Origin and evolution of the figurative-typological interpretation

Abstract

The necessity confronted by the first Christian believers to find a source both of legitimacy and of defense of nascent Christianity, generated within their community different ways to assimilate and comprehend the content of the Hebrew sacred texts. One of them was the 'typological' or 'figural' reading which, with the aforementioned aim, attempted to relate the texts of the old and New Testament. Seventy years after the original publication of the essay Figura by Erich Auerbach, which explained in depth the foundations of this issue, the present commemorative article returns to the origins and early evolution of the typological-figural interpretation in light of the ideas of the influential German philologist.