Typology (theology) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Christian theology

- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...

and Biblical exegesis

Exegesis

Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...

is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Events in the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

(a term linked with Supersessionism

Supersessionism

Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...

, see Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

) are seen as pre-figuring events or aspects of Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, and, in the fullest version of the theory, that is seen as the purpose behind the Old Testament events occurring. The theory began in the Early Church, was at its most influential in the High Middle Ages

High Middle Ages

The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

, and continued to be popular, especially in Calvinism

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

, after the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, but in subsequent periods has been given less emphasis.

Typology, derived from the Greek word for "mark", posits that Old Testament events or statements are the "types" pre-figuring an aspect of Christ and his revelation, who is the "archtype" to each type. The Early Christians, in considering the Old Testament, needed to decide what its role and purpose for them was, given that Christian revelation and the New Covenant

New Covenant

The New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment...

might be considered to have replaced it

Supersessionism

Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...

, and many specific Biblical rules and requirements in books like Leviticus
Leviticus
The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....

were no longer being followed

Expounding of the Law

The Expounding of the Law is a highly structured part of the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament...

. See also Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18 is a chapter of the Biblical book of Leviticus. It narrates part of the instructions given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. The chapter deals with a number of sexual activities considered 'unclean' or 'abominable'...

.

One purpose of the Old Testament for Christians was to demonstrate that Christ's first coming

Ministry of Jesus

In the Christian gospels, the Ministry of Jesus begins with his Baptism in the countryside of Judea, near the River Jordan and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry...

had been prophesised and foreseen, and the Gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

s already contain many passages

Quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament

Numerous quotations of the Hebrew Bible are made in the New Testament. In general, the New Testament writers quote from the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible, as it was then in common use among Gentiles, both Roman and Greek, while Jews of the time spoke mainly Aramaic and Hebrew, and would...

that explicitly and implicitly link Jesus to old Testament prophecies. Typology greatly extended the number of these links by adding to those based on phrases in the Old Testament others based on the similarity of Old Testament actions or situations to an aspect of Christ.

Typology is also a theory of history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, seeing the whole story of the Jewish and Christian peoples as shaped by God, with events within the story acting as symbols for later events - in this role God is often compared to a writer, using actual events instead of fiction to shape his narrative.

Origins and development

What is referred to as Medieval allegory began in the Early Church as a method for synthesizing these seeming discontinuities between the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

(Old Testament) and the New Testament. While both testaments were studied and seen as equally inspired

Biblical inspiration

Biblical inspiration is the doctrine in Christian theology that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings many be designated in some sense the word of God.- Etymology :...

by God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

, the Old Testament contained discontinuities for Christians, for example, the Jewish kosher laws and male circumcision

Circumcision controversy in early Christianity

There is evidence of a controversy over religious male circumcision in Early Christianity. A Council of Jerusalem, possibly held in approximately 50 AD, decreed that male circumcision was not a requirement for Gentile converts. This became known as the "Apostolic Decree" and may be one of the...

. The Old Testament could therefore be seen in places not as a literal account, but as an allegory, or foreshadowing, of the events of the New Testament, in particular how the events of the Old Testament related to the events of Christ's life. Most theorists believed in the literal truth of the Old Testament accounts, but regarded the events described as shaped by God to provide types foreshadowing Christ. Others believed that some parts of the Bible are essentially allegorical; however the typological relationships remain the same whichever view is taken. The doctrine is stated by Paul

Paul of Tarsus

Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...

in Colossians 2:16-17 - "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day

Biblical Sabbath

Sabbath in the Bible is usually a weekly day of rest and time of worship. The Sabbath is first mentioned in the Genesis creation narrative. The seventh day is there set aside as a day of rest—the Sabbath. It is observed differently in Judaism and Christianity and informs a similar occasion in...

. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." It also finds expression in the Letter to the Hebrews.

The development of this as a systematic view of the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

was influenced by the thought of the Hellenistic Jewish

Hellenistic Judaism

Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...

world centered in Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, where Philo

Philo

Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....

and others viewed the Bible in philosophical terms(foreshadowing was a then famous literary devise among the Greeks) as essentially an allegory

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

. Even borrowing some Platonic

Platonism

Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...

concepts from their Pagan neighbors. The system was Christianised by Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

, and spread by figures including Hilary of Poitiers

Hilary of Poitiers

Hilary of Poitiers was Bishop of Poitiers and is a Doctor of the Church. He was sometimes referred to as the "Hammer of the Arians" and the "Athanasius of the West." His name comes from the Latin word for happy or cheerful. His optional memorial in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints is 13...

and Ambrose

Ambrose

Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...

