- 1. According to the Hebrew Bible, when did the United Monarchy of Israel rule?
A) Around the 6th century BCE
B) Around the 10th century BCE
C) Around the 12th century BCE
D) Around the 8th century BCE
- 2. Which two regions did the United Monarchy allegedly rule over according to the Hebrew Bible?
A) Judea and Samaria
B) Jerusalem and Shechem
C) Israel and Philistia
D) Cisjordan and Transjordan
- 3. What period corresponds to the Early Monarchical period in archaeology?
A) Iron Age IIa
B) Iron Age I
C) Late Bronze Age
D) Iron Age IIb
- 4. What evidence supports the existence of a centralized organization in Judah during Iron Age IIa?
A) Large gold and silver treasures
B) Foreign trade agreements
C) Fortified cities, literacy, and city planning
D) Extensive written royal archives
- 5. According to interpretations in the 1990s, how did Israel and Judah arise relative to each other?
A) As colonies of Egypt
B) Simultaneously from a shared capital
C) As a single unified empire
D) Separately and as distinct entities
- 6. Where were Israel and Judah centered, respectively, according to 1990s interpretations?
A) Khirbet Qeiyafa and Judah
B) Shechem and Jerusalem
C) Transjordan and Cisjordan
D) Jerusalem and Samaria
- 7. Which archaeological site supports the biblical account of a United Monarchy?
A) Khirbet Qeiyafa
B) The City of David
C) The Ophel
D) Tel Dan
- 8. What did the Israel Antiquities Authority state that the excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa reveal?
A) An uninhabited wasteland
B) A small country village from the eighth century BCE
C) An urban society that existed in Judah in the late eleventh century BCE
D) A Philistine fortress city
- 9. What is the oldest part of Jerusalem and its original urban core?
A) Khirbet Qeiyafa
B) The City of David
C) The Ophel
D) Upper Samaria
- 10. Which administrative structures in Jerusalem contain material culture dated to Iron I?
A) The temple of Solomon
B) The Stepped Stone Structure and the Large Stone Structure
C) The Tel Dan Stele and Mesha Stele
D) The Ophel fortifications
- 11. Who argued that Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE was a small country village rather than a national capital?
A) Amihai Mazar
B) Israel Finkelstein
C) Avraham Faust
D) William G. Dever
- 12. Who argued that Jerusalem was entirely uninhabited in the 10th century BCE?
A) Israel Finkelstein
B) Ussishkin
C) Zev Farber
D) William G. Dever
- 13. Who contends that Jerusalem was a small town with a mighty citadel and a center of a substantial regional polity?
A) Avraham Faust
B) Ussishkin
C) Israel Finkelstein
D) Amihai Mazar
- 14. Who argued that Jerusalem was significantly large compared to highland sites and contained fortifications and public buildings?
A) The Israel Antiquities Authority
B) William G. Dever and Amihai Mazar
C) Avraham Faust and Zev Farber
D) Israel Finkelstein and Ussishkin
- 15. Recent archaeological discoveries at which two locations seem to indicate Jerusalem was sufficiently developed to be a capital?
A) Khirbet Qeiyafa and Shechem
B) The City of David and the Ophel
C) Tel Dan and Transjordan
D) Samaria and the Judean hills
- 16. When was the Tel Dan Stele discovered?
A) July 1993
B) Late eleventh century BCE
C) The 1990s
D) Iron Age IIa
- 17. To which centuries is the Tel Dan Stele dated?
A) The 10th century BCE
B) The 9th or 8th century BCE
C) The late 11th century BCE
D) The Bronze Age
- 18. What phrase on the Tel Dan Stele is interpreted by many as a reference to a monarchic dynasty in Judah?
A) Upper Samaria
B) bytdwd
C) Shechem and Jerusalem
D) Cisjordan
- 19. What is 'bytdwd' widely interpreted to mean?
A) Temple of Solomon
B) United Monarchy
C) Capital of Jerusalem
D) House of David
- 20. Besides the Tel Dan Stele, which other stele might contain a reference to the House of David?
A) The Stepped Stone Structure
B) The Large Stone Structure
C) The Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription
D) The Mesha Stele
- 21. What do the majority of scholars accept regarding David and Solomon since the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele?
A) That they ruled a vast empire stretching from Egypt to Mesopotamia
B) The existence of a polity ruled by them, on a more modest scale than described in the Bible
C) That they never existed and were entirely mythical figures
D) That they only ruled a small country village in the Judean hills
- 22. What areas do most scholars believe David and Solomon reigned over?
