In Christian theology and biblical exegesis, typology is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Events, persons or statements in the Old Testament are seen as types prefiguring or superseded by antitypes, events or aspects of Christ or his revelation described in the New Testament. For example, Jonah may be seen as the type of Christ in that he emerged from the fish's belly and thus appeared to rise from death.
In the fullest version of the theory of typology, the whole purpose of the Old Testament is viewed as merely the provision of types for Christ, the antitype or fulfillment. The theory began in the Early Church, was at its most influential in the High Middle Ages and continued to be popular, especially in Calvinism, after the Protestant Reformation, but in subsequent periods, it has been given less emphasis.A Study of Biblical Typology (Wayne Jackson, Christian Courier) In 19th-century German Protestantism, typological interpretation was distinguished from rectilinear interpretation of prophecy. The former was associated with Hegelian theologians and the latter with Kantian analyticity. Several groups favoring typology today include the Christian Brethren beginning in the 19th century (for which typology was much favoured and the subject of numerous books) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
Notably, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, typology is still a common and frequent exegetical tool, mainly because of the church's great emphasis on continuity in doctrinal presentation through all historical periods. Typology was frequently used in early Christian art, where type and antitype would be depicted in contrasting positions.
The usage of the terminology has expanded into the secular sphere; for example, "Geoffrey de Montbray (d.1093), Bishop of Coutances, a right-hand man of William the Conqueror, was a type of the great feudal prelate, warrior and administrator".Encyclopædia Britannica
Etymology The term is derived from the Greek noun (), 'a blow, hitting, stamp', and thus the figure or impression made on a coin by such action; that is, an image, figure, or statue of a man; also an original pattern, model, or mould. To this is prefixed the Greek preposition , meaning 'opposite, corresponding'.Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford 1871.The Latin figura, meaning form, shape, or figure, may be comparable, but is from the less violent verb fingo, finxi, fictum, to fashion, form, or mould (Cassell's Latin Dictionary)
Origin of the theory Typology has Old Testament roots, although only in the sense that foreshowing and allusion are tropes in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Tom Schreiner compares Adam and Noah. According to Schreiner, Moses wrote Genesis 1–11 to show how Noah is a Second Adam. Of course, while the points of comparison between the two may be for Christians diagetic, non-Christians typically would find such similarities merely artifacts of the interpretive method. Similarly, Gordan Wenham argues that Moses also wrote of himself typologically to Noah; this assumes both that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that typology as a creative strategy, as well as an interpretive method, can be understood as intratextual, that is relating two characters within the single work of the Hebrew Bible, which is contrary to the ordinary sense of the term. Thus, when Benjamin Sommer says that Deutero-Isaiah typologically models the servant in Isaiah 52:13–53:12 on Jeremiah, blending traits of Israel, Isaiah, and Yahweh, he uses "typology" in a non-Christian sense. The passage draws on Jeremiah 10–11, where Jeremiah’s suffering and the people’s lament provide the pattern for the servant’s own affliction. Typology also appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Christian typology began in this cultural context. In the New Testament, for example, Paul in Romans 5:14 calls Adam "a type [] of the one who was to come"—i.e., a type of Christ. He contrasts Adam and Christ both in Romans 5 and in 1 Corinthians 15. The author of the First Epistle of Peter uses the term () to refer to baptism. There are also typological concepts in pre-Pauline strata of the New Testament.E. Earle Ellis, 1957, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament. Edinburgh; London: Oliver and Boyd.
The early Christians, in considering the Old Testament, needed to decide what its role and purpose was for them, given that Christian revelation and the New Covenant might be considered to have superseded it, and many specific Old Testament rules and requirements were no longer being followed from books such as Leviticus dealing with Expounding of the Law.See also Leviticus 18 One purpose of the Old Testament for Christians was to demonstrate that the Ministry of Jesus and Christ's first coming had been prophesied and foreseen, and the Gospels indeed contain many Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Christ and quotations from the Old Testament which explicitly and implicitly link Jesus to Old Testament prophecies. Typology greatly extended the number of these links by adding others based on the similarity of Old Testament actions or situations to an aspect of Christ.
