Figural Reading and the Old Testament: Theology and Practice

by Don C Collett

Don Collett, an experienced Old Testament scholar, offers an account of Old Testament interpretation that capitalizes on recent research in figural exegesis. Collett examines the tension between figural and literal modes of exegesis as they developed in Christian thought, introduces ongoing debates and discussions concerning figural readings of Scripture, and offers theological readings of several significant Old Testament passages. This book will work well as a primer on figural exegesis for seminarians or as a capstone seminary text that ties together themes from courses in Bible, exegesis, and theology.

Genres: Theology, Scripture, Christian, Old Testament

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 21, 2020

Reviews

[Samuel Kassing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book finally gave me parameters for how we can faithfully see a Christ in the Old Testament without forcing him there or damaging the historical particularity of the text.

[Caleb Rolling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really helpful collection in pursuit of recovering scripture’s figural senses, with special attention to the OT. The concluding chapter on the various reinterpretations of the literal sense following the Reformation and modern attempts to interpret scripture theologically within a historical frame of reference is especially strong.

Overall, an excellent work. My own wish is that it contained a more substantial or longer exegetical section, maybe even a sermon. What is one chapter in this book very well could have been spread out over two or three chapters.

[Chandler Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading! Can't recommend enough.

[Pre Shunmugam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Textbook for college. Didn’t agree with everything he said regarding interpreting Scripture, felt like he stretches the meaning of what the text says. However, he does raise a good challenge to not just jump straight to the cross but to appreciate the riches in the text in front of you, and look for what God is saying there.

[Derek Moser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! This book is straight up legit on so many levels. Seriously, this is a fantastic read.

From a literary standpoint, Collett's prose is exactly what I'm looking for in a book of this genre (i.e., Biblical Studies). The tempo and overall rhythm are favorable as well. He makes his claims, and then takes his time when unraveling potential arguments and/or oppositions--yet, not too much time! It is not monotonous.

From a theological and religious studies standpoint, I appreciate Collett's voice. I'll admit, much of this is due to my natural bent toward his general premise, or at least in how he presents it. He seeks to recover, or perhaps discover, the 'Old Testament consciousness' that is often lost in theologies that possess what he calls a 'top-heavy view of the New Testament.' In essence, he argues for a reading of the Old Testament that allows for the the text's own vernacular and logic to take center stage. Collett isn't outright 'bashing' Biblical Theology, which he identifies as being essentially New Testament Theology. Rather, he seems to be urging individuals to read the OT text with, at the very least, a somewhat informed understanding of both the contextual and literary devices used in the text. Here are some of Collett's thoughts that jumped out at me.

"By this I do not mean that modern historical methods have no place in figural exegesis. When properly utilized as servants rather than masters, historical tools of various kinds are helpful for illuminating the figural shape of Scripture. The point to be stressed is that such tools find their proper function and purpose within a figural imagination shaped by the Old Testament's witness to creation and providence, rather than outside that witness."

"Allegory is the term chosen by the early church to describe Scripture's capacity for other-speaking. The term comes from the conjunction of two terms: allos, meaning 'other,' and agoreuein, meaning 'to speak in public,' in the marketplace (agora), as opposed to speaking in private venues. With roots in both the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition and Scripture itself, the early church chose the term allegory to capture how biblical language makes public (agoreuein) something other that itself (allos)."

"Sharply distinguishing Scripture's literal-metaphorical sense from its allegorical sense threatens to evacuate the metaphors and figures of biblical poetry of theological significance."

Again, this is a great read. If you're interested in expanding your knowledge of figural readings concerning the Old Testament, this might be a great start!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. I don't know how to be purely unbiased, but I do know how to be honest. Well, I think I do. This was my best attempt.

