Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jonathan Bailey <jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de>]

Different first line.

Paul's understanding of the significance of the Hagar/Sara story that he lays 
out in
Galatians is typology. So the statement about typology being part of the 
bible still
stands, if it is the Christian bible that one is talking about. Of course if 
one is speaking
of the Hebrew bible only, then of course typology is ruled out by the 
definition that
someone made up. But this is just playing with words. To find common patterns
throughout the bible in historical stories (that is, stories which discuss 
events which
occur on a historical framework-whether they are historically true or not is 
not the
point) which reflect spiritual realities is something which applies to the Old
Testament, rabbinical exegetical tradition, the New Testament, and Christian
exegetical tradition. To call this phenomenon (of which your definition of 
typology is
simply the intertestamental aspect of) anti-biblical is ludicrous to the 
highest order.

And calling typology an intertestamental occurrence is simply an arbitrary 
overdefining
of a term which enjoys a fairly vague and broad meaning in the public arena. A
professor of mine, Aharon Agus, a Jew, in his book "The Binding of Isaac" 
discusses
the "typology" of the near sacrifice of the great partiarch's son, without 
reference to
the NT at all. To him, typology is simply the exegesis of the spiritual 
meaning of the
story on the basis of the symbolic value of the types within it.

You can't get around the issue by rummaging through the various theological
dictionaries out there until you find one that edfines typology like you 
want. It seems to
me that the claim that typology was anti-biblical was a result of the fact 
that many
pastors find allusions to Christ in ythe Old Testament, but they are simply 
doing what
Rabbis had been doing long before.




Jonathan Bailey
MA Kandidat
Hochschule für Jüdische Studien
Heidelberg
---------- Original Message ----------

>At 03:29 PM 10/31/99 +0200, you wrote:

>>
>>A little research and a lot less ranting and you might find out that
>typology is

>*chuckle*-  you have no idea as to what I have or have not researched.  My
>ThM thesis was EXACTLY on the subject of typology.

>>part of the OT itself - like the correspondences between Abraham's sojourn 
>>in
>>Egypt and Israel's.  "You will find that whatever is written in Scripture 
>>about
>>Abraham is written also about his descendants" (Genesis Rabbah 40.6).  
>>Similar
>>observations are valid about vast areas of the OT, not just Genesis 12 
>>compared
>>to the exodus.
>>
>>John

>You have confused typology - which is the act of finding OT prototypes for
>NT events or ideas- for inner biblical interpretation.  One is
>intertestamental and the other is intratestamental.

>Perhaps, then, it is not really "I" that needs to do a little more research
>in the area.

>Best,

>Jim

>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Jim West, ThD
>jwest AT highland.net
>http://web.infoave.net/~jwest


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