility of vicarious suffering.
d) The immortality of the soul.

11. What Deuterocanonical book is ascribed to the secretary of the prophet Jeremiah?

a) Baruch
b) Tobit
c) Sirach
d) Judith

12. Hellenistic culture

a) was the culture of classical Greece before the conquests that brought Greek language and customs to Israel.
b) was the culture of Mesopotamia and Canaan in the centuries immediately before Greek culture was introduced there.
c) resulted from the mixture of classical Greek civilization with the older cultures of the Near East.

13. Who was the conqueror who took Greek language, art, literature, philosophy, and social customs from Greece to the millions of people living in Egypt, Judea, Afghanistan, and all the way to western India?

a) Ashurbanipal III
b) Cyrus of Persia
c) Alexander the Great

14. General consensus regarding which books belong in the Hebrew Bible was reached at approximately

a) The time of Ezra, 400 B.C.E.
b) The time of the Maccabees, the second century B.C.E.
c) The end of the first century C.E.
d) The early Middle Ages.

15. The term diaspora refers to

a) a form of dress in ancient Israel
b) the war for independence from Seleucid rule
c) the distribution of Jews outside their Palestinian homeland

Short Answer:

1. According to Ben Sira, the chief function of a scribe is to ___________________.

2. If the Wisdom of Solomon exhibits respect for philosophy, it has scathing contempt for the Egyptians because of their ____________.

Longer Answer:

1. What is implied when we call the Bible “Sacred Scripture”?

2. What does it mean to speak of the “canon” of the Bible?

3. What enduring values can we hope to find in the Bible?