DM

[Sam Nesbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Collet is a contemporary Anglican theologian who specializes in Old Testament theology and hermeneutics. His most significant contribution to this field is his work Figural Reading and the Old Testament: Theology and Practice. The main goal in this work is to vindicate the intrinsic worth of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture that testifies to the person and work of Christ within its own grammar and vocabulary. In other words, Collet seeks to offer a robust biblical hermeneutic that sees the Old Testament as truly christological and does not need methodological or historical dependence upon the New Testament in order to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. “The Old Testament provides the basic theological grammar for the church’s confession on creation, providence, figuration, the nature of biblical inspiration, authorship, Trinitym Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology” (1).
Collet splits this volume into three sections: frameworks, exegesis, and assessment. In the first section, Collet seeks to establish a biblical metaphysic that grounds figural interpretation. He first delineates what he means by figure and figural reading from popular stereotypes that immediately associate such language with unbridled allegoricalism. Instead, “figure is the term chosen in this book to express Scripture’s ongoing theological significance through the changing contexts of history, though allegory might also have been chosen” (2). Figural interpretation, in other words, is Collet’s phrase for how Hebrews 4:12 can be true for the people of God in all times and in all places: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Collet contends that the reason that this is true for the Old Testament is due to the providential ordering of creation that establishes an ontologically real connection between verbum and res, that is, word and thing or text and reality. This realist metaphysic is rooted in three main passages for Collet, namely Genesis 1–2, Job 28, and Proverbs 8 (although the latter two passages function as examples of figural interpretation in Collet’s argument, they still have a broader function for demonstrating the providential ordering of creation by means of divine wisdom, who is neither a simple attribute nor a pure literary device, on the grounds of the Old Testament text itself).
Genesis 1 establishes the constancy and cyclical nature of time in God’s created order, while Genesis 2 describes both man’s original place in time and creation and his departure from that created order due to the fall into sin. Man’s history may now be tainted by sin and rebellion, but God’s created order and purposes remain and will be fulfilled. Of particular importance on this account is Isaiah’s consistent confession that the Lord declares the end from the beginning (see Isaiah 46:9–10). This declaration is not just temporal but also agential, for “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). Since Christ is the arche, not only is all of creation and history ordered towards and centered on him, but the very things that make up time and space are ordered in relation to each other in such a way that the Triune God is revealed in all things. Very importantly, this providential ordering applies to the text of Scripture in relation to the things of creation. Therefore, the words of the Bible themselves are figures of realities that have been ordered to them by the Triune God. If this is the case, then history is less of a linear progression and more of a folded tapestry in which words, people, events, institutions, etc. contain objective meaning that is retained by their own dignity and context, while also containing meaning that expands to the providentially ordered relations between those things and other things in the past and in the future.
The latter point is a very helpful and responsible contribution by Collet, for another way to say the same point is that the literal sense serves as the indispensable role as both “a mode of access and condition of understanding for Scripture’s figural and theological sense” (43). It is only by virtue of the literal meaning of the text, which are the words providentially inspired by God, that the reader is able to understand the theological meaning that accompanies the text.
Collet thus advocates for a responsible metaphysical realism that is Scripturally defended as God’s providential ordering of time, creation, and the inspiration of the text of Scripture. It is not surprising, then, that Collet finds issue with alternative hermeneutical models that emphasize distinctly modern conceptions of the self, the text, and interpretation, such as authorial intention as the sole locus of meaning, sensus plenior, chrisotelism, and Wirkungsgeschichte. The latter three models for understanding how the OT relates to the NT are all byproducts of a hermeneutic that departs from the objective meaning of God’s providential order and relocates meaning in the conscious intention of the author, so argues Collet. The centralizing of dual authorship in biblical hermeneutics, moreover, is a result of idealist anthropologies (like that of Descartes and Locke) uncritically assumed in biblical scholarship. Collet is not opposed to dual authorship per se; he is more opposed to the isolation of it from the meaning of God’s providence and its bearing on the Christological witness of the Old Testament.
Finally, Collet articulates two “rules of faith” for biblical interpretation, one being the Nicene project and the other being the Wissenschaft project. The latter is the rule of faith associated with the Nicene Creed and is characterized by ecclesial reason. Objective norms and controls of biblical meaning “were generated by means of exegetically authorized theological creeds and confessions.” Indeed, objectivity on this approach is only possible “insofar as ecclesial reason in the community of faith submits its thoughts to the God of Israel’s triune self-disclosure in the two-testament canon of Scripture” (162). The Wissenschaft project, on the other hand, is characterized by critical reason and the striving for scientific and theologically “neutral” norms of interpretation. Such a project is most clearly seen in the critical biblical theology of Gabler and others who have made up the higher critical tradition. The Wissenschaft project is not more objective than the Nicene; both offer a method of interpretation characterized by theological presuppositions that inform the norms and controls for biblical interpretation. The Nicene, however, is more true to the presuppositions of Scripture itself, unlike the Wissenschaft.
In the end, Collet has provided a thoughtful articulation and defense of figural interpretation that seeks to vindicate the intrinsic witness of the OT to the teachings of the church. He does so in a way that is responsible, especially in arguing for a metaphysic grounded in Scripture, and for still highlighting the indispensable role of the literal sense for theological meaning.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a very interesting read from start to finish.

