Frequently Asked Questions

Typology identifies divinely intended historical correspondences between an earlier event, person, or institution (the type) and a later reality that fulfils and surpasses it (the antitype). The type is real history — not a cipher or a symbol. Its historical reality is the ground of its typological force.

Allegory, by contrast, treats the literal narrative as a vehicle for hidden spiritual meaning, often dissolving the historical referent. The danger of allegory is that it can impose meaning from outside the text. Typology, properly done, follows meaning that the texts themselves signal — through verbal echoes, structural parallelism, and calendrical alignment.

The New Testament itself uses both terms. Romans 5:14 calls Adam a "type" (τύπος) of the one to come. First Peter 3:21 calls baptism the antitype (ἀντίτυπον) of Noah's flood. The method is not a modern import; it is native to the texts.

We apply three criteria. First, textual signal: does the text itself draw the connection — through verbal echo, citation, allusion, or structural mirroring? If not, we are projecting, not reading. Second, escalation: the antitype must surpass the type, not merely replicate it. A shadow is not the body; the body is greater. Third, structural correspondence: the connection must be architectural — not just a surface word-match but a genuine correspondence of function, form, or sequence.

We also apply a negative criterion: if we find ourselves looking for a connection rather than finding one the text has already placed, that is the signal to stop.

The standard count of seven feasts is traditional but imprecise. A careful reading of Leviticus 23 yields nine distinct appointed times: Shabbat (v.3), Pesach (v.5), Matzot (vv.6-8), Bikkurim (vv.9-14), Shavuot (vv.15-22), Yom Teruah (vv.23-25), Yom Kippur (vv.26-32), Sukkot (vv.33-36), and Shemini Atzeret (vv.36-38).

The traditional count of seven collapses Shabbat (treating it as a weekly rather than annual moed, though it is explicitly introduced in the moed list), and often merges Shemini Atzeret into Sukkot. Each of these is in fact a distinct moed with its own designation and requirements. The precise count matters for typological analysis because each moed is a potential typological node.

Exodus 32:28 records that approximately 3,000 Israelites were killed by the Levites following the golden calf apostasy at Sinai — an event that occurred 50 days after the Exodus Passover, on what tradition identifies as 6 Sivan, the same date as Shavuot.

Acts 2:41 records that approximately 3,000 people were added to the community on the day of Pentecost — Shavuot, 50 days after the resurrection Passover of 30 CE.

The inversion is structural: the letter of the law kills 3,000; the Spirit of the law gives life to 3,000. Paul explicitly connects this in 2 Corinthians 3:6 — "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." The correspondence is not accidental; it is the kind of architecturally placed inversion that characterises the typological method throughout Scripture.

First Kings 6:1 states that Solomon began building the Temple in the 480th year after the Exodus, in the fourth year of his reign. The fourth year of Solomon's reign is archaeologically and textually anchored to approximately 966 BCE. 966 + 480 = 1446 BCE.

The 1250 BCE date derives from the identification of Ramesses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus, and from the appearance of the city of Ramesses in Exodus 1:11. However, this identification involves reading the 480 years as a symbolic number (12 generations × 40) rather than a literal interval — a move that requires justification the text does not provide. We take the number at face value.

The 1446 date also aligns well with the Amarna Letters (c.1350 BCE), which describe the Habiru disrupting Canaan — consistent with a period of Israelite settlement beginning around 1406 BCE (40 years after the Exodus), though these identifications remain debated.

The Passion week chronology requires that 14 Nisan fall on a Friday — so that the crucifixion occurs on the afternoon of Preparation Day (Erev Shabbat) and the resurrection on the morning of 17 Nisan (Sunday), which is also Bikkurim.

Astronomical calculation of the Hebrew calendar in the early first century CE yields two primary candidates: 30 CE and 33 CE. In 30 CE, 14 Nisan fell on Friday 7 April. In 33 CE, 14 Nisan fell on Friday 3 April. Both are technically viable.

We prefer 30 CE because it synchronises best with the Lukan chronology of John the Baptist's ministry beginning in the 15th year of Tiberius (Luke 3:1, c.27-29 CE), allows for a three-year ministry, and aligns with the Talmudic testimony in Yoma 39b that certain Temple signs ceased 40 years before the destruction (70 CE − 40 = 30 CE). The convergence of astronomical, textual, and Talmudic evidence at 30 CE is more than coincidental.

We hold that the crucifixion occurred on Friday 14 Nisan (7 April 30 CE). The Wednesday hypothesis attempts to produce a literal 72-hour burial to match "three days and three nights" (Matt 12:40), but it requires treating the "Sabbath" of John 19:31 as a feast-day Sabbath (15 Nisan) rather than the weekly Shabbat — an inference that is possible but not required by the text.

