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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Leeming say about cosmogonies?
(a) That they are typically female.
(b) That they are typically moral.
(c) That they are typically allegorical.
(d) That they are typically linear narratives.

2. What other divine figure does Leeming say the main Norse god resembles?
(a) Krishna.
(b) Buddha.
(c) Zeus.
(d) Christ.

3. How does Leeming describe the trickster gods?
(a) As gods of craft as well.
(b) As young and unmarried.
(c) As male and promiscuous.
(d) As half-goat.

4. What does Leeming say Horus represents, in the Egyptian pantheon?
(a) The playful nature of fate.
(b) The spiritual force governing the Pharaoh.
(c) The rebirth of the earth after winter.
(d) The rage of war.

5. Why does Leeming say cultures give human form to Supreme Beings?
(a) Because they do not understand anything beyond human limitations.
(b) Because they cannot express the sublimity of existence without giving it a human face.
(c) Because humans tend to see their virtues as outlasting them.
(d) Because a Supreme Being protects them from the night.

6. What does Leeming say myths describe with regard to individuals relating to the Supreme Being?
(a) Myths describe the irreconcilable split that divides humans from the Supreme Being.
(b) Myths describe the state of formless perfection alongside the Supreme Being.
(c) Myths describe the innate unity of each individual with the Supreme Being.
(d) Myths describe the rules that govern redemption and grace for humans.

7. How does Leeming describe cosmogonies?
(a) As ritual.
(b) As sacramental.
(c) As nostalgic.
(d) As prophetic.

8. What does Leeming say is consistent from one set of myths to another?
(a) Universal human concerns.
(b) Transcendent truths.
(c) Monsters and angels.
(d) Heroes and heroines.

9. Who was the oldest divine being in the Greek pantheon?
(a) Uranus.
(b) Chronos.
(c) Gaia.
(d) Zeus.

10. When was the New Testament book of Revelation likely composed?
(a) 95 CE.
(b) 110 CE.
(c) 51 CE.
(d) 33 BCE.

11. What does Leeming say the flood was for in Mayan culture?
(a) Destroying an experimental form of humankind.
(b) As a punishment for sins against the gods.
(c) As an attempt to avert a war against the gods.
(d) As a way to help cultivate the earth.

12. Who does Leeming say is the archetypal helper god in the Meso-American pantheon?
(a) Tezcatlipoca.
(b) Tlahuizcalpantechtli.
(c) Ehecatl.
(d) Quetzalcoatl.

13. When were creation myths repeated in the culture that created the oldest myth Leeming cites?
(a) During coronations and funerals.
(b) During rites of passage.
(c) During weddings and births.
(d) During wars.

14. How does Leeming describe the Boshongo culture?
(a) As matriarchal.
(b) As patrilineal.
(c) As communal.
(d) As warlike.

15. To whom does Leeming credit the adaptation of the Greek pantheon the Roman religion?
(a) The Etruscans.
(b) The Aolians.
(c) The Syracusans.
(d) The Trojans.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Leeming say Isis is the goddess of?

2. What does Leeming say happened to the figure of the Great Mother over time?

3. What does Leeming say the Hebraic people's monotheistic god focused on?

4. What evidence does Leeming cite to argue for a single matriarch at the beginning of the Greek pantheon?

5. What does Leeming say the flood represents as a metaphor?

(see the answer keys)

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