Chapter Title and Pages
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Potential Point Value
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Description of the Assignment
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"The Voice of Gomer" (pages 275-310)
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Up to 10 points
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Read this chapter about Makor at the time of the Babylonian
coquest and answer the following questions. You may skip the section entitled
"The Tell" (pages 291-295). Your answers should total about three pages (using
Times 14point type, double spaced).
- Discuss Mikal. What kind of person is she? What does Yahweh command
Gomer to do in relation to Mikal, and why? What are Mikal's "offenses"? What
are her positive qualities? Is what happens to her in the end ethically acceptable?
Why or why not?
- Discuss Gomer as a Hebrew prophet. Comment on her prophecies.
Notice that while some of them point to the future, others do not (One is
a discussion of the distant past). How does her activity fit the paradigm
of Hebrew prophecy discussed in class and in your other readings?
- Describe Gomer's expereince at the moment she prophecies. Does Michener's description seem convincing to you? Why or why not?
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"In the Gymnasium" (pages 311-350)
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Up to 10 points
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Read this
chapter about Makor in the Hellenistic Age and answer the following questions.
You may skip the section entitled "The Tell" (pages 340-342). Your answers
should total about three pages (using Times 14point type, double spaced).
- Compare and Contrast Tarphon and Jehubabel.
- Discuss Benjamin/Menelaus. How does he illustrate the young person's
estrangement from the parent's faith? Is this still a problem today?
- Why was Paltiel significant?
- Where did the word "Jehovah" come from according to Michener?
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"King of the Jews" (pages 351-377)
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Up to 7 points
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Read this
chapter about Makor at the time of Herod the Great and answer the following two
questions. Your answers should total about three pages (using Times 14point
type, double spaced).
- Discuss
the "armed truce" mentioned in the quote below taken from page 355. Use details
from the story of Timon and Shelomith to illustrate your discussion.
- How
does the story of Timon and Shelomith and their relationship to Herod change
your understanding of the time in which Jesus was born? Be as specific as possible in your response.
- If
Michener's description of this period is accurate, how might this help you
see Jesus' role as "prophetic." Jesus' ministry is not discussed in this
chapter, but how might this chapter help you view that ministry differently?
On page 355 Timon Myrmex,
the Roman narrator of this chapter, says, ". . . we have long worshipped
Caesar Augustus as our god. This my wife Shelomith has refused to do, as
have the other Jews, . . . in our town Roman and Jew live as they do in our
kingdom; in a kind of armed truce, each holding to his own gods and to his
own beliefs."
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