A) The entire Near East without exception
B) Upper Samaria and Shechem exclusively
C) Only the City of David and Khirbet Qeiyafa
D) Large sections of Cisjordan and probably parts of Transjordan
- 23. According to William G. Dever, which territories did David actually reign over?
A) Judea and Samaria as an empire
B) Only Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings
C) All of Cisjordan and Transjordan
D) Current territories of Israel and West Bank
- 24. Which invading group does William G. Dever argue that David defeated?
A) The Ammonites
B) The Philistines
C) The Moabites
D) The Egyptians
- 25. What does William G. Dever argue about David's conquests other than defeating the invaders?
A) They were peacefully negotiated
B) They are fictitious
C) They were larger than described in the Bible
D) They are historically proven by the Tel Dan Stele
- 26. According to Paula McNutt, do Old Testament narratives record history in the sense it is understood in the twentieth century?
A) Only in the books of Moses
B) Yes
C) No
D) Only regarding political history
- 27. Who is credited in the Talmud with the dictum that "there is no chronological order in the Torah"?
A) Abba Arika
B) W.F. Albright
C) Rabbi Ishmael
D) Rabbi Akiva
- 28. Whose view was that "the Torah speaks in human language"?
A) Rabbi Ishmael
B) Abba Arika
C) Rabbi Akiva
D) W.F. Albright
- 29. Which archaeologist described a more expansive view of history involving multiple histories within the Bible?
A) W.F. Albright
B) Abba Arika
C) William Dever
D) Abraham Joshua Heschel
- 30. Cultural history encompasses overall cultural evolution, demography, socio-economic and political structure, and what else?
A) Chronology
B) Telepathy
C) Infallibility
D) Ethnicity
- 31. What do most historians accept regarding Jesus in the New Testament?
A) He wrote the gospels himself
B) Every single event in his life is scientifically verifiable
C) He was a historical figure crucified under Pontius Pilate
D) He never actually existed as a person
- 32. Who is a representative of the Copenhagen School, also known as 'biblical minimalism'?
A) Thomas L. Thompson
B) William G. Dever
C) Pontius Pilate
D) An unnamed biblical literalist
- 33. What is the Copenhagen School also known as?
A) Biblical minimalism
B) Biblical literalism
C) Biblical maximalism
D) Biblical archaeology
- 34. What early philosophical movement influenced patrons like Justin Martyr and Tertullian?
A) The Ionian Enlightenment
B) The Age of Enlightenment
C) The Renaissance
D) Scholasticism
- 35. Who was aware of the difference between science and scripture?
A) Tertullian
B) Justin Martyr
C) Augustine
D) Faustus of Mileve
- 36. Whose historical doubts are used as a comparison in the text?
A) Faustus of Mileve
B) Tertullian
C) Augustine
D) Herodotus
- 37. Do very few or very many texts survive directly from antiquity?
A) An infinite number
B) Very few
C) Very many
D) Almost all of them
- 38. What indicates greater textual reliability in earliest texts?
A) Lower consistency
B) Greater length
C) Higher consistency
D) Fewer copies overall
- 39. What can multiple copies of manuscripts be grouped into?
A) Canon categories
B) Enlightenment subsets
C) Text types
D) Apocryphal volumes
- 40. What are some text types judged to be closer to than others?
A) The modern translation
B) The myths of other religions
C) The hypothetical original
D) The apocrypha
- 41. Which scholar noted internal contradictions suggesting Moses did not author the Pentateuch as early as the Middle Ages?
A) Baruch Spinoza
B) Abraham ibn Ezra
C) Jean Astruc
D) Thomas Hobbes
- 42. Which biblical chapter describes the death of Moses, making it impossible for him to have written it?
A) Genesis 1
B) Leviticus 10
C) Deuteronomy 34
D) Numbers 22
- 43. In which major work did Thomas Hobbes argue that biblical texts provide evidence for their own dates of composition?
A) The Pentateuch
B) Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
C) Leviathan
D) Higher Criticism
- 44. In what year was Thomas Hobbes's work Leviathan published?
A) 1678
B) 1753
C) 1651
D) 1670
- 45. Which philosopher and pantheist echoed Hobbes's doubts about the historical books in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus?
A) Julius Wellhausen
B) Thomas Hobbes
C) Baruch Spinoza
D) Jean Astruc
- 46. In what year was Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus published?
A) 1678
B) 1670
C) 1651
D) 1753
- 47. Which French priest brought critical perspectives on Scripture to the Catholic tradition in 1678?
A) Julius Wellhausen
B) Jean Astruc
C) Richard Simon
D) Abraham ibn Ezra
- 48. Who applied source criticism methods from classical secular texts to the Pentateuch in 1753?
A) Thomas Hobbes
B) Julius Wellhausen
C) Jean Astruc
D) Richard Simon
- 49. How many different manuscript traditions did Jean Astruc believe he could detect in the Pentateuch?
A) Two
B) Four
C) Five
D) Three
- 50. Who formalised the documentary hypothesis in the 1870s?
A) Thomas Hobbes
B) Abraham ibn Ezra
C) Julius Wellhausen
D) Jean Astruc
- 51. Which of the following is part of the sources identified in the documentary hypothesis?
A) Hobbesian
B) Jahwist
C) Mosaic
D) Ezraic
- 52. Which source is included in the four identified by the documentary hypothesis?
A) Prophetic
B) Traditionist
C) Elohist
D) Historical
- 53. Along with Jahwist and Elohist, which source is part of the documentary hypothesis?
A) Reformist
B) Mosaic
C) Levitical
D) Deuteronomist
- 54. What is the fourth source identified in the documentary hypothesis besides Jahwist, Elohist, and Deuteronomist?
A) Prophetic source
B) Scribal source
C) Priestly source
D) Royal source
- 55. What did medieval philosopher Maimonides consider the stories about Adam to be?
A) Prophetic poetry
B) Philosophical anthropology
C) Strict historical records
D) Literal scientific data
- 56. Whose publication of 'Theory of the Earth' in 1788 was an important development in dethroning Genesis as ultimate authority?
A) James Hutton
B) Charles Darwin
C) Martin Noth
D) William Albright
- 57. Who was the president of the Geological Society who publicly recanted his previous support for the diluvian theory in 1831?
A) Hermann Gunkel
B) John Van Seters
C) Adam Sedgwick
D) David Ilan
- 58. Who naturalized the Garden of Eden with the publication of 'On the Origin of Species' in 1859?
A) Charles Darwin
B) William Dever
C) James Hutton
D) Thomas L. Thompson
- 59. What is the mainstream scholarly consensus regarding Genesis 1–11 today?
A) A highly schematic literary work representing theology/symbolic mythology
B) An eyewitness account written by Adam
C) A legal contract from the Bronze Age
D) A strictly accurate historical and scientific chronicle
- 60. Who drew attention to the mythic aspects of the Pentateuch following the early scientific developments?
A) St Augustine of Hippo
B) William Albright
C) Martin Heide
D) Hermann Gunkel
- 61. Which school argued that although core traditions had ancient roots, narratives were fictional framing devices?
A) Biblical archaeology movement
B) Evangelical literalist school
C) Assyrian trade guild
D) Tradition history school
- 62. Who led the American biblical archaeology movement to counterattack and defend the broad outline of framing narratives?
A) Hutton
B) Darwin
C) Albright
D) Augustine
- 63. Who published 'Abraham in History and Tradition' in 1975?
A) Adam Sedgwick
B) Thomas L. Thompson
C) Maimonides
D) John Van Seters
- 64. According to William Dever in 1993, whose central theses had all been overturned?
A) Albright's
B) Hutton's
C) Gunkel's
D) Darwin's
- 65. What did William Dever state contributed the most to Biblical studies in the long run?
A) The newer secular archaeology
B) Literalist evangelical commentary
C) Traditional biblical archaeology
D) Ancient oral tradition preservation
- 66. How long does the Book of Exodus state the Israelites dwelled in Egypt?
A) 200 years
B) 40 years
C) 100 years
D) 430 years
- 67. How many Israelite men does the Book of Exodus state were involved in the Exodus?
A) 603,550
B) 22,273
C) 2.5 million
D) 600,000
- 68. What is the modern estimate for the total number of Israelites based on the Book of Numbers?
A) 2.5–3 million
B) 10 million
C) 600,000
D) 500,000
- 69. Who connects the formation of the highland communities and shared identity with the exodus tradition?
A) William G. Dever
B) Richard Elliott Friedman
C) Ronald Hendel
D) Kenton Sparks
- 70. Who held that the Exodus narrative is a Canaanite memory of the Hyksos' descent and occupation of Egypt?
A) Gili Kugler
B) Donald Redford
C) Kenton Sparks
D) Ronald Hendel
- 71. Which biblical text recalls God’s revelation in Egypt but omits any mention of slavery or oppression?
A) Ezekiel 20
B) Exodus 12
C) Genesis 46
D) Deuteronomy 23
- 72. What kind of folklore and culture elements are found in the Exodus narrative?
A) Persian
B) Egyptian
C) Greek
D) Mesopotamian
- 73. Which biblical chapter mentions that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years?
A) Deuteronomy 23
B) Numbers 1
C) Genesis 46
D) Exodus 12
- 74. What does the Deuteronomistic history contain regarding historical figures and events?
