ABSTRACT
Insular monastic writers inherited a tradition of biblical interpretation in which the Exodus, a defining event in the history of the Israelites, had been fundamentally re-interpreted by St Paul and the Fathers of the Church to extend its range of reference beyond one particular time, place and people. The apostle saw his Hebrew forefathers’ divine deliverance from slavery in Egypt—their crossing of the Red Sea, their temptation and sin in the wilderness, and God’s provision of manna and water from the Rock to sustain them on their journey to the Promised Land—as a figure of the Christian life and mysteries, written down for the instruction of present readers (1 Corinthians 10:1–11). Read in this way, Scripture provides the faithful with a map for their own spiritual journey, but it is a map which requires a key.
