Gregg Allison, Ph.D.: "Historical Theology," Ch.8--Interpretation of Scr...

Interpretation, 162-184. Again, Dr. Allison discusses this across four periods: early church, middle ages, reformation/post-reformation period, and modern period. The early church inherited varying literal, midrashic, and Philonic approaches. Jesus and typology: Jonah (Jon.1.17) and 3-day burial (Mt.12.38-41), Moses’ lifting of the servant in the wilderness (Num.21.4-9) and Jesus’ exaltation (Jn.3.14-15). We learn of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, the “Alexandrian School” of exegesis and the literal and allegorical hermeneutics (163). In contrast to Alexandria, the Antiochian School, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Chrysostom use the literal and typological (with cautions) hermeneutics (164). Theodore of Mopsuestia complained: “Countless students of scripture have played tricks with the plain sense of the Bible and want to rob it of any meaning it contain….they make up inept fables and called their inanities ‘allegories.’ They so abuse the apostle’s paradigm [DPV, Gal.4.24] as to make the holy texts incomprehensible and meaningless” (165, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Galatians, cited in Joseph W. Trigg, Biblical Interpretation (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988(m 173)). Bultmann sounds like Origen's boys on steroids.