Jews, Gentiles, and Christians Quiz

Answer: Gentiles: neither Jew nor Christian

According to the book of Genesis, Adam was the first man that God created. Interestingly, when God created male and female, He called them both "Adam" or "man".

"Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created" (Genesis 5:2, King James).

The male called the female both "woman" and "Eve". He called her "woman" before the fall and he was full of affection, but he named her "Eve" after the fall, leaving one to wonder if he was angry when he called her that.

God created the humans to be perfect and the world to be perfect, but they sinned and brought more sin with them. When one thinks about it, modern religion (from a Biblical perspective) is actually a result of the fall. Both Judaism and Christianity are based upon sacrifices for sin. Adam and his wife continued to believe in God after they were kicked out of Eden, but they couldn't have been Jews or Christians. Jews are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; plus the followers of the religion formed on Mt. Sinai in the book of Exodus. Christians are those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior; the core beliefs of Christianity deal with Jesus' earthly life, such as the resurrection. Even if one believes, like many Christians do, that Jesus existed as God in the Old Testament, Adam and Eve still wouldn't have understood the concept of Christianity as we know it.

Answer: Gentiles: neither Jew nor Christian

According to Genesis 6, Noah was a righteous man in a world of evil people. The text states that humankind had become very corrupted. In addition, the sons of God (angels) mated with human women. Their offspring were the Nephlim, who were also corrupted. God told Noah that He was going to destroy the world in a flood and to bring his wife, their sins, their wives, and the animals onto an ark.

Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It is traditionally believed that Shem was the ancestor of Semitic people (Jews and Arabs), Ham was the ancestor of African people and some Asians, and Japheth the ancestor of Europeans and other Asians. Apparently, national and racial identity didn't really exist before the flood.

The word "Gentile" means "of the nations". These nations exclude the Jewish nation, Israel. According to the Talmud, God gave Noah seven moral laws, titled the Noahide laws, as part of His covenant with him. These laws are considered universal for humanity, and include do not murder, do not commit adultery or any sexual immorality, do not worship idols, do not curse God, do not eat animals that are still alive, do not steal, and DO establish courts of justice. Jews don't believe that Gentiles need to convert to Judaism or follow any strictly Jewish laws (keep Sabbath, don't eat pork, etc.) to be saved. They believe that anyone who follows the Noahide laws will be saved.

The Noahide laws are similar to what the Jewish Christians in Acts 15 decided that Gentile Christians needed to follow. However, Christians don't follow laws to be saved; they follow laws because they believe that Jesus already saved them.

Answer: Gentiles: neither Jew nor Christian

According to the book of Job, Job lived in the land of Uz. According to the book of Genesis, Uz was a grandson of Shem (Shem was one of Noah's sons). Aram was a son of Shem and Uz was a son of Aram. Some scholars speculate that Job was a contemporary of Abraham. Given that Abraham's descendants are considered Hebrews or Jews, Job was a Gentile (but still Middle Eastern). Job also lived many years prior to Moses and the Jewish commandments.

Job was a very righteous man who suffered great misfortune. At the end, however, God blessed him again. Judaism considers Job to be one of the greatest Gentile prophets.

Answer: Jews

Moses was a Jew. He was of the tribe of Levi. Moses is actually the most important figure in Judaism. Traditionally, it is believed that he wrote the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Moses is the one who received the 10 commandments and other instructions (regarding holy days, etc). There are 613 Jewish laws.

According to Exodus, Moses's mother Jochebed placed him inside a basket and sent him across the Nile river. The pharaoh's daughter found him and adopted him. When Moses was older, God appeared to him through a burning bush and told him to demand that the pharaoh let the Hebrew slaves go. The holy day Passover commemorates the Jewish people being released from Egyptian slavery.

Fun fact: the New Testament mentions Moses more times than it does any other Old Testament person.

Answer: Messianic Jews

According to the Gospels, Mary Magdalene was one of Christ's most devoted followers. She financially supported His ministry, she witnessed His crucifixion, and was even the first one to be there at the tomb. She was looking for a dead body to mourn, but instead encountered the resurrected Christ.

Despite there being numerous conspiracy theories regarding her identity (Catholic tradition claims that she was the unnamed repentant prostitute in Luke 7; some conflate her with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus; some think that she was the woman caught in adultery whom Christ freed, and others suggest that she was Christ's wife) the only thing that the Bible says about her is that she had been possessed by seven demons. Christ healed her and then she became a devoted follower. Mary Magdalene's hometown is believed to be Magdala, a town near the Sea of Galilee.

Answer: Jews

This quiz can't even scratch the surface of the Jews in the Bible. Much of it tells the history of the Jewish people. Most of the writers of the Bible were Jewish, even of the New Testament! Simply put, the Bible is a Jewish book. But let's look at some of that history.
The Lord told Abraham that he was going to make him the father of many nations. However, God promised him a specific child and that child was Isaac. Sarah was Isaac's mother. There is a misconception that Sarah was the mother of many nations, but actually she was only the mother of the Jewish nation. Abraham became the father of other nations, such as the Ishmaelites and Midianites (most likely Arabs), through Hagar and Keturah.

