Typology & Pneumatic Exegesis in Matthew’s Gospel
Debunking “QuranandtheBibleBlog”
The Ignorance of Christianity
One of the most common arguments used by Christians to “prove” that Christianity is true is to point to alleged “prophecies” in the Tanakh, written hundreds of years before the coming of Jesus (peace be upon him), that were “fulfilled” during his life. While this claim is made throughout the Christian “New Testament”, the Gospel of Matthew especially uses this argument numerous times. We have analyzed Matthew’s “prophecies” in a previous article and demonstrated that these were mostly taken out of context, and in many cases, were not even prophecies about future events at all. After a cursory examination of the specific passages that Matthew cited, it would be immediately clear that the author of the gospel seemed to have either misunderstood many of the passages or deliberately took them out of context in order to deceive his readers, yet Christians still accept his claims on the grounds that he was “inspired”.
Firstly, not all believers affirm that Christ actually fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, because the very few don’t deny the context of those passages that Matthew or any early Christian writer quotes or loosely alludes to. Whoever wrote the Gospel of Matthew, addressed his testimony to the Jews who faithfully understood their own scriptures, so then, what stupid person would quote the Old Testament maliciously to a people who not only had access to such writings, but also understood the context of those passages? It is clear that “Matthew” didn’t malevolently quote these verses to deceive anyone, especially the Jews who were familiar with their own writings. And since the author quoted these passages from the Old Testament many times, it doesn’t seem likely for him to not know or understand the context of these verses. There’s an ancient rhetorical tool like spiritual exegesis, pneumatic allegory, or allegoresis that was used in the Gospels, and it started in the Hellenistic period by the Greeks and Jews alike, which then came into the hands of early Christians. By the way, spiritual exegesis is an inspired way to read the texts according to the Early Church. Origen of the Early Church said, “ “[He] composed a texture of both kinds in one style of narration, always concealing the hidden meaning more deeply; but where the historical narrative could not be made appropriate to the spiritual coherence of the occurrences, He inserted sometimes certain things which either did not take place or could not take place; sometimes also what might happen, but what did not: and He does this at one time in a few words, which, taken in their “bodily” meaning, seem incapable of containing truth, and at another by the insertion of many…Now all this, as we have remarked, was done by the Holy Spirit in order that, seeing those events which lie on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we may be led to the investigation of that truth which is more deeply concealed, and to the ascertaining of a meaning worthy of God in those Scriptures which we believe to be inspired by Him” (De Principiis IV.1.15).
Whereas I asked about all the different out-of-context “prophecies” that “Matthew” somehow found in the Tanakh, “CopticBoi” essentially appealed to “typology”. But Matthew specifically referred to the verses as “prophecies” that were “fulfilled” in the life of Jesus. If Matthew was really using “typology”, he would not have made it sound like a prophecy was being fulfilled. In fact, Matthew does use a clear example of “typology” elsewhere, and this proves that when he referred to certain events “fulfilling” what was “spoken” by a particular prophet, he was not appealing to typology but to literal fulfillment of a prophecy.
Matthew didn’t say in Matthew 1:21–23 that he fulfilled literal prophecy, but rather Christ matched typology, which is related to mystical, prefigured prophecy. He was indeed appealing to typology, especially if Matthew was aware of the concept of typology when Jesus utilized it in chapter 12:38–42. Another way of reading Matthew’s usage of the term “fulfillment” could also be translated as “matches” or “compliments” even according to Dr. Joel M. Hoffman (a NT scholar). Citing from his book, he says, “Normally “fulfill” in English is itself pretty vague in meaning. Things that can be fulfilled range from duties to promises to obligations. So even though “fulfill” is the wrong translation for plirow, by itself it’s vague enough that it doesn’t do too much damage. However, one other thing that can be fulfilled is a prophecy. And the wrong translation “fulfill” combines with the prevalent spirit of prophecies to create the radical mis-impression that plirow means “to fulfill a prophecy.” We know that that cannot be right. After all, the text that James cites here (“Abraham believed the Lord”) isn’t a prophecy at all. It’s a simple statement in the past tense about what happened, not a prediction about what will happen. And James’s point is precisely that it already happened. This bears no more resemblance to a prophecy than does any other simple statement about the past, say, “It rained yesterday.” Continuing that example, someone who observes that “it’s raining today, which is interesting, because it rained yesterday” is not turning the previous day’s rain into a prophecy or prediction of any sort, just observing that two things match. James was doing the same kind of thing. He was talking about faith, and his discussion matched Abraham’s faith in Genesis.” (The Bible Doesn’t Say That, Pg. 147). So then, to confuse Matthew as an ignorant man of the Scriptures, or to wrongly accuse him of being a deceiver is merely ignorance of the Muslim critic.
