AKC 7 General – Autumn Term 2008 – The Good Book: the Bible and its Impact 17/11/08
- BUILDING ON THE BIBLE:
THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
DR SUSANNAH TICCIATI, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
1. TYPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE
Example: Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-c. 254)
Commenting on Genesis 18:7: “Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.”
Everything he does is mystical, everything is filled with mystery. A calf is served; behold, another mystery. The calf itself is not tough, but ‘good and tender.’ And what is so tender, what so good as that one who ‘humbled himself’ for us ‘to death’ and ‘laid down his life’ ‘for his friends’? He is the ‘fatted calf’ which the father slaughtered to receive his repentant son. ‘For he so loved this world, as to give his only son’ for the life of this world.
Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 71; trans. R.E. Heine; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1981), p. 105
2. THE BIBLE AND DOCTRINE
Example: The Chalcedonian Definition (451)
Wherefore, following the holy Fathers, we all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same consisting of a rational soul and a body; of one substance (homoousios)with the Father as touching the Godhead, the same of one substance (homoousios) with us as touching the manhood, ‘like us in all things apart from sin’; begotten of the Father before the ages as touching the Godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos (Mother of God),as touching the manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures (physis),without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of the natures (physis)being in no way abolished because of the union, but rather the characteristic property of each nature being preserved and concurring into one person (prosopon) and one subsistence (hypostasis),not as if Christ were parted or divided into two persons (prosopon),but one and the same Son and only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from the beginning spoke concerning him, and our Lord Jesus Christ instructed us, and the Creed of the Fathers has handed down to us.[1]
Translation taken from Frances Young, The Making of the Creeds (London: SCM, 1991), p. 77.
3. THE FOURFOLD SENSE OF SCRIPTURE
Theory: Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)
The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. Now this spiritual sense has a threefold division. For as the Apostle says (Hebrews 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law, and Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. i) "the New Law itself is a figure of future glory." Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confess. xii), if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses.
Summa Theologica Part 1, question 10 (answer)
Emphasis on the spiritual sense: Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153)
Commenting on Song of Songs 1:2a: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!”
Listen carefully here. The mouth which kisses signifies the Word who assumes human nature; the flesh which is assumed is the recipient of the kiss; the kiss, which is of both, the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5). … O happy kiss, and wonder of amazing self-humbling which is not a mere meeting of lips, but the union of God with man. The touch of lips signifies the bringing together of souls. But this conjoining of natures unites the human with the divine and makes peace between earth and heaven (Col 1:20). “For he himself is our peace, who made the two one” (Eph 2:14). This was the kiss for which the holy men of old longed, the more so because they foresaw the joy and exultation (Sir 15:6) of finding their treasure in him, and discovering all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in him (Col 2:3), and they longed to receive of his fullness (Jn 1:16).
Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Writings (trans. G.R. Evans; Classics of Western Spirituality; NY: Paulist, 1987), pp. 216-17
4. SOLA SCRIPTURA AND ENLIGHTENMENT CRITIQUE
5. POST-ENLIGHTENMENT APPROACHES
Retrieval of typology: Karl Barth (1886-1968)
The elect individual in the Old Testament, so impressively and yet in so many different ways distinguished, set apart and differentiated in the Old Testament stories and pictures, is always a witness to Jesus Christ, and is indeed a type of Christ Himself. It is He, Jesus Christ, who is originally and properly the elect individual. All others can be this only as types of Him, only as His prototypes or copies, only as those whole belong to Him, only as considerable or inconsiderable, strong or weak members of His body, only as chastised or blessed, humiliated or exalted citizens of His community, only as in different ways His witnesses. … And in the same sense, Jesus Christ is the open secret of the reality of the slain and living man which so utterly transcends the reality of Old Testament man or of man in general. The fact that this is not visible in the passages is simply because they are prophecy, and cannot as such attest the fulfilment as is done in the New Testament witness.
Church Dogmatics II.1 (eds. Bromiley and Torrance; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), pp. 364-65
Narrative theology: e.g. Hans Frei and George Lindbeck
6. REMAINING QUESTIONS
Suggested Reading
Stephen E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture: A Model for Theological Interpretation (Malden: Blackwell, 1998)
David F. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (London, 1975)
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1964)
Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge, 1997).
Full details about the AKC course, copies of the handouts, and the Discussion Board can be found on the AKC website: If you have any queries please contact the AKC Course Administrator (ext 2333 or email ).
The AKC Examination will take place on Friday 27 March 2009 between 14.30 and 16.30.
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[1]Greek given in the nominative singular.