I believe that we need to come to scripture as literature. We look for patterns, we look for motifs, and we look for allusions. In doing so, we reflect the way in which the apostles read the scripture. When Paul responds to the Galatians he argues from one of the patterns he has found. It is not an explicit pattern. Rather, he sees it through discerning the patterns of the text.
We won’t go into the full argument, but Paul sees a pattern in the lives of Isaac and Ishmael, as recorded in Genesis. Isaac is the son of freedom and promise. Ishmael is the son of slavery. By reading and re-reading Genesis, as well as studying the revelation of God in Christ, Paul has discerned this pattern in the scripture. We might call it a typology.
I believe this exegesis is repeatable. We need to discern the scriptures using Paul’s hermeneutic. This is not well received by some. They argue that this is a hermeneutical method that has no guards. There is no methodology. I have to admit that to some degree that this hermeneutic is subjective. It is inductive rather than deductive. However, there are guards against false interpretation.
There are two types of guards: Negative guards and positive guards. Negative guards are those which demonstrate deniability. Because this method is inductive, the positive guards do not necessarily demonstrate absolute truth. Instead, they demonstrate that the typology that we have seen is either strong or weak.
a. Negative guards:
- Demonstrate Contradiction. The typology either contradicts another strong typology (The rock is explicitly used as an image of Yahweh or Christ. If one were to connect it to Gentiles this would be strange) or a contradiction of something that is revealed. (You could use typology to argue that Mary, mother of Christ, was sinless. This contradicts the message of the book of Romans, where this characteristic belongs to Christ exclusively.
- Demonstrate a more thorough alternative: The books of the Bible build upon one another creating a complex whole. You could see the salvation of Christ’s blood in the scarlet thread of Rahab. You could also demonstrate how the story of the first few chapters of Joshua mirror the story of the Passover and how Christ’s death mimics that. (This overlaps with the first rule as well, where we might have opposing or contradictory typologies)
- Demonstrate that an external source was used for the typology rather than an internal source: Is the interpreter using patterns from Greek philosophy or from modern science to structure his typology? There is some legitimacy to this, but we are no longer discussing meaning, but application. The scriptures have their own internal rules for understanding itself. It needs to be understood through its own internal structures.
b. Positive guards (The more of these you have the stronger your argument is)
- Demonstrate patterns: Repeated patterns in scripture reveal typologies. When they align closely they strengthen your position. Breaks in the pattern can be revealing for what the text is trying to teach us.
- Demonstrate repetition: When patterns are repeated often your argument is strengthened. However, repetition is not about patterns exclusively. The scriptures repeat concepts as well. For example, the idea of the Messiah is an important concept in scripture.
- Demonstrate verbal allusion: If there is a word or phrase that is prominent in another part of scripture, there may be a connection to that part of scripture. Jesus breathes on his disciples in John 20, alluding to the God’s breath of life upon Adam. The same Greek word is used in the New Testament and the Old Testament.
- Demonstrate a conceptual allusion: This is not as strong as a verbal allusion. If you can combine this with a verbal allusion or demonstrate a pattern, you will have a stronger argument.
- Relative closeness: If you discern a pattern in the same book or in another book by the same writer, you have a stronger pattern than if you draw lines from that book to a similar pattern found in a book written a thousand years later.