Exodus as New Birth

I just wrote a guest post for the Big Bible Project, presenting a reading of the Exodus as new birth. Take a look – it is extremely short, as my posts go. I would love to hear people’s thoughts!

About Alastair Roberts

Alastair Roberts (PhD, Durham University) writes in the areas of biblical theology and ethics, but frequently trespasses beyond these bounds. He participates in the weekly Mere Fidelity podcast, blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria, and tweets at @zugzwanged.
This entry was posted in Bible, Exodus, Guest Post, On the web, OT, OT Theology, The Blogosphere, Theological. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Exodus as New Birth

  1. “As the Israelites, we find ourselves in a womb (Romans 8:18-23). A place of darkness. We find ourselves in a world of increasing pangs and suffering. Like the Israelites, we see the judgment of decay and death around us. However, in the pangs we find assurance of our coming delivery.”

    Do you refer here to the coming delivery in this world – or the next?

    The first time I read the piece I thought you meant that ‘Israel’ would inevitably be pulled back from destruction by God’s invsible work (as reported in scripture on many occassions) – and I though ‘Well, that depends on whether we are now in the end times, or not”.

    But on my second read through it looked more as if you were talking not about this world, but the next.

    I noticed the rather coy ‘dog whistle’ references to the question of the ordination of women…

    Anyway, it is a fine essay – and I particularly appreciated the phrasing of the final paragraph.

    • Thanks! That section was referring to the way that our experience as Christians takes the same form as that of the Israelites in the first Exodus (cf. 1 Corinthians 10). The ‘delivery’ is that of the final resurrection.

      I wasn’t actually intending any reference, even indirect, to women’s ordination. However, as the relevant biblical themes are deeply rooted in the text, we shouldn’t be surprised to see them surfacing regularly if we look carefully.

  2. Pingback: Ten Years of Blogging: 2012-2013 | Alastair's Adversaria

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