What New Testament events after Pentecost have been claimed to have typological precursors in the Old Testament?

What New Testament events after Pentecost have been claimed to have typological precursors in the Old Testament?

First of all what is biblical typology?

Biblical typology refers to when a person, event, thing, etc. - usually from Old Testament times - foreshadows someone or something or event, etc., in the New Testament/New Covenant era. For example, in the Old Testament, Jonah’s three days in the belly of a whale prefigure Jesus Christ’s three days in the tomb (Matt. 12:38-42). In addition, Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine (Gen. 14:17-20) prefigures Jesus’ offering of his body and blood, soul and divinity under the appearances of bread and wine in the New Covenant (Matt. 26:26-28; Heb. 5:7-10).

So we see that a similarity must exist between the type and the archetype, and yet the latter is always greater. In addition, the destruction of the Jerusalem in 70 A.D., which Jesus prophesied, prefigures the end of the world. - A Primer on Biblical Typology

The comment of Curiousdannii is quite to the point in regards to the subject of typology: ”Identifications of typology are already highly opinionated/speculative/debated.”

Biblical authors often employ literary techniques to communicate their messages with enhanced force. They were not, for example, interested in theology or historiography alone, but also in aesthetics. In other words, their focus was not directed solely on simply presenting information, but also on how the material was presented literarily. Authors would utilize many techniques in their writing such as repetition, chiasms, and typology to connect stories, to emphasize themes, and to flesh out nuanced truths. This paper will argue that Luke, in the Book of Acts, implements the aesthetic technique of allusion and typology to enrich his narrative. More specifically, this paper will seek to demonstrate Luke’s portrayal of Paul as the anti-Jonah in Acts.

Typologies occur in biblical writing “when individuals or events in some manner foreshadow future people and events by describing parallel circumstances and the meanings that develop within them.” Or, as defined by J. Daniel Hays, typology is “a biblical event, person, or institution that serves as an example or pattern for other events, persons, or institutions.” Therefore, the use of typology is often an intentional connection made by the author between a character in the text and a prefigurative model. A typological connection makes use of common themes, situations, events, and even similar phrasing to compare two separate entities. This invites the reader to consider how the two are similar and what consequent implications arise for the understanding of the text. Logically, then, an anti-type would be a character who reverses the symbolic nature of another model while maintaining connections to the original. This paper will seek to point out how the themes and details present in Paul’s conversion and journey to Rome connect him to the story of Jonah while simultaneously overturning the theological precedent set by Jonah as his opposite. - Exploring Paul as the Anti-Jonah in Acts

I will start off with one involving St. Paul and the Prophet Jonah!

The narrative of Jonah's voyage, (Jonah i.,) and that of Paul's, (Acts xxvii.,) present several points of striking resemblance. In both we have a tempest at sea, and a ship in distress. In both the sea navigated is the same—the beautiful, yet deceitful Mediterranean. In both the ship's-crew consists of heathen mariners. In each ship, too, there is a remarkable passenger, bearing a Divine commission. And in both cases, the peril, though eventually overcome, is at one time so great as to make the very seamen abandon the hope of being saved.

Not less noteworthy is the resemblance between the two passengers. Both of them are Jews—Jews by birth and education—proud of their descent, and strongly attached to their country. Both of them, too, have their lot cast on an age when their nation is on the eve, and even in the throes, of dissolution. For Jonah's day is that which immediately precedes the captivity of the ten tribes; Paul's, that which immediately precedes the final subversion of the Jewish polity by the Romans. And, what is a still stranger coincidence, both are divinely commissioned to carry the true religion to the portion of the Gentiles most inimical to the Jews. It is to Nineveh, the capital of that Assyrian empire which is about to crush his country under its iron heel, that Jonah is commanded to go with the offer of Jehovah's mercy; and it is Home, the metropolis of the Roman power, and the destined destroyer of the Jewish city and temple, to which Paul is sent with the gospel of Jesus.

But probably the points common to the two narratives, though not devoid of instruction, are less suggestive of profitable reflection than the points of contrast; and, accordingly, it is to the latter that the attention of our readers is now invited, and especially to the contrasts, first, between the two passengers, and, secondly, between the two crews.

In looking at Jonah and Paul on shipboard, the first thing which strikes us is, that the former is a fugitive from duty; the latter in the path of duty. Jonah has so little heart for a mission of mercy to the Ninevites, or rather, he is so averse to what he thinks the unjewish and unpatriotic task of bearing the peculiar and exclusive religious privileges of his own countrymen to their heathen enemies, that he refuses to obey the Divine command. Nay, not content with merely disobeying it, he flees from the land of Jehovah's oracle, that the command may not again reach him; and finding a ship bound for Tarshish, he "pays the fare thereof, and goes down into it." Paul embarks, on the other hand, not that he may escape an irksome duty, but that he may be enabled to perform it. To him, no doubt, with his thoroughly Jewish heart and his ardent national attachments, the command, "Arise, go to Rome," is as heavy a one as is to Jonah the command, "Arise, go to Nineveh;" for he cannot but feel that such a command amounts to nothing short of this: "Preach the gospel to the oppressors of your country; offer them that mercy which your countrymen have forfeited; ring the knell of your country's doom." But he does not, like Jonah, "confer with flesh and blood." He waves his own predilections in deference to the Divine command; and, in spite of his sorrow of heart for his brethren according to the flesh—a sorrow which seems to have been evermore his heaviest burden—he determines to sail into Italy.

