1 Corinthians 10:4, the “following” rock
One of the more well-known and disputed passages in which
a noncanonical tradition has influenced the NT is Paul’s claim that the rock
following the Israelites in the wilderness and providing them with “spiritual
drink” was actually Christ:
1 Cor 10:4
All drank the same spiritual drink—for they drank from
the spiritual rock following them, and the rock was Christ.
πάντες
τὸ αὐτὸ πνευματικὸν ἔπιον πόμα· ἔπινον γὰρ
ἐκ πνευματικῆς ἀκολουθούσης πέτρας, ἡ πέτρα δὲ
ἦν ὁ Χριστός.
There are two questions about this passage that are often
conflated but need to be distinguished: Was Paul alluding to a noncanonical
tradition about a mobile source of water in the wilderness? and, Did he simply
endorse it wholesale? I will take each in turn.
(1) Evidence for
exegetical expansion. The key canonical data points for God’s provision of
water from a rock to the Israelites are Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. When the
Israelites first entered the wilderness after leaving Egypt, God told Moses
that he (God) would stand “upon the rock” before Moses, and Moses was to strike
the “rock” (צור,
πέτρα) at Horeb to provide water for the
people to drink (Exod 17:6). After decades of traveling in the wilderness, they
arrived at Kadesh and, once more, God provided water from a rock (סלע, πέτρα) at the command of Moses (Num 20:3–20). No similar
situation is mentioned between these bookends, and so the biblical data raise
an implicit question: Did God continue providing water to the Israelites this
whole time, just as he provided manna/quail? Intracanonically, there is some
evidence of an affirmative answer:
• Deut 8:15
speaks in comprehensive terms of water from the rock.
• Ps
78[77]:15–16 describes how God split “rock(s)” (plural צרים; OG singular πέτρα) to bring forth water in the wilderness
and made rivers flow from a “rock” (סלע; πέτρα).
• Ps
105[104]:41 asserts that the water from the first rock flowed as a river
through the desert.
• Isa 48:21
states the Israelites did not thirst in the desert because God made water flow
from the rock.
• Neh 9:15
parallels the continual supply of manna with the provision of water from the
rock.
To varying degrees, each passage seems to suggest the
initial water from the rock at Horeb is what sustained Israel throughout. But
that is not precisely what Paul envisioned, for he stated that it is the rock, not the water, that “followed” the Israelites; in 1 Cor 10:4, the feminine ἀκολουθούσης modifies πέτρα, not the neuter πόμα. In other words, not just the water but
the rock itself was journeying (emphasized by the imperfective participle) with
the Israelites for forty years from Horeb to Kadesh.
Such a premise seems to arise via downstream exegetical
expansion on the Exodus/Numbers storyline. The roots of such a tradition may
lie in the psalter itself, whereby Ps 78[77]:15–16 ties together both bookends
of the story by describing water from צור (=Exod 17:6) in verse 15 and from סלע (=Num 20:8) in verse 16. From there we
might turn to the OG Pentateuch, which, as shown above, renders the different
Hebrew words for the “rock” at each respective location with the same Greek
word (צור and סלע → πέτρα), perhaps priming the pump to see them
as the same rock. Subsequently, a
handful of Jewish texts contemporaneous with or later than 1 Corinthians
elaborate on the provision of water in the wilderness. The earliest are two
passages in Pseudo-Philo. One falls in line with the canonical data in positing
that the water (though from Marah,
Exod 15:23–25, not Horeb) followed the Israelites on their journey:
LAB
11:15
The water of Marah [aqua
myrre] became sweet, and it followed [sequebatur] them in the wilderness forty years, and it ascended the
mountain with them and descended into the plains.
However, the other passage instead posits that the well followed them:
LAB
10:7
He led his people out into the wilderness; for forty
years he rained on them bread from heaven and brought quail to them from the
sea and raised a well of water accompanying them [puteum aque consequentis eis].
