Hermeneutically speaking, I do not agree with the
cloistering six-fold criteria that Roy B. Zuck offers in Basic Bible Interpretation for determining an authentic
type-antitype instance in the NT. A root
cause for this disagreement is bound-up in the differences between much broader
theological perspectives and their respective hermeneutical
presuppositions. Zuck, for instance,
holds tight to a classical dispensational hermeneutic, which de facto places emphasis on the
discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments. Those holding to covenant theology, however,
will naturally see more continuity between the Testaments (or, covenants,
dispensations, etc.). So, Zuck has a
presuppositional bias against seeing many intra-covenantal correspondences that
a covenant theologian would easily recognize.
More specifically, the six-fold criteria Zuck presents[1]
are not satisfied in many of the types Zuck
believes are valid.[2] Number 14 in the list, for instance, the
grain offering, conjoins Lev. 2 and Heb. 10:8 as type and antitype.[3] Zuck denies a typical relation between Adam
and Christ,[4]
yet affirms as valid the typical relation between the OT grain offering and
Christ! I would love to see the line of
inference justifying the latter, and that in strict conformity with the
six-fold criteria. Zuck says that Paul’s
clear statement that Adam was a typos of
Christ (Rom 5:14; cf. 1 Cor 15) is not to be taken in the technical sense, but
he never says why. This seems quite
arbitrary.[5] The two criteria that make Zuck’s model
difficult for me are his personally understood view of typological prefiguring
as a sub-set of prophecy (“A type is a form of prophecy.”)[6]
and the sixth criterion, which is “[types] must be designated in the New
Testament.”[7] Regarding the former, if “predictive” could
rather be understood as paradigmatic, I could find it must easier to agree with
Zuck. Concerning the latter, that the NT
must designate a type, we have already seen that even when it does (e.g., Rom
5:14), one can arbitrarily deny it by disputing the technical sense of the
term, as Zuck does with Adam-Christ.
Moreover, this stricture prevents all non-apostolic readers from learning how
to read the OT from the NT authors. Why
can the clear types found in the NT not serve us as exemplar hermeneutical
frameworks for reading and interpreting the OT in light of Christ
ourselves? They do!
Zuck’s six-fold criteria is,
I believe, too rigid, and so impoverishes the horizons offered by typological reading-intepretation. Or, as Edmund Clowney put is, “To conclude
that we can never see a type where the New Testament does not identify it is to
confess hermeneutical bankruptcy.”[8]
Lastly, one need only look at the dates
of Zuck’s working-stock sources to discern that he is not in conversation with
the growing bulk of solid scholarship on the topic of typology and its limits
and utility.[9] Thankfully, today Zuck’s tight strictures are
a minority view.[10]
[1]
Basic Bible Interpretation (Colorado
Springs, Colorado : Victor 1991),
172—76, 179.
[2]
See his list of valid types, ibid., 179—80.
[3]
Ibid., 180.
[4]
Ibid., 181.
[5]
For some clear-headed examples of Adam-Second Adam typological interpretations,
see, e.g., The Gaylin R. Schmeling, “Typological Interpretation of the Old
Testament” as found at www.blts.edu/.../Typological%20Interpretation%20of%20Old%20Testament.pdf;
Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery:
Discovering Christ in the Old Testament.
P & R Publishing: New Jersey (1988); Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission (Downers
Grove, Illinois: IVP, 2004).
[6]
Basic Bible, 173.
[7]
Ibid., 176, brackets added.
[8]
Preaching Christ in All the Scriptures (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway
Books 2003), 31.
[9]
Basic Bible, 174—75.
[10]
Some examples might include the following, though there are many more. Dale C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology.
Fortress: Minneapolis, Minnesota (1993); G. W. H. Lampe and K. J.
Woollcombe, Essays on Typology in Studies in Biblical Theology. SCM:
London (1957); George Wesley Buchanan, Typology
and the Gospel. University Press of
America: Lanham, Maryland (1987).
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