Typology, Jehu, and Christ

In a previous post, I addressed the issue of the use of typology in biblical interpretation. The issue was raised by Pauline Viviano, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

In another post, I mentioned that Peter J. Leithart, in response to Viviano’s criticism, wrote a blog defending his use of typology in his commentary on 1 & Kings.

In this ongoing discussion between Pauline Viviano and Peter Leithart on the use of typology, Viviano has written a blog in response to Leithart’s comments. The following is an excerpt of Viviano’s response to Leithart’s comments:

Once I "discover" that putting garments on the ground before Jehu bears a similarity to the people putting garments on the ground before Jesus on Palm Sunday, must I conclude that Jehu is a type of Christ? Is that all it takes? Is the brutality of Jehu simply to be disregarded or do I also apply that to Christ in some clever fashion? But even if I accept that this one sentence correspondence between the Old Testament and the New makes Jehu a type of Christ, then what have I learned? Does it draw me into a deeper understanding of who God is and what God is about? Does it inspire me to become a more loving human being?

The early Christians read the Old Testament through the lens of the Jesus event. I have no problem with that. We all read the text through some lens. Some today try to understand the biblical text from within its historical context (Historical Critical Method) or from within its literary context (New Literary Criticism; Rhetorical Criticism). Others interpret the biblical text privileging the position of the poor (Liberation criticism); others focus on gender issues (Feminist criticism). These methods and others are different and valid ways to approach the biblical text. What I object to is the notion that reading typologically, or any approach in search of the spiritual sense of the text, IS the theological reading of the text and what contemporary biblical scholars do is not theological. I find what contemporary biblical scholars are doing to be profoundly theological. Maybe the problem is that some just don't like the theological insights that we have gained from contemporary biblical interpretation and want to return to those "good old days" of the early Church Fathers ignoring entirely that not only has the world changed, but also that "the good old days" weren't all that good.

Read Viviano’s comments here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart,
Typology

Typology and Biblical Interpretation

In my previous post, "The Use of Typology in Biblical Interpretation," I wrote about Pauline Viviano’s criticism of typology as a valid exegetical tool in biblical interpretation. Her criticism came in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

Peter J. Leithart has written a blog in response to Pauline Viviano’s criticism of his use of typology in his commentary on 1 & Kings. In his comments, Leithart addresses some of the issues Viviano raised in her review of the book.

The following is an excerpt of Leithart’s comments:

No doubt Hellenism had its influence on early church hermeneutics, but can after the last hundred years of study of patristic and medieval exegesis can anyone still accept this as an accurate summary of what the church fathers were after? Can anyone doubt that Paul read the Old Testament (at least, portions of it) "typologically"? As Viviano says, I have to answer with a resounding "NO!" Paul even uses the word "type" to describe what he finds in the Old Testament narrative (1 Corinthians 10). Can de Lubac's work have had so little effect, on Catholic biblical scholars?

Of my suggestion that Jehu is a type of Christ, she writes, "Among the most puzzling is Jehu as a type of Christ. You remember Jehu, don't you? He was the general of Israel's army who led a coup in which he butchered the previous dynasty and burned to death the worshippers of Baal whom he had locked in their temple. If you couldn't find the similarity to Christ here, you are not alone; I couldn't find it either."

She's writing for a blog, so we don't expect an argument; but, for anyone who didn't notice, it's worth pointing out that this isn't one - an argument, that is. She takes what she believes to be the most un-Christlike actions of Jehu and then throws up her hands. But isn't she even a wee bit intrigued by the fact that Jehu's men lay their garments on the ground as they proclaim him king? Mightn't this just possibly be a foreshadowing of some other king before whom a crowd of followers laid down their garments?

Leithart’s conclusion is that “Viviano's objection is not really to my hermeneutics; it's to my theology.”

Read Leithart’s blog by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart,
Typology

The Use of Typology in Biblical Interpretation

The use of typology in biblical interpretation has been a common method employed by many Christian writers to mine the hidden truths of the Bible. Typology can be defined as the correspondence between Old Testament and New Testament events that explains the work of God in the Old Testament as type of what God was accomplishing in the life and ministry of Christ. Typology is based on the belief that people and events in the Old Testament find their true meaning in the events of the New Testament.

Those who adopt typology as a valid method of interpretation believe that what God did in the lives of some persons and in some events in the Old Testament is the valid key to understand what God did in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and in the ministry of the early church.

