Sources & Method
What this timeline rests on, and where the approach comes from. Nothing here is original to us.
The method
Tracing a subject along the length of Scripture is an established discipline. In the literature it is called a longitudinal theme, and it is one of seven ways Sidney Greidanus sets out for moving responsibly from an Old Testament text to Christ — offered deliberately as an alternative to allegorising, which finds whatever it wants wherever it looks.
The threads on this timeline are longitudinal themes. Each begins where Scripture first raises the subject, follows it as it gathers detail, and ends where the New Testament claims it is met in Christ.
We have tried to hold two things together: a conviction that the whole of Scripture is about Jesus, and a refusal to reach for connections the text will not carry. Where a connection is the New Testament’s own, it is marked stated and the citation is given. Where it rests on a pattern the New Testament works with but does not spell out, it is marked pattern. Where it is a reading the church has long held but cannot be cited, it says so. A reader should always be able to see which kind of claim is being made.
Scripture text
All quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible, released into the public domain (CC0) on 30 April 2023 by the BSB translation team and BSB Publishing. It is a formal-equivalence translation, and its public-domain status is what allows the text to be printed here rather than only linked.
Works relied on
- Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Eerdmans, 1999) — for the method, and for the discipline of naming which road a connection travels.
- G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 2007) — for checking which Old Testament passages the New Testament actually quotes, alludes to, or echoes.
- T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, eds., New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (IVP, 2000) — for testing whether a theme is treated as a major one in the field, or whether we invented it.
- BibleProject, Biblical Themes series — consulted as a check on which themes communicate to readers who are not specialists.
Any errors of judgment in applying this work are ours, not theirs.
Corrections
If a connection here is overstated, a date is wrong, or a passage is misquoted, we would genuinely like to know. Tell us and it will be corrected.