In John 1:51, Jesus says, “Amen, Amen, I say to you (plural), you (plural) will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus’ words here are somewhat mysterious. What exactly is…
Like Chrysostom, John Calvin (d. 1564) is a proponent of typology and a critic of the allegorical interpretation of Origen. Calvin looks to the New Testament to help him to interpret the Old Testament (Puckett 178). In the long quote that…
John Chrysostom (d. 407) came from Antioch and was such a great preacher that he earned the name “Chrysostom” (golden mouth). Chrysostom was influenced by the so-called Antiochene school, because he sat under the teaching of Diodore of Tarsus, a…
In this post, we will look at some more examples of the confusion of typology and allegorical interpretation. As we saw in the previous post, some Church Fathers encourage the confusion by using the terms “allegory” or “allegorical” for interpretations…
There are interesting modern consequences of the widespread use of allegorical interpretation in the history of hermeneutics. In Protestant circles, poor interpretations of the Bible are now often labelled as “allegorical” or “allegory,” even if they are not properly examples…
In previous posts, we have looked at the allegorical interpretation of Philo and Origen. Like Origen, Augustine was also an influential Christian teacher who wrote a lot and has influenced a lot of teachers of the church, even to this…
I am teaching hermeneutics this semester and we have been looking briefly at the history of hermeneutics. Allegorical interpretation is an important part of that history. In my previous post on allegorical interpretation, I wrote about Philo of Alexandria, a…
Typology and allegorical interpretation. One of the important trends in early Christian interpretation (or hermeneutics) of the Bible is the practice of allegorical interpretation, especially of the Old Testament. Scholars today commonly debate whether one can distinguish between typology and…