Hebrew idiom consistently counts partial days as full units. "Three days and three nights" in this reckoning covers part of Friday (day 1 / night 1), all of Saturday (day 2 / night 2), and the pre-dawn hours of Sunday (night 3 / day 3 begins at resurrection). This is the same counting convention used in Esther 4:16–5:1, where "three days and three nights" is followed by action on "the third day."

The Friday crucifixion also preserves the typological precision: 14 Nisan (Passover, the lamb slaughtered), 17 Nisan (Bikkurim, the firstfruits wave-offering) — an exact three-day span within the Matzot feast, the structural container of the Passion events.

Leviticus 23:11 and 15 specify that the sheaf is waved and the count begins "on the day after the Sabbath" (מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת). The interpretive crux is: which Sabbath?

The Pharisaic / rabbinic position (and modern Orthodox practice) identifies the Sabbath as the first day of Matzot (15 Nisan, a holy convocation), making Bikkurim always 16 Nisan and Shavuot always 6 Sivan. This reading treats the feast-day rest as equivalent to "Sabbath."

The Sadducean / Karaite position identifies the Sabbath as the weekly Shabbat that falls during Passover week, making Bikkurim always a Sunday (the day after the Saturday within Passover week). In 30 CE, this Sunday is 17 Nisan — the day of the empty tomb.

We adopt the Sadducean reading, not out of preference for Sadducean halakha, but because it produces the typological precision the New Testament itself demands: Bikkurim as "the firstfruits" (1 Cor 15:20,23) falls on a Sunday, 17 Nisan, precisely where the resurrection narrative places it — and Shavuot falls 50 days later on a Sunday, as Acts 2 implies.

Leviticus 23 distinguishes between days designated as miqra qodesh (מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ — holy convocation) and other calendar days within the feast periods. The holy convocations are the primary typological nodes: they carry explicit work prohibitions and assembly requirements.

Within the seven-day Feast of Matzot (15-21 Nisan), for example, only the first day (15 Nisan) and the seventh day (21 Nisan) are designated as holy convocations. The intervening days — including 17 Nisan (Bikkurim) — are fixed calendar appointments but not themselves holy convocations in the Matzot series. Bikkurim has its own designation and its own work prohibition, but it is structurally distinct from the bookend holy convocations of Matzot.

This distinction matters for precise chronological and typological analysis: not every day of a feast week carries the same weight, and the work prohibitions differ between servile work (melekhet avodah) and domestic work on the weekly Shabbat.

We engage seriously with critical scholarship — on chronology, archaeology, Hebrew calendar mechanics, and textual history. We read and cite it. We do not, however, allow critical presuppositions to set the terms of our inquiry, particularly where those presuppositions carry ideological freight (e.g., the assumption that precise predictive prophecy is impossible, which drives many late-dating arguments).

We distinguish between critical arguments that are empirically grounded and those that are philosophically motivated. The first deserve careful engagement; the second deserve identification and challenge.

No. Bible codes and numerological systems typically operate by finding patterns in the raw letter or number sequence of the text — patterns that the authors could not have intended and that require statistical justification to distinguish from noise. They are decoding operations, not reading operations.

Our method is the opposite: we follow literary and calendrical structures that the authors have explicitly placed in the text — named feasts, stated intervals, identified correspondences. When Paul says "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed" (1 Cor 5:7), he is identifying a typological correspondence. We are reading him, not decoding him. The same applies to the chronological intervals given in 1 Kings 6:1 and the calendar prescriptions of Leviticus 23.

We use the Talmud as a primary historical source for Second Temple practice, calendar mechanics, and Temple ritual — not as a theological authority. Tractates like Yoma (Yom Kippur procedure), Menahot (meal offerings and the Omer), and Pesachim (Passover procedure) preserve detailed descriptions of Temple-era practice that are indispensable for understanding what the moedim looked like in practice.

Where the Talmud diverges from the plain sense of the Torah text (e.g., in its interpretation of "the day after the Sabbath" in Lev 23:11), we note the divergence and engage it — sometimes following the Talmud, sometimes following the plain sense against it, always explaining why.

No. Hebrew and Greek terms are introduced with transliterations, translations, and explanations. Familiarity with the biblical languages enriches the reading but is not required. The Glossary on this site provides a reference point for all key terms used across the books and posters.

Each volume is designed to stand independently, but the logical reading sequence follows the architecture of the framework: beginning with the appointed times (Leviticus 23), moving through the chronological anchors, then into the typological correspondences, and finally into the counter-system analysis. The Start Here page maps this sequence with colour-coded reading tracks.

The books are available through Lulu Press in physical format. Links to each title are on the Books page. Physical copies are currently in production; the page will be updated as each title becomes available.