Don Collett’s Part 3 Assessment felt the most rewarding. Here he explained the impact that René Descartes and John Locke’s philosophy, that reality begins with human awareness and consciousness, had on modern interpretation of Scripture. Building on those foundations, we have in modern times developed our understanding of the Old Testament and categorized it into “authorial intent” and “historical context”. Based on the authorial intent and historical context, modern readers of Scripture can easily view the Old Testament as a specific word in time and place, that finds its fulfillment in the New Testament authors. When we understand the Old Testament this way, it ruins the christological focus and nature of the Old Testament and makes it reliant on the New Testament for support; we naturally diminish the value and continuing validity of the Old Testament. Our view of Christ and the reality of God in the Old Testament becomes very small. Ironically, the Old Testament Scriptures are actually what give the New Testament writings validity and authority, not vice versa.

If I tracked with Collett, he would argue that the Old Testament actually finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As a Christian, I think most of us would naturally agree with that argument Collett presents. What makes Part 3 special, is his ability to show how many modern readers of Scripture will build their view of Christ in the Old Testament based on authorial intention and historical context; and by doing so, we make ourselves the starting point for seeing Christ in the Old Testament, rather than treating the eternal Word of God in the Old Testament as witness to Christ and the triune God. The Old Testament speaks of Christ as much as the New Testament does.

In a small but important way, Collett has helped readers like me, see the significance of the Old Testament being able to speak for itself as a witness to Christ, rather than seeing it as a vague narrative history that had value for a specific people in a specific time and can only be understood when the New Testament makes it clear. This book has made me excited to continue reading my Bible, which if a book encourages you to read your Bible more, it’s probably the best thing it can do.

[Tim S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and brings new light to Biblical interpretation particularly in relation to the early church. This is not a quick read or a read for the average lay person.

