A few snippets from David L. Baker, on typological reading of Scripture, taken from his chapter in 'The Right Doctrine From The Wrong Texts: Essays On The Use Of The Old Testament In The New'. After defining
a type as a biblical event, person, or institution which serves as an example or pattern for other events, persons or institutions;
typology as the study of types and the historical and theological correspondences between them,
and further stating that the
basis of typology is God's consistent activity in the history of his chosen people, he goes on to say:
'There is something even more basic about the idea of analogy or typology: it is the way in which almost any biblical text (Old Testament or New Testament) addresses us. The Bible does not generally contain propositions but stories and these can only be relevant in the sense of being typical. What significance would Abraham or Moses have for us if they were not typical? It is of no relevance to us that a frog can hop or that a snake can bite. It is because Abraham and Moses were men like us (James 5:17) and as such encountered the same God as we do, in other words because they were typical, that their experiences are directly relevant to us.' (Baker 323)
'The function of typology is therefore not to find a procedure for using the Old Testament but to point to the consistent working of God in the experience of his people so that parallels may be drawn between different events, persons and institutions and individual events may be seen as examples or patterns for others. Typology cannot be used for exegesis, because its concern is not primarily with the words of the text but with the events recorded in it. This means also that Old Testament exegesis is freed from the pressure to be relevant: often the narrator had recorded only a bare event, but in this very lack of interpretation it may have typical and thus theological significance.' (Baker 329)
'Typology points to the fundamental analogy between different parts of the Bible.... This means that the Old Testament illuminates he New Testament and New Testament illuminates the Old Testament.... although it is not a method of exegesis, typology supplements exegesis by throwing further light on the text in question. The most closely related discipline to the study of the Old Testament is therefore that of the New Testament: ancient Oriental and Jewish studies clarify details of the Old Testament but lack the intrinsic analogy of New Testament studies to Old Testament studies. The corollary is that the most closely related discipline to New Testament is that of the Old Testament... On the one hand a correct understanding of the Old Testament depends on the New Testament, and on the other hand one of the primary uses of the Old Testament is to be the basis for a correct understanding and use of the New Testament.' (Baker 329)
