Alastair's Adversaria - Typology (with James Hamilton)

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

James Hamilton is the author of a superb new book on the subject of typology, 'Typology: Understanding the Bible's Promise-Shaped Patterns—How Old Testament Expectations are Fulfilled in Christ': https://amzn.to/3qmFvki. He joins me for a discussion of his book and of the subject of typology more generally. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/36WVSWCK4X33O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035?mt=2.

Hello and welcome. I am joined today by Dr. Jim Hamilton, who is the author of a recent book, Typology, Understanding the Bible's Promise-shaped Patterns. He's the pastor of Kenwood Baptist and also a professor at Southern Seminary. Thank you so much for joining me. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. And typology is, if anything, one of my favorite subjects. So I'm delighted to have the opportunity to talk about this book, which is a superb introduction to the subject. So to start us off, how did you first get into the subject of typology? What was it that attracted you to it? And what were the steps by which you went from first discovering it to writing a book on the subject? Yeah. So years and years ago, when I was in the PhD program here at Southern, I was teaching a science.

Sunday school class on Isaiah, and I kept having this sense that Isaiah was talking about earlier scriptures and then being used by New Testament authors in ways that weren't just a kind of prediction of the future, and then that prediction coming to pass kind of way. So then, you know, as I continued to think about Isaiah and think about this topic, I was searching for language to use, to describe these things and trying to figure out what the parameters were. And one of the things that really drove me into reading on the subject was looking into Isaiah 714. And I actually had the opportunity to present at the Tendell Fellowship, the annual meeting of the Tendell Fellowship back in 2005 on Isaiah, on the use of Isaiah 714 in Matthew chapter 1.

Just for listeners, that's the passage about the Virgin giving birth. Yes. And as I was researching for that presentation, I read Earl Ellis's introduction to Leonard Gopelt's book on typology. and I thought that Ellis was so clear and helpful in that little introduction. And that really set me on a trajectory of reading what I could get my hands on, on typology, and then seeing it other places as I was studying the scriptures as well. So it seems that when the New Testament authors used the Old Testament,

they're breaking most of the rules that many of us grew up with. And yet, the more that you look closely at what they're doing, doing, they're actually working in a very principled way with the text, very attentive to the Old Testament, text in its context. And I'd be interested to hear you say a bit more about that use of the Old Testament in the new and how it helps us to read the Old Testament on its own terms, not just as something forced upon it from without. Yes. So as I was, I can remember after when I was in the PhD program, Dr. Shriner, Tom Shriner made a comment one day. We were studying Peter, First Peter, and he made a comment on First Peter 1, 10 through 12 that the apostles

serve as good models for us on how we should interpret the text. And that was the first time I had heard someone articulate that idea. You usually hear it the other way. Exactly. You shouldn't follow their methods. So I, I, when he said, that I almost fell out of my chair and he actually said, you know, what, why are you reacting this way? And I said, well, I've never heard it put that way. And he recommended that I read Beals, right doctrine from the wrong text essay. And that put me on a path to concluding that we should start from the presupposition that the New Testament authors get it, get it right. And then we should work back from there. Okay, if they've gotten it right, if they've rightly interpreted the Old

Testament, that really doesn't answer all our questions. We still have the question of, well, you know, how are they reading and what do they mean to communicate? And so as I've, over the years, tried to understand the new and Old Testaments and teach these things in class and preach them in church, this category of typology has been so immensely helpful in in understanding that often there are these patterns of events that are being alluded to. I mean, even on something like Paul saying that Christ was raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. You know, you go looking for a third day prophecy in the Old Testament, and there's not a statement that the Messiah will be raised on the third day, having been crucified or something like that.

There's not that kind of prediction. but you do have these really significant, they're different kinds of events, but these events that take place on the third day. You know, Abraham takes his son, Isaac, to Mount Moriah, and he lifts up his eyes on the third day. And then the people of Israel, they meet the Lord at Mount Sinai on the third day.