[Michael Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

His thesis was relatively simple: the historic Reformed position on the literal meaning of the Scripture does not preclude a figural reading of the OT that neglects a theological interpretation. Collett understands that the Enlightenment had an adverse affect on the way in which the bible was interpreted and that this has been the main impetus for robbing biblical interpretation of the strengths of Reformed and patristic hermeneutics.
There were several particular strengths in Collett's book. First, Collett reasoned and proved that the figural reading (or theological and allegorical), for the Reformers was embedded within the literal sense of the text. But the literal sense is governed, chiefly, by God's providential rule. Grounding the meaning of Scripture in this rule means that God alone conceives of all of history from beginning to end and therefore God's communicative word spans all contexts. I found this to be an intriguing hermeneutical principle and helpful in the debates about original authorial intent and different cultural contexts in the Word is to be applied. Collett has contributed in a very positive way to this discussion, encouraging that an undue emphasis not be placed on authorial intent.
Closely related to this strength, one can also appreciate Collett's attempt to rescue modern hermeneutics from the literalistic woodenness that characterizes the typical grammatical-historical approach. There has been a fascination in the recent centuries in treating hermeneutics like a science that does not necessitate faith but can be analyzed through grammatical and extra-biblical details. I appreciated that Collet's approach, though scientific in its own right, promoted a type of artistry in interpreting the OT that necessitates the quality of faith. Collett is not content in just doing theological exegesis, but he is concerned to do Christian exegesis.
Thirdly, Collett's chief emphasis rested in a theological reading of the OT. Much of his approach is reminiscent of Weinandy's hermeneutical approach in Jesus Becoming Jesus. But the particular strength of Collett when compared to Weinandy, is that Collett approaches the OT as a Protestant and standing in the Reformed heritage. Collett is very concerned that biblical interpretation does not become a wax nose or that it goes into the relatively subjective form of allegorization. He is still hedged in to the literal sense and to the objectivity that is not governed by the church or tradition. In this, Collett, in my opinion, has a major strength that is not as apparent in Weindandy's work. In the end, Collett provided a helpful Protestant way to read the OT and infuse divine life into it.
Lastly, I think Collett's book begins to bridge the divide between hermeneutics and homiletics. I have often been intrigued by the relationship of these two disciplines, but simultaneously frustrated. So many hermeneutical methods today do not seem to transfer over to homiletics very well—they are too involved, too educated, too speculative. At the same time, much in the homiletical world seems to be. transfixed on the trivial. Collett's approach can help clear away some of the homiletical fog.
In addition, however, there were some weaknesses in Collett's work. Among these weaknesses, I was left wondering how Collett understands the relationship between the OT and the NT. Granted his book was on the OT and so there was a priority here, but I wondered if he marginalized the significance of the NT. Further, Collett's theory was better than his practice. I found it disappointing that the texts Collett worked through were relatively difficult and the texts come with a long history of different interpretations (e.g., Proverbs 8). I like where he ended, but as he put into practice his hermeneutics, his process was a bit confusing. Lastly, Collett was attempting to accomplish a lot in very few pages. While the terseness of his work is appreciated, it seemed there was an undue proportion of time spent on defining all his terms, add to this a blending of philosophical categories with OT hermeneutics and theology, and in some regards his book felt like an impassible labyrinth.
In conclusion, I was left with several areas for further thinking. Collett's premise was that the figural reading was part of the literal meaning in the mind of the Reformers. I am not deeply read in pre-Enlightenment hermeneutics, but Collett's approach seems to bring Rome and Geneva closer together than I have typically been taught. In the Reformed scholastics that I have read, I have sensed a strong disdain for the quadriga, but Collett's book hinted that the Reformers were not as adamantly opposed to an allegorical-like interpretation as I previously thought.
I found the providential rule to be a helpful perspective, but wondered if it diminished too much of the human agency through which the Scriptures were written. I really appreciated where Collett was going and I believe he is responding to an important issue, but I felt that he may have stressed too much the divinity of the Scripture and devalued the human components.
More particularly, I was intrigued by Collett's discussion of de-ontologizing metaphors in way that seemed to collapse ontology and economy in theology. I would like to think through this a bit more closely—what is the point of metaphor? Is to be understood as a simile? Is it analogous language that is meant to reflect a biblical ontology? Collett himself observes that this could lead to the error of Kantian dualism, but is Collett conflating the two so there is no real distinction?

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a careful and sober defense of theological interpretation, which has been generating interest and controversy lately. It is historically informed, contains lengthy exegetical examples, and is calculated to allay suspicion and alarm on the part of cautious theologians. He puts things clearly and boldly, my only thing is that it is just funny to me how cautious theologians can be about moving away from uninformed assumptions.

One of the things he does is distinguish the reformers from modern approaches to interpretation, arguing that we have not been careful about their concerns and have tended to read more recent assumptions into them.