Isaac married Rebekah and they had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau's descendants became the Edomites, some of Israel's worst enemies.

Jacob had twelve sons (through multiple women) and these sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. God also changed Jacob's name to Israel.

The Israelites ended up as slaves in Egypt; God used Moses to deliver them and Moses gave them a list of laws. It seems that while the people existed in Genesis, the religion of Judaism was officially formed in the book of Exodus, Leviticus, etc.

Most people today use the words "Jew," "Hebrew" and "Israelite" interchangeably (the New Testament does as well) but technically Abraham and Isaac would have been Hebrews and Jacob and his children could have been called Hebrews or Israelites. The Jews were originally the members of the tribe of Judah or the land of Judah, but after the Babylonian captivity, all tribes came under the label of Jews. While "Israelite" comes from Jacob and "Jew" from Judah, "Hebrew" is apparently derived from Eber or Heber, a descendant of Shem and ancestor of Abraham briefly mentioned in Genesis.

Please see the books of Genesis, Exodus, 1 Kings and 2 Kings for more information.

Answer: Christian Gentiles

Lydia the businesswoman was one of the first Gentile converts to Christianity.

Acts 16:14-15, New American Standard Bible
"A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.
And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, 'If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.'"

Interestingly, she, like Cornelius from Acts 10, already believed in God. She possibly had some knowledge of God by the Jews without being a full on convert to Judaism. I'm almost disappointed by this. I would think that with Paul preaching to all of those Gentiles, at least some of them would have come from polytheistic backgrounds!

On a side note, Acts 2:10 considers proselytes to Judaism distinct from ethnic Jews.

Answer: Messianic Jews

John was one of the original twelve apostles of Christ. John is believed to have written the Gospel of John, 1, 2, and 3 John (separate books), and the book of Revelation.

During Christ's earthly ministry, He told the twelve clearly to only preach to the "lost sheep of Israel" and to not preach to the Gentiles or Samaritans (Matthew 10:5-6, New American Standard Bible). While Jesus helped a Canaanite woman and talked to a Samaritan woman, His main message was that He was the promised Jewish Messiah, so His main audience were Jews. Jesus was a Jew, His mother Mary was a Jew, and almost all or at least most of His followers were Jews. And they were Jews in both the religious and the ethnic meanings of the word.

I personally believe that the message Jesus preached was different from the message that the Apostle Paul preached. Paul preached Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23) but Jesus didn't exactly preach this. He predicted His death, much to the shock of His followers, because they didn't understand what He meant. The resurrected Jesus sent Paul to the Gentiles, something that He prohibited the twelve apostles from doing. According to Acts 1:6-7, the apostles asked the resurrected Jesus when He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. It's interesting to note that He didn't rebuke them, but simply said that it wasn't for them to know the day.

Christians debate when exactly the Christian church began. Many believe that it began in Acts 2, but even then all of the people at Pentecost were Messianic Jews. Gentiles didn't really start getting saved until much later. For this reason, some consider the church to have begun around Acts 10 or later. Even after Gentiles believed in Acts 15, there was a question as to whether they needed to follow the Law of Moses to be saved. Some Pharisees who accepted Jesus wanted the Gentiles to do this, but the apostles decided that Gentiles only needed to follow a few laws, similar to the Noahide laws from the Talmud. This leaves the reader wondering if Jewish believers in Jesus still kept the Law. While Peter seemed to accept non-kosher food (Acts 10), others still seemed zealous for the Law well into Acts 21. Evidently the earliest Christians (and this includes Paul's church) celebrated a Christian version of Passover, rather than Easter (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Christians have debated the relationship between the nation of Israel and the Christian church for centuries. I personally am a dispensationalist.

Answer: Christian Gentiles

Cornelius was one of the first Gentile converts to Christianity. The Ethiopian eunuch from Acts 8 was another.

Acts 10:1-2, New American Standard Bible
"Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually."

What's even more interesting is that instead of being a pagan Roman that the Jews hated or vice-versa, Cornelius and the Jews actually got along. Acts 10:22 states that the entire nation of the Jews looked upon him favorably. However, this doesn't mean that Cornelius was a Gentile convert to Judaism. Had he been considered a Jew, the text wouldn't have emphasized him being a Roman, nor would it consider him distinct from the Jewish nation and people.

After Peter, a Messianic Jew, met Cornelius, he told him about a vision he had and how Peter realized that he shouldn't call anything unclean and that Gentiles could indeed believe in Jesus Christ too. All of this seems to have happened after Saul, a Pharisee who was persecuting Jewish followers of Jesus, had a radical transformation and became the Apostle to the Gentiles (see Acts 9).

Answer: Jews

According to the book of Judges, Deborah was the only female judge of Israel. She was also a prophetess. However, her tribal ancestry is unclear from the Bible. The Jewish midrash traces her from Naphtali, which is the same tribe that Barak came from. While the Bible says that her husband was Lapidoth, the midrash suggests that Barak and Lapidoth were the same.

Deborah wasn't the only strong woman in Judges. Jael killed the enemy. Deborah prophesized that God would deliver the enemy into the hands of a woman.