. Saint Augustine recalled often hearing Ambrose say that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life" and he in turn was a hugely influential proponent of the system, though also insisting on the literal historical truth of the Bible. Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

and Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurus Magnentius , also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish Benedictine monk, the archbishop of Mainz in Germany and a theologian. He was the author of the encyclopaedia De rerum naturis . He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible...

were influential as summarizers and compilers of works setting out standardized interpretations of correspondences and their meanings. Jewish typological thought has continued to develop in Rabbinic literature

Rabbinic literature

Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...

, including the Kabbalah

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

, with concepts like the Pardes

Pardes (Jewish exegesis)

Pardes refers to approaches to biblical exegesis in rabbinic Judaism . The term, sometimes also spelled PaRDeS, is an acronym formed from the name initials of the following four approaches:...

or four approaches to a Biblical text.

Typology was very frequently expressed in art; many typological pairings are found in sculpture on cathedrals and churches, and in other media. Popular illustrated works expounding typological couplings were among the commonest books of the late Middle Ages, as illuminated manuscripts, blockbooks, and incunabula (early printed books). The two most successful compilations were the Speculum Humanae Salvationis

Speculum Humanae Salvationis

The Speculum Humanae Salvationis or Mirror of Human Salvation was a bestselling anonymous illustrated work of popular theology in the late Middle Ages, part of the genre of encyclopedic speculum literature, in this case concentrating on the medieval theory of typology, whereby the events of the Old...

and the Biblia pauperum

Biblia pauperum

The Biblia pauperum was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages. They sought to portray the historical books of the Bible visually. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre,...

Example of Jonah

An example of typology is the story of Jonah

Jonah

Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...

and the fish from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament Jonah told the men aboard the ship to sacrifice him by throwing him overboard. Jonah told them that by taking his life, God’s wrath would pass and the sea would become calm. Subsequently Jonah then spends three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish before he is spat up onto dry land. Typological interpretation of this story holds that it prefigures Christ's burial, the stomach of the fish being Christ's tomb: as Jonah was freed from the fish after three days and three nights, so did Christ rise from His tomb after three days and three nights. In the New Testament Jesus can be thought to invoke Jonah as a type: “As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” (see also ). Jonah called the belly of the fish "She'ol

Sheol

Sheol |Hebrew]] Šʾôl) is the "grave", "pit", or "abyss" in Hebrew. She'ol is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go, regardless of the moral choices made in life, and where they are "removed from the light of God"...

," the land of the dead (translated "the grave" in the NIV).

Thus, whenever one finds an allusion to Jonah in Medieval art

Medieval art

The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...

or Medieval literature

Medieval literature

Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...

, it is usually an allegory for the burial and resurrection of Christ. Another common typological allegory entails the four major Old testament prophets Isaiah

Isaiah

Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

, Jeremiah

Jeremiah

Jeremiah Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...

, Ezekiel

Ezekiel

Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...

, and Daniel

Daniel

Daniel is the protagonist in the Book of Daniel of the Hebrew Bible. In the narrative, when Daniel was a young man, he was taken into Babylonian captivity where he was educated in Chaldean thought. However, he never converted to Neo-Babylonian ways...

prefiguring the four Evangelists Matthew

Matthew the Evangelist

Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark

Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

, Luke

Luke the Evangelist

Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...

, and John

John the Evangelist

Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...

, or the twelve tribes of Israel foreshadowing the twelve apostles. There was no end to the number of analogies that commentators could find between stories of the Old Testament and the New; modern typologists prefer to limit themselves to considering typological relationships that they find sanctioned in the New Testament itself, as in the example of Jonah above.

Other Old Testament examples

Sacrifice of Isaac

Genesis Chapter 22 brings us the story of the preempted sacrifice of Isaac. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him, cited as a foreshadowing of God sacrificing His Son. When a suspicious Isaac asks his father “where is the lamb for the burnt offering” Abraham prophesied "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And indeed a ram caught by its horns awaited them, which is also seen as a type for Christ, the lamb that God provides

Lamb of God

The title Lamb of God appears in the Gospel of John, with the exclamation of John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" in John 1:29 when he sees Jesus....

for sacrifice.