“Luther moved away from the analogical way of construing the relation between the literal and the figural senses in the Quadriga toward a univocal mode of construing the literal sense. This was because, like Calvin after him, he regarded the Quadriga’s notion of levels of meaning as open to abuse and in need of reform.” (37) Nevertheless, “[s]peaking of Scripture’s literal figures is a shorthand way to express the Reformation’s conviction, anticipated by Origen, Augustine, and Aquinas, that Scripture’s figural sense remains internal rather than external to the literal sense, because the literal sense is our mode of access to and condition of understanding for Scripture’s figural-theological sense.” (40)

Here is the central insight: “Allegory foregrounds the link between Scripture’s theological ontology and its inspired words, resisting the anti-metaphysical bent inherent in much that passes for biblical exegesis in late modernity.” (45) Wrap your head around that one and you will never plod again but rather soar exegetically.

He mentions the important medieval distinction between the semantic property of words that is metaphor, and the “semantic property of historically mediated theological things” which is the concern of figural or allegorical interpretation. (63) A most important thing to have, and I think it certainly be a useful one for teaching hermeneutics. Here it comes again: “Although biblical words in a given grammatical-historical context typically have one sense, when these words are providentially ordered in relation to figural signs, they take on extended senses by which they become capable of supporting many senses.” (108) That’s good.

His takedown of the intrusion of modern philosophy into Biblical hermeneutics is a very interesting portion of the book. It resulted in a substitution. “This substitution carries with it the implicit genre judgment that Scripture is a source or set of historical clues instrumentally useful for communing with biblical authors, rather than being a theological witness.” (128) The substitution being rather than hearing Scripture as God’s word, it was studied as a way into the human author’s consciousness. That insight is one of the most ingenious things Collett accomplishes.

He includes takedowns of sensus plenior and christotelism. “The common premise at work in both sensus plenior and christotelism is that the Old Testament’s christological sense is the function of a latter historical or material effect lying beyond the Old Testament’s own horizon.” (153) They do it because they are operating under misguided but modern condescending assumptions about Scripture. These two approaches a kind of reception history, he goes on to say; Collett has not a few ingenious insights.

I have no doubt that this is an important book.

[Benjamin Razey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collett’s Figural Reading and the Old Testament is a dense book that seeks to address the modern church’s tendency to treat the Old Testament as an introduction of sorts to the New Testament, introducing some key doctrines and theological assertions but never unpacking them completely. Conversely, he makes an impassioned case for undertaking a figural reading of the Old Testament, ultimately guided by the Old Testament’s literal sense. Throughout the book, Collett seeks to show that the Old Testament is both crucial and theologically significant, equivalent to the New Testament, with the New Testament presupposing “the Old Testament’s account of history as a providentially constructed reality, just as it presupposes the Old Testament’s doctrines of creation and God’s character.”

Overall, this book was insightful and interesting. It was a fair grind to get through, and certainly does not make for light reading, but the author is articulate and clear. There were a few times where I felt like a clarification/definition should have come earlier than it did in the book, and there seemed to be a large amount of assumed knowledge that was unaddressed from the outset. However, this book is a valuable contribution to Christian academic literature and a worthwhile read.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree largely with the basic thesis: the theological meaning of OT texts (as well as NT) requires a providential understanding of history. In other words, the triune God controls human history (especially, in this context, the history of Israel) so that there is a link between the words of Scripture and the created order. This allows us to read the OT and NT as a self-contained, dual witness to the reality of the eternal Godhead - what Collett calls a "theological ontology."

But within that agreement over the basic thesis, I think this book suffered from unnecessarily technical and obscure writing. Hence three stars.

[Kate Trimble]

Read this for a seminary class with dr collett as the prof. When the class began I had no idea what was going on and words were being tossed around and I was lost. But then throughout the semester & this book I realized that I actually do enjoy figural reading and have been doing it subconsciously for awhile now! Hang on in the reading it makes sense eventually :)

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated the author’s experience and knowledge about the Old Testament. This text was logical, organized, and ideal for a course exploring Old Testament theology course.

A thinking pastor’s ideal resource.

[Nick Roark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sensible