A) No information whatsoever
B) Certain information
C) Only fictional names
D) Complete and flawless documentation
- 75. How are large portions of the Deuteronomistic history described?
A) Scientifically proven
B) Entirely factual
C) Legendary
D) Strictly biographical
- 76. What else does the Deuteronomistic history contain in large numbers?
A) Anachronisms
B) Foreign languages
C) Mathematical formulas
D) Poetic verses
- 77. What proportion of biblical individuals has been identified independently?
A) Every single individual
B) Only a negligible fraction
C) None at all
D) A significant number
- 78. How have a significant number of biblical individuals been identified?
A) Solely through biblical text
B) By guessing randomly
C) Independently
D) Through modern media
- 79. What type of inscriptions have helped identify biblical individuals?
A) East Asian hieroglyphics
B) European runes
C) Northwest Semitic inscriptions
D) South American petroglyphs
- 80. What other sources besides inscriptions have helped identify biblical individuals?
A) Modern newspaper articles
B) Other archeological sources
C) Fictional novels
D) Oral myths from the 20th century
- 81. What time period do the archeological sources and inscriptions generally cover?
A) 1000 - 2000 AD
B) 1 AD - 500 AD
C) 1200 - 539 BC
D) 5000 - 4000 BC
- 82. Who provided corrections and updates regarding the inscriptions?
A) A team of fictional writers
B) Lawrence J. Mykytiuk
C) An anonymous blogger
D) An ancient king
- 83. Which site was identified by excavators as biblical Bethel?
A) Beitin
B) Hazor
C) Jericho
D) Tel ed-Duweir
- 84. Which site was identified by excavators as biblical Lachish?
A) Beitin
B) Hazor
C) Tel ed-Duweir
D) Jericho
- 85. Who reached the same conclusion as Kathleen Kenyon regarding Jericho based on all excavation findings?
A) Amnon Ben-Tor
B) Lorenzo Nigro
C) John Garstang
D) Piotr Bienkowski
- 86. The Exodus is usually dated in relation to which Pharaoh mentioned in the text?
A) Thutmose
B) Amenhotep
C) Merneptah
D) Ramses
- 87. By what decade had it become clear that the archaeological record did not support the conquest account in Joshua?
A) 1960s
B) 1930s
C) 1950s
D) 1970s
- 88. Who led recent excavations finding that Jericho was occupied in the Late Bronze Age (1400–1200 BCE)?
A) Kathleen Kenyon
B) Israel Finkelstein
C) John Garstang
D) Lorenzo Nigro
- 89. What was added on top of the Middle Bronze city wall at Jericho during the Late Bronze Age?
A) A mudbrick wall
B) An iron gate
C) A stone fortification
D) A wooden palisade
- 90. According to Peake's Commentary, independent battles were artificially attributed to a single leader named what?
A) Moses
B) Jabin
C) Deborah
D) Joshua
- 91. Which stratum in Tel Hazor shows signs of catastrophic fire from around 1200 BCE?
A) Stratum XIII
B) Stratum III
C) Stratum VII
D) Stratum X
- 92. Cuneiform tablets found at Tel Hazor refer to monarchs named what?
A) Thutmose
B) Ibni Addi
C) Merneptah
D) Ramses
- 93. What may be the etymological origin of the biblical name Yavin (Jabin)?
A) Addi
B) Ibni
C) Hazor
D) Canaan
- 94. Who believes that recently unearthed evidence of violent destruction by burning verifies the biblical account of Hazor?
A) Sharon Zuckerman
B) John Garstang
C) Amnon Ben-Tor
D) Israel Finkelstein
- 95. In what year did Amnon Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman discover a scorched palace from the 13th century BC?
A) 2012
B) 2018
C) 2005
D) 1998
- 96. Who claimed that the burning of Hazor was the result of the city's numerous factions opposing each other?
A) Richard Elliot Friedman
B) Sharon Zuckerman
C) Kathleen Kenyon
D) Amnon Ben-Tor
- 97. According to Richard Elliot Friedman, the destruction of Hazor fits best with which biblical figure defeating the king of Hazor?
A) Pharaoh Ramses
B) Joshua
C) Moses
D) The prophetess Deborah
- 98. Which animal's use is cited as an anachronism in 1 Samuel 30:17?
A) Horses
B) Elephants
C) Donkeys
D) Camels
- 99. How is the troop size described in 2 Samuel 17:1?
A) Average for the period
B) Non-existent
C) Extremely small
D) Gargantuan
- 100. Whose paramilitary and servants are referenced in the text as evidence of a later date?
A) Persians
B) Babylonians
C) Kushites
D) Assyrians
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