Joseph

Genesis Chapters 37-50 has the story of Joseph in Egypt. Joseph is commonly cited as a Christ type in the story. Joseph is the only son (at that time) of his mother and a very special son to his father. From his father’s perspective Joseph dies and then comes back to life as the ruler of Egypt. Actually Joseph’s brothers deceive their father by dipping his coat in the blood of a sacrificed animal. Later Joseph’s father finds that not only is Joseph alive but he also is the ruler of Egypt that saves the world of his day from a great famine. Other parallels between Joseph and Jesus include, both are rejected by their own people, both became servants, both are betrayed for silver, both are falsely accused and face false witnesses. Additionally, both attain stations at the "right hand" of the respective thrones (Joseph at Pharaoh's throne and Christ at the throne of God), and both provided for the salvation of gentiles (Joseph a physical salvation in preparing for the famine, while Christ provided the deeper spiritual salvation). Finally, Joseph married an Egyptian wife, bringing her into the Abrahamic lineage, whereas Christ's relationship with the church is also described in marriage terms in the New Testament.

Moses

Moses, like Joseph and Jonah, undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection. Moses is placed in a basket and floated down the Nile river, and then is drawn out of the Nile to be adopted as a prince (floating the body down the Nile river was also part of an Egyptian funerary ritual for royalty).

While in the wilderness, Moses

Moses

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

put a brazen serpent on a pole which would heal anyone bitten by a snake who looked at it (Numbers 21:8). Jesus proclaimed that the serpent, was a type of Himself, since "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up" (John 3:14) and "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2Co 5:21)

In a battle with the Amalekites, Exodus 17:11 states that "as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning." Commentators interpret Moses' raised hands as a type of Jesus' raised hands upon the Cross, for when Jesus' hands were raised as He died, a figurative battle with sin was waged, the end result being victory - that "all will be made alive." (1 Cor. 15:22)

Inanimate types

Other types were found in aspects of the Old Testament less tied to specific events. The Jewish holiday

Jewish holiday

Jewish holidays are days observed by Jews as holy or secular commemorations of important events in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov or chag or ta'anit...

s also have typological fulfillment in the life of Christ. The Last Supper

Last Supper

The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...

was a Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

meal. Furthermore, many people see the Spring Feasts as types of what Christ will accomplish in his first advent and the Fall Feasts as types of what Christ will accomplish in his second advent.

The Jewish Tabernacle

Tabernacle

The Tabernacle , according to the Hebrew Torah/Old Testament, was the portable dwelling place for the divine presence from the time of the Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Built to specifications revealed by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, it accompanied the Israelites...

is commonly seen as a series of complex types of Jesus Christ: for example, Jesus describes himself as "the door", and the only "way" to God , represented in the single, wide gate to the tabernacle court; the various layers of coverings over the tabernacle represent Christ's godliness (in the intricately-woven inner covering) and his humanity (in the dull colouring of the outside covering) The Showbread

Showbread

Showbread , in the King James Version: shewbread, in a biblical or Jewish context, refers to the cakes or loaves of bread which were always present on a specially dedicated table, in the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God...

prepared in the Temple of Jerusalem is also seen as a type for Christ.

Post-biblical usage

As Erich Auerbach

Erich Auerbach

Erich Auerbach was a philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-known work is Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to modern times.-Biography:Auerbach, who was Jewish, was born in...

points out in his essay "Figura", typological (figural) interpretation co-existed alongside allegorical and symbolic-mythical forms of interpretation. But it was typology that was most influential as Christianity spread both in late Mediterranean cultures, but also in the North and Western Euoprean cultures. Auerbach notes that it was the predominant method of understanding the Hebrew scriptures until after the Reformation—that is, that the Hebrew texts were not understood as Jewish history and law but were instead interpreted "as figura rerum or phenomenal prophecy, as a prefiguration of Christ". Typological interpretation was a key element of Medieval realism, but remained important in Europe "up to the eighteenth century".

Further, typology was extended beyond interpretations of the Hebrew scriptures and applied to post-Biblical events, seeing them as "not the ultimate fulfillment, but [...] a promise of the end of time and the true kingdom of God." Thus, the Puritans interpreted their own history typologically:

In this way, the Puritans applied typology both to themselves as a group and to the progress of the individual souls:

Typology also became important as a literary device, in which both historical and literary characters become prefigurations of later historical or literary characters.

External links

Berkeley, Set of woodcut typological illustrations to the Speculum Humanae Salvationis
Online book Patrick Fairbairn
Patrick Fairbairn
Patrick Fairbairn was a Scottish minister and theologian. He was born in Greenlaw, Berwickshire, and began studying at the University of Edinburgh at the age of 13. He graduated in 1826 and commenced work as a tutor in Orkney. Fairbairn was granted the living of North Ronaldshay in 1830 and...

The Typology of Scripture, 1859
Catholic Encyclopedia: Types in Scripture
Jewish Encyclopedia: ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION
Puritan typology, Donna M. Campbell, Washington State University

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