1 Corinthians 10 begins by the writer speaking of the Jews (“our ancestors”) and the Exodus from Egypt – it discusses the cloud which G-d used to guide the Israelites for example. Line 4 says (speaking of the Jews traveling in the Sinai desert that they “drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Jesus.” This “proof text” is tied to Sh’mot / Exodus 17:6. Again, one must read the bible IN CONTEXT and to understand line 6 (which has nothing to do with a “spiritual drink” or a “spiritual rock”) one must begin from the beginning. Sh’mot Exodus 17:1-2 says “There was no water for the people to drink. The people began to quarrel with Moses. 'Give us water to drink!' they exclaimed.” This is speaking of real water folks, not some “spiritual” kumbaya imaginary Jesus filled liquid. The author of Corinthians took a basic fact (people were thirsty, and G-d told Moses to strike a rock to get water) and somehow this is said to be a "spiritual rock" and is Jesus? One wonders if the author was smoking something other than tobacco when they came up with THAT idea. Sh’mot Exodus 17 is not a prophecy yet again, so there is no “prophetic fulfillment” to be found in the Christian bible. The people were thirsty and G-d gave them a water source. No, the rock was not Jesus -- it was (drumroll) a rock. Moses asks G-d for help, and G-d replies, Sh’mot / Exodus 17:5-6 “G-d said to Moses, 'March in front of the people along with the elders of Israel. Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I (G-d) will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. You must strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.' Moses did this in the presence of the elders of Israel.” This was a REAL rock (not a spiritual rock which was Jesus) This was REAL water (not some spiritual drink). The important things in this passage are not the rock or even the water – it is the question of why didn’t the people trust G-d to take care of them? He had freed them, He had parted the Red Sea for them – and yet here they are arguing and not trusting G-d. They are showing a lack of trust and testing G-d yet again. G-d tells Moses to use the same staff he used to part the Red Sea to strike the rock – the point being that the power was G-d’s (not Moses). The people should have turned to G-d. They should have trusted Him. While they failed the test, it was part of the lesson (which is why Moses did this in the presence of the elders of Israel and not somewhere unseen). Trust G-d. Stop complaining and start to trust HaShem. We know all of this because of the name Moses gave to the place -- מַסָּה וּמְרִיבָה (Massa U'Merivah) which translates to Testing and Arguing. G-d was not pleased:. Sh’mot / Exodus 17:2 “So the people quarreled with Moses, and they said, Give us water that we may drink Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the L-rd?” They argued and ranted to Moses rather than turning to G-d and trusting that He would provide for Him. This lack of faith is brought up quite a few times in the Torah, in D’varim / Deuteronomy 6:16 “Do not test G-d your L-rd, as you tested Him in Massah” and in D’varim / Deuteronomy 19:22 “At Tav'erah, Massah, and Graves-of-Craving, you also provoked G-d” and D’varim / Deuteronomy 33:8 “You tested him at Massah.” It is even mentioned in T’hillim / Psalms 95:8 “Do not harden your heart as [in] Meribah, as [on] the day of Massah in the desert.” So yet again we have a non-prophecy (the story of the people thirsting, Moses striking the rock and water coming from it) somehow is used to say that “Jesus was the spiritual rock” (whatever THAT means. Does the author of Corinthians mean that Jesus was some non-lifeform solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the earth?). The list maker is not the guilty one here of “reaching.” The guilty party for making such a ridiculous comparison of a rock to Jesus is the fault of the author of Corinthians. In Judaism the rock is called Miriam’s Well. According to the Tosefta, the miracles allowing the Jews to survive in the Sinai were due to the merits of Moses, Aaron and Miriam (Moses’ brother and sister). The manna was in merit of Moses, the clouds of glory in merit of Aaron and the well in merit of Miriam (T. Sota 11:4). When Miriam died the water source dried up (read Bamidbar / Numbers 20:1-8 “Miriam died and was buried. The people did not have any water, so they began demonstrating against Moses and Aaron. . . G-d spoke to Moses, saying, 'Take the staff, and you and Aaron assemble the community. Speak to the cliff in their presence, and it will give forth its water. You will thus bring forth water from the cliff.” Why doesn’t one of the 365 “prophecies” include this nugget? If, as Corinthians states, Jesus WAS the rock – why did the water from it dry up? Did Jesus STOP being the rock? When the water source stems from a cliff and not the rock, why are we not told that Jesus is the cliff of Israel? If Jesus can be a spiritual rock, why not a spiritual cliff? This is a perfect example of how ridiculous some of these supposed prophecies can be. Yet another purported prophecy about Jesus in the T’nach which makes no sense at all. All one has to do to debunk these supposed prophecies is to actually read the supposed source and they melt away.
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Jayne
8/30/2015 01:20:53 pm
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