Paper Topics and Examination Questions on the New Testament

1. What is the connection between the morality Jesus presents in Matthew and his view of the end of the present era. In answering this question focus explicating one of the following moral positions Jesus takes:
   
   a. His view of wealth;
   b. His view of divorce and sexuality;
   c. His defense of non-resistance to evil.
   
2. Compare and contrast the morality of Exodus and the morality of Matthew.
   
3. What group or groups of people are Jesus’s prime audience?
   
4. What was the role of the Messiah, according to Jesus in Matthew. Did Jesus, as portrayed in Matthew, think of himself as the Messiah?
   
5. Can Jesus’s moral teaching, as found in Matthew, be the basis of a satisfactory political ethic? What, if any, are the difficulties that Jesus’s teaching creates in our efforts to create a just political community? How can Jesus’s teaching be interpreted to overcome those difficulties?
   
6. Jesus says in Matthew 5:44-48:
   
   "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
   
   Later, in Matthew 19:23-26, Jesus says:
   
   "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."
   
   Discuss some of the implications and conflicts in Christian faith and practice that arise from these two statements from Jesus. Pay particular attention to the last lines of the two passages: the invocation to be perfect and the impossibility thereof for mortals.
   
7. Discuss at least three differences between the accounts of creation in Genesis I and II. Which version of the Creation, I or II, is most in keeping with the understanding of God and the Creation as presented in the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, and why?