Some degree of reconciliation between these two divergent
accounts might be found in LAB 20:8,
where the “well of water of Marah” (puteum
aque mirre) is dedicated to Miriam, who died at Kadesh (Num 20:1);
apparently the water of Marah followed the Israelites via a movable well. Three
other Jewish sources, though postdating the first century, are relevant as
likely independent tradents of the same basic motif:
Tg.
Onq.
Num 21:16, 19
At
that time the well
[בירא]
was given to them.… And having been given to them, it descended
with them into the valleys, and from the valleys it ascended with them to the
hills.
Tg.
Ps.-J. Num 21:16, 19
At
that time the well
[בירא]
was given to them.… And since it was given to them as a gift,
turning it ascended with them into the high mountains, and from the high
mountains it descended with them to the hills. Going around the whole camp of
Israel, it gave drink to each of them at the door of his tent.
t.
Sukkah 3.3.11
The well [הבאר] that was with Israel in the wilderness
was like a rock [סלע]
the size of a large vessel, surging and rising upward as from the mouth of a
flask, ascending with them up the mountains and descending with them into the
valleys. Wherever Israel camped, it encamped opposite them before the entry of
the tent of meeting.
The evidence is not quite as abundant as many scholars
assume, nor is it particularly early. Yet the consistency of the portrayal
suggests that the motif goes back earlier than the sources themselves. There is
good reason to think, then, that Paul’s “rock following them” does indeed
reflect a contemporary Jewish exegetical amplification that had connected the
dots from Exodus to Numbers via a movable well/rock (not just a stream of
water).
(2) Paul’s
engagement with the motif. The fact that Paul tipped his hat to a
contemporary motif does not mean he simply copied and pasted it. He considered
the water as “spiritual,” just as the manna was “spiritual” (1 Cor
10:3–4)—there is something transcendental about it. And he made the stunning
claim that this “rock” journeying with them was, too, “spiritual,” namely,
“Christ.” Though there could be a kind of typological connection (from literal
rock to sacramental Christ) at play, many scholars argue that Paul was speaking
instead about the preexistence of Christ. Insofar as God himself is often
understood metaphorically as Israel’s “rock” (צור or סלע) (Deut 32:4, 15, 18; Ps 18:2, 31; Isa
44:8) and as the one providing water during the wilderness journey, it is not a
difficult leap for Paul to claim that the preexistent Son is in some way
manifested as that rock.
Although one strand of Judaism may have provided the
basic “following rock” motif, a more Hellenized strand may have greased the
skids for Paul’s preexistence connection. In Wis 11:1–4, God’s σοφία is the one who led Israel through the
wilderness and gave them water from the “flinty rock” (πέτρας ἀκροτόμου). This premise is developed further by
Philo, who directly equated the “strong rock” (στερεᾶς πέτρας) of OG Deut 32:13 with the “wisdom of
God” (σοφίαν θεοῦ) (Det.
115). Moreover, in discussing God’s provision of water from the “flinty rock” (πέτρας ἀκροτόμου) of OG Deut 8:15, he stated that this
“flinty rock is the wisdom of God [ἀκρότομος
πέτρα ἡ σοφία τοῦ
θεοῦ ἐστιν] … from whom the souls who love God are
given drink [ποτίζει]” (Leg. 2.86). To the extent “wisdom” is in
some sense a personification of God and, thereby, preexistent, its association
with the rock among some Hellenistic Jews may have provided a handhold for
Paul’s Christological exegesis.
Putting it together, if Paul’s audience at Corinth was
familiar with such existing Jewish interpretations of the rock—and if they were
also familiar with some sort of “following rock” tradition—then Paul did not
simply borrow such motifs but Christologically subverted them. Not “wisdom,”
but Christ in his spiritual preexistence, traveled with the Israelites and
sustained them through their wilderness journey. In short, Paul was influenced
by the noncanonical traditions but in a way that led him to different
conclusions. (Gregory R. Lanier, Apocryphal Prophets and Athenian Poets:
Noncanonical Influences on the New Testament [Brentwood, Tenn.: B&H
Academic, 2004], 308-13)
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