SBL Annual Meeting: Denver 2022 Moses and Christ in the Wilderness Narrative Sin Pan Ho 1 S20-150 _______________________________________________________ SBL Theological Interpretation of Scripture Seminar / Pauline Theology Section Theme: Theological Readings of 1 Corinthians November 20, 2022 9:00 AM–11:30 AM Convention Center (CC) - 405 (Street Level) Moses and Christ in the Wilderness Narrative: Theological Resonance of 1 Cor 8:6 in 1 Cor 10 Sin Pan Ho Daniel.ho@LTS.edu Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong (https://lts.academia.edu/SinpanDanielHo) Abstract Recent socio-historical studies of Religion in the Roman World clarify the difference between polytheistic religious lives in Paul’s times and present concepts of religion. Unlike Islam, Judaism and Christianity, religious lives in antiquity were non-confessional and lacked moral instructions for worshippers. Patron-client relations seem to depict gods-worshippers relations in Paul’s time. This context recently helped us understand more the rhetorical purposes of 1 Corinthians to the first readers who had newly exited from their upbringing gods-worshippers religious lifestyle. In this paper, I argue that God-talk’s indoctrination is one fundamental rhetorical purpose of 1 Cor 10. Paul abruptly introduced Moses (10:2), spiritual food/ drink (10:3-4a) and Christ (10:4b) into the classic Jewish wandering story in the wilderness. In responding to the former polytheistic worldview of the first readers, Paul teaches a distinctive concept of God to the idol-worshippers. Paul reframes the classic Jewish wandering story in the wilderness into an expression of ‘mutated’ Christian Shema in 1 Cor 8:6. This best explains the odd ward changes of story details in 1 Cor 10 and the rationale of “do not eat!” in 10:28 as a tangible application of the theology of Christ-followers community. It best explains the interpretation crux in 10:3-4, the comparison of the people of Israel and the exclusive