And then Joshua seems to cross the Jordan River on the third day. And then Jonah's three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, and Josea says, I think Jose is speaking of like the death of the nation at the exile and then like a resurrection of the nation on the third day. So there are all, you know, the sacrifice of a beloved son, the making of a covenant, the crossing into the promised land, the raising of a prophet from the dead, and then the resurrection of the nation. And that's only some of them. You know, Hezekiah is told by Isaiah that that he would worship the Lord in the temple on the third day. Well, you can think about the importance of the story of the two servants of Pharaoh, and one of them lifted up on the third day, the other killed on the third day. And the way that

connects with Joseph being raised up at the beginning of the third year. Yes, very interesting. Yeah. And Esther, you know, interceding with the king after three days and three nights. So there's just all these events. And so I began to ask the question, okay, how are they thinking about the Old Testament to arrive at the kinds of statements that we find in the New Testament. What's the what's the worldview in which the biblical authors are operating that makes sense of what we're reading? So we've used the word quite a bit to this point. Could you give us a definition of the term typology as you're using it? Yes. So I define typology in in this book as God ordained, author intended, historical correspondence and escalation and significance between people,

events, and institutions across the Bible's redemptive historical storyline, or in other words, in covenantal context. And, you know, every one of those statements can kind of be unpacked, which I'd be happy to do if you'd like for me to pursue that. So the idea of this being God ordained, really what I'm affirming here is that God is in sovereign control of human history and he is working so that these events actually took place and they really do bear correspondence to one another. So, you know, Abraham, there really was a famine that resulted in Abraham going down into Egypt and then Sarah really was taken into the king's house. And then the Lord really did visit plagues on Pharaoh, Pharaoh having enriched Abraham, and then they really did come out out of Egypt,

I think anticipating the exodus from Egypt. So God has sovereignly orchestrated history so that there are these correspondences. And then the biblical authors, they saw the similarities between these earlier patterns of events and like, say, in Moses' case, his own experience at the Exodus. And then as the authors intend to present these repetitions in the patterns of events, I think a natural growth in significance happens as we encounter another version of, say, Adam or a new Jacob or something like this. Our appreciation and expectation that this is going to be significant increases. And as you continue across the Bible's storyline, these things begin to snowball on one another until they come to their culminating fulfillments, often in Christ,

but not always. I'd be interested just to push upon the relationship between God's ordaining and providential ruling of the history so these events happen. And also his inspiration of the text, because many of these typological patterns seem, there seems to be something irreducibly textual about them. They are communicated through literary art. And there's a sense in which that literary art, it reveals connections, that does not necessarily be evident

from just looking at the events themselves. And sometimes also different connections can be drawn from the same events. So I think, for instance, an example that comes to mind is the story of the death of Judas, where you've got the same event told from different vantage points. And I think those two accounts bring to the foreground different parts of the typological background. So I think in Matthew's telling, where it's placed side by side with the death of Christ, you have the death of the false counsellor and the death of the son of David

that recalls the story of Absalom and Hithafal, where Christ is the inverse in. He's the faithful son of David as opposed to. So there's two people hanging on a tree back to back, as it were. And then in Acts, it recalls the death of Joab, I think. So Joab is killed on account, among other things, of his killing of Amasa. And Amasa is stabbed in the guts and his entrails come out. He's left in the field to bleed out.

And then Joab has this judgment come upon him. His place is made desolate. He's buried in his deserts. location, another takes his office, Ben Nardson of Jehoiada. And all of this occurs after the King David is leaving the scene and Solomon is setting up his reign. And then that leads into the story of the gift of wisdom, which is obviously corresponding with Pentecost and the building of the temple and the church. So it seems that there's a sort of typological framing of events that explains very different accounts of the historical events, not event accounts that are at odds with each other,

but fundamentally, I think we can reconcile them and there's a harmony that we can come to. But there is that literary element, and I'm curious to see how you tackle that, because there are some who will just lean into the literary element and say this is just literary contrivance. And there are others who are so focusing upon the historical events that happen that I think they lose sight of the importance of that literary element. That's beautifully well put and illustrated. Thank you for those stimulating examples. I think you're putting your finger on this glorious coming together of events that really do bear correspondence with one another, but also the, I mean, I often, I like to say, I think Moses,

this is a literary genius. And I think that a man like Isaiah, I mean, what a mind, what a, vocabulary, what a, what a thinker. And so you're putting your finger on the literary artistry that should be appreciated of the biblical authors. And it's something that hasn't always been appreciated. You know, if I remember correctly, I think Augustine is, he compares, say, the gospel of not, of Mark negatively to the works of art that he's familiar with from his culture. I think the problem is that Augustine is not seeing, for instance, how Mark is using scripture. So that if we come to appreciate how Mark is using scripture and the kinds of things that you're pointing out about the way that the biblical authors are representing these old stories almost made new

with this very significant interpretive freight that they're carrying, I think we'll come away amazed and new at the glory and wonders in the Bible and convinced again that we are never going to exhaust this book. It is so wonderful to see new things in it. So I just agree with what you're saying, that there's both this divine sovereignty over history guiding the event, so that there's a real correspondence, and there is an important interpretive and literary component that the biblical authors bring and that it's our pleasure and responsibility to try to interpret

responsibly. I've always found that typology is one of the ways that the actual text of scripture, beyond just it pointing to historical events faithfully, that it's one of the ways in which the text of scripture itself has become an object of my devotion. It's not just saying this is a faithful witness to what happened. It is that, but it's more than just, I mean, its faithfulness is found in the very form of the witness that it bears. Yes. Not just the fact that the events happened in a way that could be replaced by some other sort of record.

Yes. Go ahead. I would be curious to hear, you mention a number of different sorts of things that can be objects of typology. So events and persons, et cetera, could you say a bit more about some of the diverse kinds of typology that you deal with in this book? Yeah. So people, events and institutions, those are kinds of the three, those are the three parts of the book. And people in this book get the most attention. And that's probably because that's what I feel most comfortable working with and what what what I saw most in the text in my study. So in terms of the kinds of

different people I discuss, there's a chapter on Adam and that traces through to the new Adam and then priests and prophets and kings. And then that section culminates in a discussion of the righteous sufferer. And in many ways, these things are overlapping, you know, because Adam is of course a priestly and a royal and a prophetic figure. And so he kind of comes into play in each of these discussions. And then there are ways in which kings, for instance, David and prophets, Elijah and Elijah, are righteous sufferers. And so, you know, you could talk about a lot of these guys in a lot of these ways. But this is the way that's the way that part of the book is presented.

And then when it comes to events, the two that I deal with are creation and Exodus. And this probably reflects my study of the Psalms where so often those two works of God, his work of creation and then his work of redeeming Israel at the Exodus, they're often juxtaposed with one another. And then under institutions, I discuss the Levitical cult and the institution of marriage. those are the two things that I go after. So when we think about people, you know, I think that there, it's natural for us to think about how these figures in their lives and in the events that they, that are narrated about them, they're going to be repeated and fulfilled in various ways in Christ.

When we think about events, things like creation, this is I trace this through to the to the temple because I think creation is a kind of cosmic temple and and that's a that's a theme or a trajectory that's going to culminate in the new creation and then the the exodus I think that you know the death and resurrection of Christ and the return of Christ are presented in the Exodus pattern of events and then with institutions the Levitical cult I think is fulfilled that that sacrificial system is fulfilled in Christ, and then the marital covenant will come to its culmination in the relationship between Christ the bridegroom and the church, his bride. So that's sort of a broad, a wide-angle summary

of the ways the book is broken down. And when you think about, for instance, something like the temple, in many ways, it brings together all of those things. It brings together the events, which is, if I recall, where you categorize the tundra in association with creation, brings together institution, the whole cult, and it brings together persons. I mean, the temple or tabernacle itself can be seen as a model of the body. We talk about Christ as the temple that will be destroyed and then raised again, or we talk about the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit, or our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And I was recently teaching a course on the temple and tabernacle. And just reading through Exodus 25 to 31, every single one of the creation days are modeled in order. And they map onto different parts of the furniture of the tabernacle, two sequences that you go through. And it's amazing how closely these things are connected together. I'll be interested to hear you say a bit more about, well, for instance, dealing with persons.

Often when people talk about typology, they're looking for a direct connection with Christ. So you have the character, let's say, of Samson, and you're seeing Samson certain features that remind you of Christ, the victory won in his death or something like that. And then you draw some connection and fill that out. And so you have a sort of type-ante type paradigm, where there are two poles and you get the Old Testament

and then you get the New Testament in Christ. But in your work, I've seen you, for instance, you have a really good piece that I'd recommend on, the story of Joseph in the story of David and then how that leads forward to the story of Christ. How do we see typology leading almost indirectly to Christ, not just as a direct one-to-one correspondence, but developing in an escalating fashion,

the way that you speak about it within the book? Yes, so I think that we're sort of keyed to this by Peter when he says in 1st Peter 1, 10 through 12, that the prophets who prophesied were searching and inquiring carefully into what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And so I think Peter is pointing to the efforts of the Old Testament authors to interpret what they were dealing with in the. light of earlier scripture. And so, you know, one of one of the things that I'm always interested in is how is this maybe later Old Testament author incorporating language from earlier Old Testament texts and how does his reuse of maybe particular terms or phrases or in many cases, even quotation of whole lines, how does that signal to us how he's thinking about those

earlier passages and then what he's expecting his audience to discern from what he's doing in the piece that he's writing. And so with people, you know, I think it's fascinating to see the ways that there are these similar descriptions, let's say, of Joseph. And then the authors of Samuel will present David after the manner of Joseph, often using terms drawn from the Joseph narrative. And you're seeing a kind of building of these patterns within the text of the Old Testament itself. And then in many cases, there will be language either in the Psalms or the prophets that will pick up on and reflect this kind of merging of Joseph and David. it. You know, for instance, we never read in the narratives of David being in a pit or or something

like that. But in the Psalms, he'll say things like, you brought me up out of the pit. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it almost sounds like Joseph being brought up out of the prison, you know, and, and I think that this is a move that the, uh, the biblical author is intending to make. In this case, like for instance, Psalm 16 or Psalm 40, I think that David intends to evoke Joseph as he speaks of his own experience in anticipation of what he expects to be fulfilled in the life of the one God promised to raise up from his line. And also, I think the way that you describe the relationship between a character like Joseph and David, it helps us to understand. just how richly scripture can characterize figures with minimal brush drugs. Because you have these pre-existing characters that already in the sort of furniture of your biblical knowledge. And then by connecting those things together, you have more information,

categories and frameworks within which to understand new ones. Yes. And so a very economical text words-wise can actually tell us an awful lot just by those sorts of connections. Indeed, indeed. You know, an interesting example of this, I think, is the way that in Ezekiel eight and nine, when the man with the writing tablet passes through

and puts a mark on the heads of those who grieve and sigh over the abominations in Jerusalem, it's almost as though Ezekiel is saying, the Lord is putting us in the place of Egypt. And those who are receiving this mark, they're like the ones who have the lambs, blood and on the lentil and the doorpost. And which, you know, this would be a very shocking thing for Ezekiel's audience for the prophet to be telling them, you are actually the Egyptians that are

going to come under the destroyer. And only these people that are devoted to the Lord and not committing this idolatry are going to be those who are, as it were, experiencing the Passover. One of the things that really comes through in your book is the movement towards Christ. that these things ultimately have their focus in him, they point towards him. I'll be curious to hear you say a bit more about the ways in which we can deal, for instance, with the breadth of these relationships between characters

and their directedness towards Christ because it seems to me that there are a lot of connections that it's not obvious that they have Christ as their terminus or it's not clear that they're moving in that direction. Would you draw a distinction, for instance, between typology as a category and just the broader intertextuality that is going on in the text? Or would you try and integrate the whole thing into a typological movement? So just maybe to give some examples of this, think about the way that you've got figures

like Sarah and Esther, you could connect them. You can see the way that Esther has to hide her identity within the house of the king. She's taken. And then the references to the number of provinces three times being the same number as the age of Sarah. And other details that seem to connect those stories together, the beauty for which they're selected. Or think about Laban and Nabil, his name backwards, the time of sheep sharing, the ungrateful treatment of the servant of God. And then the way that David starts to act like Esau coming with 400 men and having to be appeased by Abigail. So those sorts of relationships. I mean, David being like Esau

does not actually seem to point to Christ or Nabil being like Laban. How do we deal with those? Do those fit into the framework or would you see those as a different category? Well, I think they would certainly fit into the framework. And I think that what you're pointing to, this is certainly the literary art of the biblical authors. With someone like David, I think the question is, how does this fit into his wider story? And obviously, even if he starts to act like Esau on that one occasion, he doesn't pursue Esau's course so that he's unreconsiled to his brothers

and ultimately, I think, unrepentant before the Lord. So there are going to be these very interesting correspondences, but they don't, they don't, they're part of the story. They're not telling us necessarily the whole story. I found that certainly helpful in reading David's story. It seems that the character of Esau is very much in the background there, that's in ways that are commenting upon the story in Genesis. So there's, I mean, Saul is like Esau lifting up his voice and weeping when he does not get to black. or he despises his birthright. And Jonathan is like Esau when he takes off his garment and gives it to David, or when he meets with David in chapter 20, or you have the way in which David is like Esau in being a ruddy man,

the way that he's described. And the way that he refuses the garments that are given to him when he's approaching Goliath. And so you have the character of Esau playing in the background against the different characters, Jonathan, David, and Saul, and each one of them bring out different aspects of that. And then David can be seen as someone who takes on some of the strengths of Esau, but also avoids his sins or is drawn back from his sins at key points by Abigail and others. And then in the past somewhere. I've done it in my biblical commentary. Okay.

This is on YouTube. Yes. So one of the things, for instance, in that story is, the two episodes surrounding the story of Nable, where you have two encounters with Esau or Saul in the dark. And is that your voice, David, my son? And you are more righteous than I and declares that he will be blessed. Very interesting. And so it seems he's playing the role of Isaac too. He's the one, he's also the one who switches up the daughters. So he's like Laban in that sense. But that seems to be a really rich intertextual rereading of the story of Genesis

that helps to characterize all the figures within it and gives us a way of getting a purchase upon who these people are, which really holds our reading, I think, in good stead. Yes. And you know, a few moments ago, you said that this way of reading really spurs your own devotion. And I think I think that the kinds of things that you're articulating and the kinds of things that that we see as we as we think about typology, they're really the sorts of things that that you only get to after meditation upon the text. A surface level reading or a, you know, just a brief encounter is not going to lead to these kinds of reflections. This is this is a result, a fruit of long cogitation on on the text. and it's rewarding. But the Bible is always rewarding to meditate upon.

And that practice of meditation, I think, is one that just gets neglected. People are so rushing to, what is the meaning of this? Why is the application of it to my life? And the actual delighting in the text and in what God reveals within it can often fall by the wayside within that. I'd be interested to hear you say a bit more about the way some people have talked about, for instance, the difference between a sort of horizontal typology where we see these development of themes within particular characters and events, and a more vertical typology, such as would come to the fore in a book like Hebrews, where you have the heavenly temple

and you have the earthly correspondence to that. How can we see in typology something that refers not just to future events, but to a higher sort of heavenly realities? Well, what you're articulating is, those are great examples of it. You know, many of these things, they do point forward to Christ. And I think one of the things that keeps people from seeing a lot of these things is the way that scholars can be inclined to talk about things. So, for instance, often you'll hear people contrast, Ezekiel's use of a phrase like son of man with with Daniel's use of a phrase like son of man and they'll say that with Ezekiel all you really have is something like human being but you know there's this fascinating passage in Ezekiel four where he's addressed as son of man and then he's essentially told to make a model of Jerusalem and then he's to put a an iron griddle as an iron wall between himself and the city And here the son of man clearly represents the Lord and the Lord's wrath against his people.

So you have this instance where Ezekiel is identified as the son of man who represents the Lord in his judgment and wrath against the nation. But then in the next few verses, beginning like in verse four of Ezekiel four, he's told to lie on his side for a certain period of time and bear the punishment of the people. And so in this son of man passage, Ezekiel is both representing the Lord himself and bearing the covenant-breaking sin of the people for this 430-day period of time, which seems to point back to the 430 years of the Exodus, as if to imply, you know, the, sorry, 4030 years of the Egyptian sojourn, which was followed by the Exodus. which seems to imply that this new punishment is going to be followed by the new exodus. So this would be a horizontal example of something that in mainstream biblical scholarship, you're not going to be told that Ezekiel's use of son of man is presenting you with a type of the Lord Jesus. The horizontal things that you mention, it seems to me that the author of Hebrews is taking his cues from, that statement in Exodus when Moses is told, see to it that you make everything after the pattern

shown to you on the mountain. And from this, which I think that statement is also behind the many statements in the Psalms where David says, you know, I cried to the Lord and he answered me or from his temple, he heard my voice, this kind of thing, which here again, mainstream Old Testament scholarship will tell you that this is an anachronistic reference to the temple because there was no temple in David's day. And they'll even use it as proof that David didn't write the Psalms. When I would be inclined to think that David is taking his cues from that same statement in Exodus, see to see to it that you make everything after the pattern shown to you on the mountain, and that David is speaking of this heavenly temple that is reflected, or perhaps,

typified by the earthly temple, and he's speaking as though the Lord is hearing him from that place. And then the author of Hebrews, it's as though he takes the book of Leviticus and uses it as a kind of map or template or schema to talk about what Christ did when he entered into the heavenly holy place and offered himself. It's as though the Lord Jesus is the true high priest entering into the true holy of holies and offering the true sacrifice that will achieve, you know, this, this everlasting redemption that he's accomplished. So this, I think this would be, you know, this, this horizontal and then this vertical typology that that you allude to. And the idea of the heavenly temple, I think you mentioned this also.

or the significance of revelation as a vision of what's going on above and how that corresponds to what's going on below. But we see it from the different perspective there. We're at top looking down rather than in the bottom looking up. One thing I'd love to hear you say more about is in the background of this typological approach, it's always been one of the things in the back of my mind that the way that you're reading scripture implies a sort of theology

of scripture. And I often feel that the sort of theologies of scripture that people put forward, they can be very committed to scripture in a very abstract sense. But in actual practice, they're not reading it very deeply. And their practices of scripture leave a lot to be desired, even though they might have a very tidy theology of scripture. How does your approach to reading the text typologically, alter or sharpen or deepen your sense of scripture, theologically? So I, you know, earlier I was talking about how we start from the presupposition that the New Testament authors got it right. And if we, if, so really, I think, I hope that my understanding of scripture, I've, I've come to it from the scripture itself. I hope that all I'm

doing is adopting the understanding of the Word of God that the biblical authors themselves seem to be reflecting and operating upon. And so this would include the ideas that in the case of the New Testament writers, these are people who were both taught by the Lord Jesus during his earthly ministry. And then they received the benefit of his post-resurrection instruction, those who were apostles with him. and then he gave them the Holy Spirit. And in the Gospel of John, he speaks of how the Spirit will remind them of everything that he taught and lead them into all truth. And so with the New Testament authors, we're having Christ taught, spirit-inspired instruction. And in addition to everything that the Lord Jesus would have taught them and the Holy Spirit would have given to them,

They're also, I think, meditating upon probably having memorized large, if not all of the Old Testament, large portions of it, meditating on that and thereby being taught by Moses and the prophets how to think about the world and even how to think about what scripture is as they themselves write. And then, you know, if we move into the Old Testament time period and the Old Testament authors, I think that in these cases, once the writings of Moses are in place, I think that the rest of the Old Testament authors are really learning from him and understanding from him that though they are writing their own words, this is really the word of God. And this is, this is, um, um, truth that is being inspired by the Holy Spirit. And the spirit is, uh, leading them to correct, correct interpretations of earlier scripture and to, um, you know, correct presentations of, of what they're doing as they reformulate and represent, um, these patterns and, uh, and types that we've been discussing. Could you say a bit more about how.

progression and time fit into this. Because often when people talk about context, for instance, even the context of the canon, that aspect of time can get missed. There's a sort of spatialization within the way of thinking about context, as if it's all present simultaneously. But these things are unfolding over time. And so questions like, to what extent did the Old Testament saints have faith that was in Christ. Those sorts of questions are often ones that arise around discussions of typology. How do you think we should approach thinking about that time element and how typology helps us to think about progression within the biblical narrative more generally? Yeah. So with with the hope or the faith in in, as we would put it, faith in Christ,

I think that from Genesis 315 forward, we see, we see evidence that they're hoping that the seat of the woman will arise. And then so, you know, for instance, right away in Genesis 4-1, Eve is saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And then when Kane murders Abel, then she says, the Lord has granted, has appointed, for me another seed instead of Abel for Kane killed him. And then as you continue into Genesis 5, I think that the tracing of this long genealogy that goes all the way back to the dawn of humanity is really motivated by this, this belief that God has made this promise about the seed of the woman and therefore we need to preserve this record of this line of descent.

And when we get to Noah, Lamex says it, birth, this one will give us relief from our painful toil, the painful toil of our hands on the ground which the Lord is cursed. And it's using this language of Genesis 317. And I think that Moses means to communicate that Lamek is hoping that the judgments articulated in Genesis 314 through 19 will be removed and rolled back as a result of the seed of the woman. and what he's expected to do. So there is this unfolding and this gradual clarification that is taking place, but I think the fundamental hope is there, the fundamental hope for a redeemer to arise is there from Genesis 315 forward. You know, it's going to be clarified that he's going to be

a seat of Abraham and then eventually seat of Judah and then eventually seat of David. And then there are other things that are clarified along the way. But the basic reality, I think, is there from Genesis 315. So the object of hope is there in a silhouette, as it were, and the typology actually channels you towards what you're expecting in the future. Yes, yes. And so the unfolding and the progress across time is one that is clarifying and deepening and the complexities that are presented are really remarkable.

For instance, you know, Isaiah, he's saying that when the shoot from the stump of Jesse arises, Isaiah 11-1, the nursing child shall play by the whole of the cobra, 11-8, which seems to point to Genesis 315, the enmity between the seat of the woman and the seat of the servant being lifted. But then later in his prophecy, he's going to speak, I think, of the same figure, because he's a root out of dry ground. And when it speaks of him growing up, he grew up before us like a root out of dry ground. That word for root is the same term to speak of the root of Jesse back in Isaiah 11-1 and in Isaiah 53.

And also when he speaks of the young plant, he grew up before him like a young plant. This is the same Hebrew term used to describe the succor. child in Isaiah 11 8th. And in Isaiah 53, he's going to suffer and even be killed and apparently rise from the dead. But, you know, if you just have Isaiah 11, it almost sounds like the minute the Messiah comes, new heavens and new earth and removal of all curses. So some of these things, it's a bit like, I think, driving into the Rocky Mountains where as you approach, it just looks like one wall of rock. But then as you get into it, you realize, oh, there are many peaks here and there are valleys and there are these periods of time that

that I couldn't see before I got into the mountains. You're a scholar, but you're also a pastor. How do you find that this reading of scripture typologically informs and shapes your preaching? Well, I hope it does so in a way. And my experience, I think, bears out that it does so in a way that actually helps the people of God to read their Bibles. And I was so encouraged a number of years ago when the ladies in our church were doing a Bible study. I think they were studying the Book of Joshua. I could be misremembering. And one of the ladies said to me, you know, the book of Joshua, really reads like the book of Exodus. And as she began to elaborate, she was basically saying, which this is exactly what I would say, Joshua is presenting the conquest of the land as an like an installation in an Exodus-style pattern of events. And I said, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

And her response was, well, I've been listening to you preach. And so, you know, this is really encouraging to see people. as we've discussed, meditating on the scriptures for themselves and thinking about scripture in light of scripture and seeing parallels and patterns and these similarities, and then them growing in their skill and facility in interpreting what these things indicate. That is so encouraging to see. Another thing that comes out in your book is your love of chyazms. And I find kiosms fascinating, and so often they give shit. They help you to read the text well.

They bring things alongside each other, et cetera. Could you say a bit more about first, what is a kiosm? How do you find them a useful tool and literary structure more generally? Yeah, sure. So the word khyasm comes from the name of the Greek letter kai, which looks like an X. And what it, what it seems, what it, what it does is it sets the first statement beside the last statements. And many times, these will be worded exactly the same. And so one that I recently discovered that I was really excited about is in Exodus 15 in the Song of the Sea. And it's,

it's often observed that in verse one, you have these words, I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. And then those words are repeated over in verse 21, sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. So this is, you know, when you see an inclusio like this, where you have the same words at the beginning that you have at the end, I think this is often a kind of signal that there could be a caustic structure here. There could be something for you to find. And so really what I think you, what we want to pay attention to are repetitions and phrases and, and even maybe in some cases repeated thematic ideas or something like this. So in addition to the first and the last words being similar,

you'll have the second and the second to last statements being similar so that you're forming the left side of the X of the letter Kai. And there'll be a turning point at the center. So in this case in Exodus 15, the next similarities that are between, verses 3 and 4 and verses 18 and 19, where in verses 3 and 18, you have this statement about the Lord. Verse 3, the Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Verse 18, the Lord will reign forever and ever. And then the following verse speaks of Pharaoh going into the sea. So verse 4, Pharaoh's

chariots and his host, he cast into the sea. Verse 19, when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and and its horsemen went into the sea. So these repetitions are signaling, okay, I have parallel statements here. And then the third and third to last statements, in this case, are verses 5 through 10 and verses 12 through 17. And the first one, versus 5 through 10 speaks of the defeat of Egypt at the Red Sea. the second one in verses 12, sorry, verses 13 through 17 speaks of the conquest of Canaan. And both of these are kind of bracketed at beginning and end by similar statements. So verses 5 and 10 speak of the covering of the enemy, the Egyptians, with the waters, and how they sank in verse 5 into the depths like a stone in verse 10.

10 like lead in the mighty waters. And then in the corresponding unit, verses 13 through 17, in verse 13, it's all about the Lord leading the people in his steadfast love to his holy abode. In verse 17, it's about how he will bring them in and plant them in the place which he made for his abode. So it's the shepherding of the of the Lord, you know, to his dwelling place. This so the third and third to last units correspond and that's significant because it's almost as though the Exodus versus 5 through 10 typifies the conquest versus 13 through 17. And in both cases, the Egyptians go down into the depths like a stone and the Canaanites are still as a stone in verse 16. So there's similar descriptions. And this whole thing centers on verses 11 and 12 where verse 11 says,

is like you, O Lord, among the gods. And so it's as though they're calling for the Lord to be sung to in verses one and the first verse and the last verse saying something about the Lord and who he's going to defeat in the second and second to last statements. And then speaking of the Exodus and the conquest in the third and third to last statements. And then it centers on this direct praise to the Lord, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods in Exodus 15, 11, and 12. It's just a really beautiful structure that places corresponding and mutually interpreting elements across from one another. And it also creates, it's a, it's a form that creates the sense that a comprehensive statement has been made within a limited statement, you know.

So by exhausting the caustic form, you have the sense of that the author has presented you with a comprehensive discussion of the way that God works at X. citizen conquest and how he should be praised in response and these sorts of things. So in addition to all of everything I've said to this point, I think that these caustic structures are also powerful mnemonic devices, aids to memory, so that if we get in our heads, what goes where, it's almost as though you can just sort of walk your way down the X and fill in the blanks as you work on rehearsing. what you've learned in this in this fashion.

That's actually one of the things I've found just reading the Bible in a more literary and typological manner. You remember so much more of it because everything gets connected together. And it's no longer just little bits of detached information that you have to keep in your head. It's networks and frameworks and every single detail will lead to others. And I find when you read the Bible that way, it's so much easier to remember things that you would never have a chance of remembering. otherwise. Amen. I'll be in conclusion, I would highly recommend that people read the book.

And this is one of, I think, one of the stronger sections, your description of chyasms is just one of the clearest presentations I've come across of the strength of chyazms and the different things that they're doing. But I'll be curious. In conclusion, my approach to typology has been very much influenced by James Jordan in particular and Peter Lightheart. But you seem to be coming from a different set of influences. I'll be curious for you to say more about how you were influenced in coming to your position, what scholars you have found helpful, and how maybe you would think about your approach to typology in relationship to maybe some Jewish readings of the text or the medieval fourfold sense. How do you fit in a typological reading within a larger

firmament of readings and history of readings? Yes, you know, we're all in a in a conversation with other people. And in my case, this is just sort of personal history. I was in Houston, teaching at the Houston campus of Southwestern Seminary. And I had written some things that the dean of Southern Seminary at the time had appreciated. And so he had kind of initiated a conversation about me coming to Southern to join the faculty here. And he invited me to come and present a lecture at Southern. And I presented a lecture on the typology of David's rise to power. And in response to that lecture, one of my now colleagues,

beloved colleague, Steve Wellam, he really challenged me and he said, if you're going to claim that these things are types, you have to have textual warrant. And as I thought about how do I, how do I satisfy the demands of someone like Steve Wellam for textual warrant and how do I demonstrate that there really are these author-intended typological correspondences. You know, at the time, I think that this was back in 2008, 2009, 2010, when all these conversations were happening. And at the time, I think Dr. Wellam would have rejected the idea that Joseph is a type of Christ.

And so that you mentioned earlier, the people. that I wrote on tracing the connections between Joseph and David leading to Christ. And that piece was in part written in response to Dr. Wellem's objections and his demand for textual warrant. And it really pushed me to try to demonstrate historical correspondence between author intended historical correspondence. And the best ways that I found to demonstrate these these correspondences was by appealing to the reuse of common terminology. And you know, this common terminology, it's often observed by all kinds of commentators. It's not always interpreted in a typological way.

So hopefully I'm not just flattering myself here. I hope that I'm presenting a rigorous and really text-based. and argument for typology that's rooted in the original language and the use of the terms and phrases in the Greek and Hebrew texts. And I would hope that this way, that what I'm doing is in some ways showing the work of earlier interpreters who maybe could have taken many of these things for granted, for instance, because they were native Greek speakers. So, you know, I think some of the early Greek fathers, if they had been pushed to provide textual warrant, they could have produced this. But because they're operating in the Greek text as Greek language speakers, it's just instinctive for them to read the Bible in these ways. So I would see myself as providing a kind of modern biblical studies foundation for a historic way. of reading the Bible. When it comes to the fourfold sense, one of the best presentations of that

that I've heard was done by Christopher Ash. And he tried to provide a charitable and enlightening explanation of how this fourfold sense operated. And it was a very stimulating, presentation and it's one that I want to revisit and think further about. But that's a, that's an area where I need to do more work. I'd love to hear your reflections on that. It would take quite a bit longer than we have here. But yes, I find, I find it fascinating that you can have people with slightly different hermeneutical approaches who nonetheless arrive at very similar conclusions. And there's a compatibility, I think, with a more spiritual reading of the the text that you'll find in some of the fathers where they don't provide this sort of working.

And they almost will leap, it seems that they leap to certain connections that we'd have to argue almost as it were from below. And yet there is great commonality and I also find the same thing in many Jewish commentators. When you're attending to the text with certain principles and forms of attention, you see these things there. And you can almost have the benefit of multiple witnesses, people who have taken different approaches to the text and have nonetheless seen the same thing there. It actually strengthens your case that independently people arrive at these insights. This is not necessarily something that just comes from a system that has been imposed upon it.

Many different people have seen this independent. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been a great discussion, and I highly recommend that people get a copy of your book, Typology, Understanding the Bible's Promise-shaped Patterns. So where can you get a copy of this? Where's the best place? Well, you know, I get most of my books probably on Amazon.

So I know it's available there, and I know it's available on Zondervin's website. And then, you know, if you're in Louisville, the Southern Seminary bookstore has plenty of copies. so I'm sure you can find yourself, find a way to copy one way or another. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much for the book and also for this conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I do recommend it highly to others. I really appreciate that and I've appreciated.

I'm going to go check out your YouTube channel and dive into some of these, the commentaries that you're producing. Thank you. God bless and thank you all for listening.