The validity of typology as an exegetical tool has been raised by Pauline Viviano, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006). Viviano raises several issues about the typological interpretation of 1 and 2 Kings. The following is an excerpt of Viviano’s comments:

Of the many criticisms of the work of biblical scholars the one I have most recently been "attacked" with is that we are not theological enough, so it was with some eagerness that I agreed to review a theological commentary on 1 & 2 Kings. My eagerness was diminished somewhat when I discovered that the commentators for this series were chosen for "their expertise in using the Christian doctrinal tradition" and not for their "historical or philological expertise." But I was willing to enter into the "world of the text" and see how "doctrine provides structure and cogency to scriptural interpretation."

The author's preferred method of interpretation was to treat the people and events of the books of Kings typologically. Typology was a method of interpretation much in vogue among the early Church Fathers. In typology the events and people of the Old Testament are thought to foreshadow or prefigure what is fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah. The events and people of the Old Testament become "types" of the events and people in the New Testament. The typology of the early Church Fathers was grounded in philosophical and hermeneutical assumptions drawn from the Hellenistic philosophies of the time which were heavily influenced by Platonism. In their worldview typology made sense and over the centuries extreme typologies were forgotten and the Church was left with the more sensible typologies that we continue to find in liturgy and are artistically rendered in stained glass windows. Can we "resurrect" typological interpretation and by means of it find a theologically satisfying understanding of the Bible today? After reading this commentary on Kings I would have to answer with a resounding "no!"

The author was able to find the most amazing "types;" they are literally on every page of the commentary. Among the most puzzling is Jehu as a type of Christ. You remember Jehu, don't you? He was the general of Israel's army who led a coup in which he butchered the previous dynasty and burned to death the worshippers of Baal whom he had locked in their temple. If you couldn't find the similarity to Christ here, you are not alone; I couldn't find it either. My favorite quote from the book is "Moses is Elijah is John; Joshua is Elisha is Jesus. Yet also, Moses is Elijah is Jesus, and Joshua is Elisha is the church." If you can unpack this quote for me, please do so; it just makes me giggle. It was clear after the first few pages of this commentary that every number "3" in the books of Kings was going to be taken as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection; every body of water, a reference to Baptism; and every anointing, messianic. The story of Elisha and the floating ax head is seen as a type of both Resurrection and Baptism! I have many more examples, but I think my point has been made: this "resurrected" form of typological exegesis is just plain silly.

Read Viviano’s comments in its entirety by clicking here.

I tend to agree with Viviano’s comments. In the name of typology, commentators of the biblical text have found Christ where Christ should not be found. Sometimes, even a bad translation of the biblical text allows for a typological interpretation of the text, as I have demonstrated in my post on the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22:8. Interpreters must be very careful not to interject their own preconceived ideas into the text. This form of interpretation is not exegesis; it is eisegesis.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart, Typology

The Book of Isaiah and Zionism

An article published in Israel Today gives a very interesting perspective on the book of Isaiah. The article reads in part:

People often maintain that the Old Testament, in contrast to the New Testament, is defined by a Debit and Credit system of laws. But that is simply not true.

One example of this is the book of Isaiah. Modern theologians have invented the Deutero-Isaiah theory, which claims that the second part of Isaiah was written later than the first by another author. Their works were later compiled together under the name of the first author, the “real” Isaiah.

However, anyone who really looks at Isaiah in context will see clearly that there were not two of them who supposedly contradicted each other, but rather there was one writer who prophesied regarding two different periods of time.

In chapters 1 to 39, Isaiah prophecies about the destruction of the Temple (70 AD) and the banishment of the Jews from Israel (135 AD). Then from chapter 40 to the end, Isaiah prophecies about the end of the Jewish Diaspora when modern- day Zionism begins, fulfilled by the founding of the State of Israel.

The last statement of this article reveals the problem some people have in interpreting a biblical text. To say that Isaiah 1-39 contains prophecies about the banishment of Israel in 135 AD and that Isaiah 40-66 speaks about the Zionist movement of the last two centuries is a clear evidence of infusing the text with ideas that were never present in the mind of the original writer.

The correct interpretation of a biblical text is a difficult enterprise. The task of explaining the meaning of a text requires at least three very important hermeneutical principles:

1. The interpreter must make an attempt at understanding what the original writer meant to communicate to his primary audience.

2. The interpreter must discover what the primary audience or the recipients of the message understood the original writer to be communicating to them.

3. The interpreter must understand the simple meaning of the message that is actually conveyed by the words of the text.

As humans, we come to a biblical text with our set of biases and presuppositions that are mediated through our religious experiences and personal history. Thus, our cultural background, our religious experience, and our prior knowledge influence what we read and how we understand the biblical text.

The statement above does not meet the three criteria for a good interpretation of the biblical text and reflect the kind of bias that brings into the text an interpretation that was never intended by the writer or writers of the book of Isaiah.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Isaiah, Zionism