typology

n., pl., -gies.

1. The study or systematic classification of types that have characteristics or traits in common.
2. A theory or doctrine of types, as in scriptural studies.

typological ty'po·log'i·cal (tī'pə-lŏj'ĭ-kəl) or ty'po·log'ic (-lŏj'ĭk) adj.
typologically ty'po·log'i·cal·ly adv.
typologist ty·pol'o·gist n.

typology, a system of interpretation applied by early Christian theologians to the Hebrew scriptures (the ‘Old Testament’), by which certain events, images, and personages of pre‐Christian legend could be understood as prophetic ‘types’ or ‘figures’ foreshadowing the life of Christ. Typology—literally the study of types—is thus a method of re‐reading the Old Testament anachronistically in terms of the New Testament, so that Adam, Isaac, Jonah, and other characters are pre‐figurings of Christ, the Tree of Knowledge in Eden is a type of the Cross, and so on. By the 13th century an elaborate system of allegory had been constructed, dividing the sense of anything in the Old Testament into four levels of meaning: the literal, the allegorical (referring to the New Testament or the Christian Church), the moral or tropological (referring to the fate of the individual soul), and the anagogical (referring to universal history and eschatology). In the standard illustration of this scheme, Jerusalem is literally a city, allegorically the Church, tropologically the soul of the believer, and anagogically the heavenly City of God. Typological allegory is an important element in many literary works of medieval Christianity, including Dante's Divina Commedia (c.1320), and in some later sermons and religious verse.

Study of symbolic representation or of types.

[Te]

The classification of objects, structures, or specimens by subdividing observed populations into a theoretical sequence or series of groups (types) and subgroups (subtypes) according to consideration of their qualitative, quantitative, morphological, formal, technological, and functional attributes. Once established, typological sequences are often used as a surrogate chronology or culture history. The basic ideas underpinning typological studies were originally formulated in the field of biology. See also taxonomy.

The study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - typologi

Nederlands (Dutch)
typologie

Français (French)
n. - typologie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Typologie, Typenlehre

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σημειολογία

Italiano (Italian)
tipologia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - tipologia (f)

Русский (Russian)
типология

Español (Spanish)
n. - tipología

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - typologi

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
类型学, 象征主义, 象征论

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 類型學, 象徵主義, 象徵論

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 표상학, 유형학, 인쇄학

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 予表論, 類型学

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) دراسه رموز الكتاب المقدس, , دراسه الرموز‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תורת האותיות והסמלים, תורת הטיפוסים, סמליות, טיפולוגיה‬

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