Typology is also a theory of history, 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.Typology Washington State University The most famous form of this is the three-fold Hegelian dialectic pattern, although it is also used in other applications besides history.
Development of typology
The system of Medieval allegory began in the Early Church as a method for synthesizing the seeming discontinuities between the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament. The Church studied both testaments and saw each as equally inspired by God, yet the Old Testament contained discontinuities for Christians such as the Jewish kosher laws and the requirement for male circumcision. This therefore encouraged seeing at least parts of the Old Testament not as a literal account but as an allegory or foreshadowing of the events of the New Testament, and in particular examining 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 regarded some parts of the Bible as essentially allegorical; however, the typological relationships remained the same whichever view was taken. Paul the Apostle states the doctrine 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. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." The idea also finds expression in the Letter to the Hebrews.
The development of this systematic view of the Hebrew Bible was influenced by the thought of the Hellenistic Jewish world centered in Alexandria, where Jewish philosopher Philo () and others viewed Scripture in philosophical terms (contemporary Greek literary theory highlighted foreshadowing as a literary device) as essentially an allegory, using Hellenistic Platonic concepts. Origen (184/185253/254) Christianised the system, and figures including Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300c. 368) and Ambrose (c. 340397) spread it. Saint Augustine (345–430) recalled often hearing Ambrose say that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life", and Augustine in turn became a hugely influential proponent of the system, though also insisting on the literal historical truth of the Bible. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) and Rabanus Maurus (c. 780856) became influential as summarizers and compilers of works setting out standardized interpretations of correspondences and their meanings.Emile Male, The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, p 131-9, English translation of 3rd edition, 1913, Collins, London, (and many other editions)
Jewish typological thought continued to develop in Rabbinic literature, including the Kabbalah, with concepts such as the Pardes, the four approaches to a biblical text.
Typology frequently emerged in art; many typological pairings appear 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 Speculum Humanae Salvationis and the Biblia pauperum became the two most successful compilations.
Example of Jonah The story of Jonah and the fish in the Old Testament offers an example of typology. In the Old Testament Book of Jonah, Jonah told his shipmates to throw him overboard, explaining that God's wrath would pass if Jonah were sacrificed, and that the sea would become calm. Jonah then spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish before it spat him up onto dry land.
Typological interpretation of this story holds that it prefigures Christ's burial and resurrection. The stomach of the fish represented Christ's tomb; as Jonah exited from the fish after three days and three nights, so did Christ rise from His tomb on the third day. In the New Testament, Jesus invokes Jonah in the manner of 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 , ). In , Jonah called the belly of the fish "She'ol", the land of the dead (translated as "the grave" in the NIV Bible).
Thus, when one finds an allusion to Jonah in Medieval art or in Medieval literature, it usually represents an allegory for the burial and resurrection of Christ. Other common typological allegories entail the four major Old Testament prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel prefiguring the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or the twelve tribes of Israel foreshadowing the twelve apostles. Commentators could find countless numbers of analogies 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.Jackson, see above
Other Old Testament examples
Offering of Isaac Genesis Chapter 22 brings us the story of the preempted offering of Isaac. God asks Abraham to offer his son Isaac to Him, cited as foreshadowing the crucifixion of Jesus. Isaac asks his father, "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering", and Abraham prophesies, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And indeed, a ram caught by its horns awaits them, which is also seen as a type for Christ, the lamb that God provides for sacrifice, crowned by thorns.
Joseph Genesis Chapters 37–50 have the story of Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph is commonly cited as a Christ type.Learn the bible site Joseph is 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. Joseph's brothers deceive their father by dipping his coat in the blood of a sacrificed goat (Genesis 37:31). Later, Joseph's father finds that Joseph is alive and is the ruler of Egypt who saves the world from a great famine. Other parallels between Joseph and Jesus include: Both are rejected by their own people. Both became servants. Both were betrayed for silver. Both were falsely accused and face false witnesses. Both attained stations at the "right hand" of the respective thrones (Joseph at Pharaoh's throne and Christ at the throne of God). Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, and Jesus was about the same age, according to the Bible, when he began his ministry.