So once again, the question is how exactly does this “prophecy” show that Jesus was the “new Israel”? Was Isaiah’s wife a “virgin” who miraculously gave birth to their son, like Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus (peace be upon them)? Or was that just a mis-translation and Isaiah’s wife was actually not a “virgin”? How can it be reasonably argued that Matthew didn’t just cherry-pick verse 14 and ignored the larger context, even if it was just to develop his idea that Jesus was the “new Israel”? Again, the answer seems clear.
The answer seems clear that this person doesn’t realize the mis-translation of plirow/fulfillment, nor does he realize that fulfillment doesn’t need to imply following predictions, but as ways of complimenting, imitating, or even exemplifying something like Jesus fulfilling the moral law. I won’t respond to everything in his article, because the same argument can be made from my post again and again.
Why do Christians conveniently ignore the context regarding alleged “prophecies” about Jesus (peace be upon him) but suddenly appeal to it when responding to Muslim claims about Muhammad (peace be upon him)? Is it too much to ask for a little consistency? Furthermore, even if Matthew’s intention was to merely show that Jesus was the “new Israel”, that still does not disprove the accusation that he took certain passages out of context. It is obvious that he did.
Firstly, Muhammad is a warlord who propagated violence, whereas Christ is a peacemaker who advocated for peace, so there is no reason to consider Islam’s prophet to be an oracle of God. Secondly, Christ didn’t fulfill the Messianic prophecies, because if He did, He would have confirmed a false view of God in the Old Testament. This is what renders Christianity unique to Judaism and Islam: the moral superiority of Christ over the Jewish and Islamic conception of God. Thirdly, the point of typology or spiritual exegesis isn’t to match the literary context as a whole, but to simply meet major key features and form parallelism from the text. Indeed, some like Gregory of Nyssa have attempted to allegorise the Exodus. This isn’t to say he denied all possible historical elements, but denied faulty theological pictures of God. Even the Koran/Quran has Christ fulfilling miracles, whereas their Islamic prophet performs no miracles in similar manner to Christ’s miracles, which demonstrates Christ’s supremacy in their own religion. Christianity is not a theological, spiritual, and moral continuation of Judaism, but it is a true reformation of Judaism’s faulty theology, “humanized” spirituality, and poor morals, whereas Islam demonstrates nothing superior, progressive, or significantly unique to the religion of Judaism. This is not a compliment to Islam, but simply an insult due to their desperation of wishing to be very similar to Judaism despite Islam’s apparent pagan influences.
Of course, while Jesus served as a “type” of Jonah here, he also made a prophecy that did not literally come true. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus did not remain dead for “three days and three nights”. Rather, the gospels indicate a time period of three days and two nights.
Again, Christ fulfilled or imitated major key features of Jonah’s situation, not the whole context or every detail of the book of Jonah. Christ wasn’t obliged to be swallowed by a huge fish, nor is He obliged to preach against the actual city of Nineveh to fulfill a prefigurement of Himself. The purpose of typology wasn’t to fulfill every detail, but to compliment major features being mentioned. Some will argue that it was simply an idiomatic language based on Per Meyer’s NT Commentary, “Jesus was dead only a day and two nights. But, in accordance with the popular method of computation (1 Samuel 30:12 f.; Matthew 27:63), the parts of the first and third day are counted as whole days, as would be further suggested by the parallel that is drawn between the fate of the antitype and that of Jonah.” Another argument proposed by someone is to suggest that Christ like Jonah was imprisoned and not merely in a sub-terrestrial state. Others have suggested that when Jesus was buried before dusk, this implements one additional night for Jesus; He was buried on Thursday night, which fulfills the three nights objection. Either way, Christ fulfilled something similar to the situation of Jonah: imprisonment, descent, three-day period, and recovery. It is of no major consequence whether these other propositions work or not. One additional night is an irrelevant detail.
This idea of the Old Testament prefiguring Christ through typology was also known in the Early Church as St. Irenaeus says, “But Jeremiah also says, In the last days they shall understand these things. (Jeremiah 23:20) For every prophecy, before its fulfillment, is to men [full of] enigmas and ambiguities. But when the time has arrived, and the prediction has come to pass, then the prophecies have a clear and certain exposition. And for this reason, indeed, when at this present time the law is read to the Jews, it is like a fable; for they do not possess the explanation of all things pertaining to the advent of the Son of God, which took place in human nature; but when it is read by the Christians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ,…” (Against Heresies: Book IV.26.1). This matter of typology prefiguring Christ isn’t some new apologetic ideal, but a very ancient belief within the Early Church.
Dr. Ramelli offers historical context for allegoresis or spiritual allegory:
