More thoughts on Typology in Biblical Theology

Last updated on: June 10, 2013 at 4:19 pm by Joel Willitts

More thoughts on Typology in Biblical Theology 2013-06-10T16:19:33-04:00 Joel Willitts

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

As a follow up to my earlier post on Biblical Theology, I wonder if anyone else has come across a very interesting article in the Scottish Journal of Theology by Matthew Myer Boulton. The article is titled: “Supersession or Subsession? Exodus Typology, the Christian Eucharist and the Jewish Passover Meal” (66[1]: 18-29 [2013]). I don’t know Matthew, but it’s a very interesting suggestion he makes.

In a relatively brief article Boulton offers an alternative typology to the typical supersessionist one (which I refered to in the earlier post) which he labels subsessionist – I’m not sure the term will catch on.

Here’s how he says it in the abstract

I propose a subsessionist (as opposed to supersessionist) typological understanding of the Eucharist as a Christian rendition of Passover, at once distinct from its Jewish counterparts today and utterly dependent on the ancient Israelite festival for its intelligibility and force . . . the typology at play here, then so far from being a triumphalist ‘prophecy-fulfilment’ arrangement in which the ‘old’ is valuable only insofar as it serves as a signpost pointing to the ‘new’, is rather a ‘paradigm-rendition’ typology in which the new performance is clarified and authenticated precisely insofar as it corresponds to the old, exalted original (18).

Boulton opens the essay with a provocative analogy. He draws a comparison between Christian typology and something the then Senator Barak Obama did with Abraham Lincoln in the February 2007 speech announcing his candidacy for President on the steps of the Old State Capital in Springfield, IL. I know for some even the mention of Obama will not please. But it is a very interesting analogy and worth considering.

Boulton examines Obama’s use of Lincoln and describes it as ‘typological, performative [meaning mostly non-verbal – its location and date] and subsessionist”, and this as a way to suggest a fresh approach to typology, particularly with respect to the Eucharist.

Here are some of Boulton’s analyses of Obama’s use of Lincoln:

This performative, largely non-verbal typological figure does not conform particularly well to the garden-variety definition of typology commonly found in Christian sources . . . the event did not cast President Lincoln as somehow prophetic in relation to Obama’s own candidacy, nor did Obama cast himself as somehow superseding or superordinate to President Lincoln. On the contrary, Obama did two things: first, he cast himself precisely as a subordinate to Lincoln, in the sense of ‘standing in his shadow’, or ‘walking in his footsteps’. And second, Obama cast himself as coordinate to Lincoln, in the sense of being a contemporary version of him for another age – colloquially, we might say ‘another Lincoln’ . . . a ‘new Lincoln’ relies for his own credibility and legitimacy on the ‘original Lincoln’ of old (20-21).

In this sense, the typological figure involved no claim to supersession – and in fact, to sharpen the point, any claim to supersession would have seriously undermined the rhetorical move, since the move depends on exalting the mantel under which one claims to stand. Not supersession, then but rather the reverse: call it ‘subsession’. That is, Obama’s manoeuvre involved laying claim to a position underneath, so to speak, a particular mythohistorical pedigree and paradigm, precisely as a contemporary version of it for a new day . . . the present and the future are framed under the terms of the familiar, cherished, prestigious past. Call it not supersessionist, but rather subsessionistic typology (21).

Boulton argues in the essay that what Obama did with Lincoln, Jesus and the Gospel writers did with the Passover. How does he make such a claim? By showing it from the Hebrew Bible itself and the way typologically uses the exodus. Depending on the work of Michael Fishbane and Yair Zakovitch, Boulton attempts to show that the Passover is paradigmatic for the Eucharist in ways similar to Lincoln in Obama’s speech.

He says, “the key terms [in the Hebrew Bible for both Fishbane and Zakovitch] for conceiving of the relation between the exodus from Egypt and other remembered and anticipated redemptions are these: “concord”, “correspondence”, “paradigm”, “pattern” . . . If Isaiah’s new exodus is prophesied in terms of the old exodus, this is by no means to supersede the old event, but rather precisely to subsede it, that is, to narrate the new exodus as another manifestation of the basic archetype of salvation already revealed as the “once and future power of the Lord of history” . . . the divine signature of authenticity, we might say, is correspondence with the exodus motif” (25).

What do you make of this argument? I’ll provide my own response in a later post.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 8, 2013

On Scripture and Creeds

Next Post

June 11, 2013 Book Notice: Imitating God in Christ *without David*

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Bible Lands Blogosphere Book Review Calvinism Colleges & Universities Ecclesiology Emerging Adulthood Evangelicalism Foreign Affairs Gospel of John Greco-Roman World Humor Just War N. T. Wright Old Testament Resurrection Terrorism Theological Education Travel Uncategorized Writing

Select a Month September 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 January 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What happened to the first stone tablets of the Ten Commandments?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Pharaoh destroyed them They were lost in battle They were placed in the Ark Moses broke them

Books by This Author Books by Mike Bird

See All Titles »