Hi Radical,
I definitely understand where you’re coming from. I think typology is a fairly ethereal topic. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if it’s really God, or just an overactive imagination.
I think when judging typology, what we’re all really looking for is
correspondence. I think it can be kind of tricky, and maybe not completely possible, to know if a type corresponds so closely to it’s New Testament anti-type that the only explanation is divine inspiration. Some things which seem to indicate a high probability of true typology are as follows: 1. There are several points of correspondence between type and anti-type 2. The points of correspondence have something unusual or unique about them, 3. The points of correspondence are grouped together in one passage, 4. The typology is part of a larger typological background.
I’ll give you a few examples. That Elisha is a type of Christ seems fairly obvious to me. Elisha was a prophet who raised a boy from the dead and miraculously fed a multitude with loaves of bread. Here we have three points of correspondence (there may be more, but these are the ones that come to mind). It’s not like we’re saying that Jesus and Elisha were both Hebrews who liked fish and wine. Bringing people back to dead and miraculously feeding people aren’t your ordinary every day activity, so they hold some real weight – it’d be almost silly to say that it was mere coincidence.
To show examples of similarities strung together, we could look at at Absalom (2 Sam 18:9-17) and the Book of Wisdom 2:12-20. In the case of Absolam, he’s going along, acting very un-Christlike (though there are similarities that appear before this passage – he is a son of David and he is described as “unblemished”) and then suddenly, he does something very Christlike. He hangs from a tree, gets killed while hanging on it when he is pierced in the side by a soldier and is then put away and covered by rocks. In the Book of Wisdom, we suddenly get all sorts of details about Christ’s life. We read about a man who claimed he was the Son of God, who had enmity with wicked men, who was put through a great trial and was taunted that God should be able to save Him. In both these instances, the fact that there are so many points of correspondence that appear all at once in one passage, seems to indicate to me a high likelihood that God intended these to be foreshadows. As for point four that I made above, obviously there is a huge background of Christ types in the Old Testament, so any alleged type or prophecy of Christ would get more of the benefit of the doubt, since there is already a precedent set. One final point to make, some types are more difficult to discern than others. For example, it’d be almost impossible to tell that the Manna was a type of Christ if he hadn’t told us so.
To apply these principles, one common Mary-Ark argument is that the Holy Spirit overshadowed both of them and then the presence of God then dwelt in them. As far as applying this to my principle #2 above, I think it’s fair to say that this is a fairly unique occurrence, so that strengthens the possibility that this is a true type. Certainly, the Holy Spirit also descended on Jesus at his baptism and then again on the Jews at Pentecost, and also dwells in us Christians. But the Ark and Mary are unique in that God dwelled in them in a tangible and unique way. His presence could be sensed and everybody knew that He was “really there”. Likewise, the same word for “overshadowed” was used to describe the Spirit’s action toward the ark (in the Septuagint) and the Spirit’s action toward Mary. I’ve also been told that this word in Greek is not commonly used. This furthers the idea that this connection of being “overshadowed” is something uniquely special to Mary and the Ark, strengthening the type.
Looking at principles #1 and #3, the aforementioned 2 Sam 6/Luke 1 parallel seems very impressive to me. This chart (
agapebiblestudy.com/charts/Mary%20the%20Ark%20of%20the%20New%20Covenant.htm) sums it up pretty well. There are many points of correspondence and they are all grouped very tightly together, just like many of the Christ types and prophecies. They might not match up “exactly right”, but I think that’s just the nature of something as spiritual as typology. Absalom, for instance, was killed when the soldiers pierced him, whereas Jesus was already dead when he was pierced. But because there is such a high amount of correspondence between the events, it hardly seems to diminish the typology at all.
As for my point #4 made above, there seems to be a wide background of purported Marian types that seem to hold water, so this Mary/Ark connection isn’t necessarily alone out in left field. For instance, read about the Hannah/Mary connection here:
campus.udayton.edu/mary//resources/hannah.html. There’s also the Mary as the New Eve type. There’s a lot of interesting things you can do with the protoevangelium and the idea that Mary is the woman in Revelation 12 (controversial, I know). We don’t have time to get into these, but for now I’m just pointing out that these (alleged) types are there.
Anyway even though I can’t know with absolute certainty that any one Marian type is true, the fact that there are so many very strong cases to be made regarding very many types, makes me think that God really is behind them. If you want to read more about it, I usually recommend Scott Hahn’s
Hail Holy Queen. I’ve also heard that Ignace De LA Potterie’s
Mary in the Mystery of the Covenant is very good and goes quite a bit deeper.
Well, I’ve really droned on and on… I hope this has been at least somewhat interesting for you.
) God made Mary to very specific specifications, but what or who she carried that makes her the ark of the New Covenant. Mary carried the Word.
.
opcorn: