Religion 101 FINAL EXAM (willis) | with 100% Correct Answers

Three faith perspectives for fixing the world that characterize the Second Temple Period - Apocalyptic: society is getting increasingly evil - even traditional religion is corrupt keep the faith, withdraw from society, preserve the beliefs and practices, all will proceed as God ordains expect God to replace this evil world with a new, heaven-like one Programs led by Nehemiah and Ezra - ¥ rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem ¥ strictly enforcing Sabbath laws ¥ disbanding interfaith marriages Four possible motivations for Ezra and Nehemiah's policy on inter-faith marriages - ¥ social - their religion is key to preserving their cultural distinctiveness ¥ economic - control of marriages protects the temple-tax base (marriage to foreign women shrinks the base, to foreign men grows the base) ¥ spiritual - marriages are symptomatic of a broad range of "abominations" ¥ practical - they want to avoid God's wrath How the story of Ruth speaks to the issue of inter-faith marriages - ¥ there was no criticism of Ruth's marriage to Boaz the Israelite even though she was foreign because she adopted Israel's faith The historical setting of the life of Daniel, and the setting of the book of Daniel - ¥ Daniel was an early exile; became a high official after training in Babylon - 597BC ¥ lived through Babylonian Empire into Persian Empire ¥ 6 chapters = Babylonian court tales, 6 = visions