Addendum to Torah Thought Torus Expanded 2020 (original) (raw)
Related papers
'The Rock Was Christ': The Fluidity of Christ's Body in 1 Corinthians 10.4
Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 2013
Paul’s identification of Christ with the rock that provided water to Israel in the wilderness has confounded interpreters. This article seeks to demonstrate that Paul depends upon a tradition within early Jewish thinking, as evidenced in poetic works such as Deut. 32, Ps. 78 and Ps. 95, which linked Israel’s God to this rock. Despite growing unease with using rock imagery to describe God, as seen in Jeremiah’s recasting of this tradition, as well as the consistent efforts of the LXX translators of the Hebrew Bible to render such language in less chthonic terms, Paul identified the rock with the presence of Christ in the wilderness, and therefore demonstrates his indebtedness to a conception of divine fluidity which Benjamin Sommer has explored in his recent book The Bodies of God.
Korean Journal of Christian Studies 109 , 2018
This paper argues 1 Cor 10:4b-c was written to counter the Corinthians’ understanding of wisdom by modifying the Alexandrian tradition that understood the rock as Wisdom to an understanding of the rock as Christ. In the Alexandrian tradition, the rock is associated with Wisdom as exemplified by Philo: “The flinty rock is the wisdom of God” (Philo, Leg. 2.86). Yet, in the Pauline amendment, the rock is typified as Christ: “and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4c). Realizing Paul’s modification of the Alexandrian tradition uncovers the implied message in the enigmatic phrase, “For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (v. 4b-c), in close affinity within the larger context of chapters 8-10 and 1 Cor as a whole. This thesis is supported by both traditio-historical and sociological perspectives. Regarding the traditio-historical perspective, Paul’s statement of v. 4b-c appears to presuppose the “well tradition” (v. 4b; cf. LAB 10.7; 11.15; Tg. Onq. Num. 21:16-20; cf. t. Sukkah 3.11) and the “rock tradition” (v. 4c; cf. Philo, Leg. 2.86; Wis 11:4), which are traditions in Jewish literature that mention Israel’s source of water in the wilderness. Paul was aware of both traditions and was able to integrate them into his writing. By using the Alexandrian rock tradition, mutually shared between Paul and the church of Corinth, Paul challenges the Corinthians’ understanding of wisdom. Paul’s hidden message can be discerned by simple syllogism: the rock is the wisdom of God (Philo), the rock was Christ (Paul), therefore, Christ is the (true) wisdom of God. From a sociological perspective, Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians’ understanding of wisdom was a critical message for those who were devoted to wisdom and believed themselves to be elevated above others; the wisdom and knowledge held by these Christians led them to provoke grave quarrels and divisions in the church (1 Cor 1:10-17; 3:1-23) and eat food offered to idols (8:4), which destroyed weak believers in the church (8:11). Paul’s statement in v. 4c, therefore, is a calling for these puffed-up Christians to put down their false wisdom. They are to follow the path of Christ, the personified Wisdom of God (1:24, 30) as revealed on the cross (1:18-25), represented as the love of one’s brothers and sisters and surrendering one’s right.
Water and Mythology: Water Deities and Creation
“Primordial Sea, Cosmic ocean, Primordial Waters, or Celestial River is a mythological motif that represents the world or cosmos enveloped by a vast primordial ocean. Found in many cultures and civilizations, the cosmic ocean exists before the creation of the Earth. From the primordial waters the Earth and the entire cosmos arose. The cosmic ocean represents or embodies chaos. The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times. The emergence of earth from water and the curbing of the global flood or underground waters are usually presented as a factor in cosmic ordering. In creation myths, it is common for the primordial ocean to be separated into upper and lower bounds of water (i.e. cosmic bodies of water located above the sky or below the earth) by the creation of a solid structure known as a firmament. Some cosmologies depict the world plain as being surrounded by a circular ocean-river, such as Oceanus in Greek cosmology or Raŋhā in Zoroastrian cosmology. The cosmic ocean is also present in the mythology of Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Jews, Ancient Indians, Ancient Persians, Sumerians, and Zoroastrians. It plays a prominent role in ancient near eastern, biblical, and other cosmologies.”
THE WATER OF LIFE: THREE EXPLORATIONS INTO WATER IMAGERY IN REVELATION AND THE FOURTH GOSPEL
Scriptura, 2019
This article is comprised of three separate yet related explorations regarding the image of water in Revelation and the Fourth Gospel. It first explores the attempt to tabulate examples of water terminology in the New Testament and how that tabulation has proven incomplete. A fresh assessment is provided that includes an expanded lexical domain for water and notes its high frequency of usage in Revelation and John when compared to the rest of the New Testament. The next section examines four pericopae in Revelation and in the Fourth Gospel where water imagery is prevalent. Old Testament backgrounds for language are examined along with the intertextual relationship between texts in Revelation and John. A theological understanding of water imagery for Revelation and the gospel is proposed. In the final section, the Asian cultic practice of using water-the hydrophoros in the Artemis cult-is presented. While a Jewish background is commonly posited as the background for understanding water imagery in Revelation and the Fourth Gospel, the Greco-Roman polytheistic cults are posited as the primary religious background for Gentile believers in the Asian congregations.
Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 82:6, ‘I said, You are gods’, a riposte to the accusation that he had blasphemed by making himself equal to God, has attracted considerable attention. The latest suggestion by Jerome H. Neyrey rightly insists that any solution to the problem should take account of the internal logic of the Psalm and argues that it derives from or prefigures a rabbinic Midrash on the Psalm which refers it to the restoration of the immortality lost by Adam to Israel at the giving of the Torah on Sinai. This immortality was then lost again because of the sin of the golden calf. Whilst agreeing that the Psalm is interpreted in the context of the giving of the Torah on Sinai, this article argues that its reference is directed towards Moses on Sinai rather than Israel in general. This accords with the interpretation of Philo and Josephus and other sources much earlier than the Mekkilta de Rabbi Ishmael that Moses is rightly called a god and is assumed to heaven in glory without dying. Rather than deny this attribution of divine features to Moses due to his reception of the Torah on Sinai, John argues that the Torah was received from the hands of Jesus as the Logos. Therefore, Moses’s derivative divine features simply confirm the true divinity of the Logos as the expression of the Father. Moses could be called a god because he knew Jesus as Logos and wrote about him (5:45–5:47), but he sinned and died like any mortal. The corollary is that Moses and his disciples lost their status and died like any mortal, whilst the disciples of Jesus who are ‘taught by God’ and believe in the Incarnate Logos (6:45), have not only seen the glory denied to Moses but are born from above to become divinised as tekna theou (1:12) and do not die.