This radical dissimilitude between the prophet and the apostle, in their feelings and conduct with regard to their mission, naturally leads us to expect an equally marked dissimilitude in other respects. We cannot expect that a man who is so bigotedly attached to Judaism, as to be angry even with God for sending him on an errand of mercy to the Ninevites, shall conduct himself on shipboard in the same manner as a man who is at peace with his own conscience, and alive to the claims at once of God and of the Gentiles. We naturally expect, on the contrary, that while Jonah's ungodward temper shall, like the dead fly in the ointment of the apothecary, cause all his other gifts and qualities to send forth an offensive savour, Paul's piety and benevolence shall so impregnate and perfume his whole demeanour, as to fill, so to speak, the house with the odour of the ointment. And to this expectation the facts answer.

How does Jonah demean himself when the ship is like to be broken in the tempest, and the frightened mariners, driven to their wit's end, cry every man unto his god ? Does he come to their help? Does he join with them in prayer for Divine succour? Does he bestir himself in any way to aid or cheer them? On the contrary, he goes down into the sides of the ship, and there falls fast asleep. It requires a sharp rebuke from the shipmaster to rouse him; and even when asked to help the seamen, if with nothing else, yet with his prayers, he gives no practical heed to the request. He has no inclination for work, and no heart for prayer. Soured, depressed, discontented, sulky, he only wishes to be let alone; he cares not a straw whether the vessel sink or swim.

How very differently does Paul deport himself! At peace with his own conscience, and confident of Divine favour and help, he is the very life of the ship's company; he is all energy and activity. It is he who first foresees the coming tempest. It is he who rouses the shipmaster to a sense of the emergency, and stimulates him to meet it. It is he who passes to and fro among the despairing crew, saying to each in turn, "Work on; be of good cheer. There shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship." But for him, the shipmen would have made off with the boat, and gone down among the breakers. But for him, the soldiers would have killed the prisoners to prevent their escape. It is his cheerful, courageous spirit that imparts new life and heart, in the time of their extremity, to two hundred and seventy-six human beings. What a mighty agent for good is a real man of God! What an exhaustless source of moral energy does a calm and benevolent mind supply! A Jonah, who is consciously at war with God and duty, is ever straitened in spirit and palsied in action—in duty a cripple, in danger a coward; but a man who knows that he is at the post which God would have him occupy, and in the spirit which God would have him cherish, is bold as a lion, free of mind and of limb, alert for duty, resolute in danger, serene even in death.

As there is thus a marked contrast between the two passengers, in respect alike of their feelings towards God and of their conduct towards their shipmates, so there is the same twofold contrast between the crews.

The mariners of Tarshish, when the ship was like to be broken in the tempest, "were afraid, and cried every man unto his god." But the Alexandrian shipmen, though equally in peril, and equally afraid, gave no indication of any religious feeling. Now, it is true that prayer in the season of danger is no sure evidence of real piety; for men who never pray in the sunshine may be fain to pray in the storm. Yet, even supposing the Tarshish mariners never to have prayed before, the fact that they did pray now clearly proves them to have been men of at least another and better temper towards God than the Alexandrian sailors, whom not even the terrors of a watery grave could either draw or drive to so much as one God-ward aspiration.

Still more marked is the contrast between the two crews in their conduct towards the passengers and others embarked with them. What is the conduct of the Tarshish mariners towards Jonah, when they are apprised that his presence is the cause of the danger, and that they have only to cast him overboard in order to be safe? Do they at once proceed to throw him into the sea? Do they even proceed to take this step when they receive his own consent and command to do so? No; these brave tars continue to "row hard" to bring the ship to land, anxious to spare the life of their dangerous passenger, and unwilling to save themselves at his expense; and even when they are at last shut up to the inevitable necessity of casting him overboard, they go about the task with the utmost reluctance, and earnestly pray to be forgiven for an act to which not even its necessity can reconcile them:—"We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood."

Is there any like magnanimity on the part of the Alexandrian seamen? Do they care about the safety of Paul, or of the centurion, or of the soldiers, or of any one on board but themselves? Although Paul is not, like Jonah, the cause of the danger, but, on the contrary, the palladium of the ship, do they care that he perish? Their sole care is for their own safety. And so, the moment the vessel is among the breakers, they let down the boat, under pretext of getting out the anchors, and attempt to escape out of the ship. It is true their selfish, cowardly scheme is detected and frustrated; for, at the suggestion of Paul, the centurion gives the word of command, and ere the treacherous shipmen have descended into the boat, the sharp swords of the soldiers sever the ropes, and send it adrift. But the selfishness of these men is not the less detestable that it is baulked of its object; and, doubtless, when they perceive that their cunning scheme is defeated, and gaze after the boat as it parts from the ship, and drifts away on the rushing billows, their dismayed and scowling looks betray a temper of mind—oh how different from that of those kind-hearted Tarshish mariners, who stood with tears in their eyes and prayers on their lips as Jonah was precipitated into the deep!

It is sad to reflect that men of the same calling, and in the same peril, should feel and act so differently as these two ships' crews. And yet such difference usually comes out in seasons of emergency. Severe trials shew what spirit men are of; and not unfrequently, when some unexpected and appalling calamity falls upon a ship, a family, a city, a country, it is as if a separating hand had passed through to divide men into two classes—ranging the dauntless on the one side, and the dastards on the other. It is on critical occasions that piety manifests its divineness, and benevolence its sweetness; and then, too, it is that the ungodly are most godless, and the selfish most iron-hearted. The tempest which spreads terror and destruction here below only serves to purify and brighten yon upper sky.

It is worthy of remark that the religious sailors were the generous ones, and the godless sailors the cruel and dastardly ones — a union of qualities which, in both its phases, is found realised in all classes of society, and in all ages of the world. And there is yet another important lesson suggested:—The insufficiency of mere civilisation to morally elevate the humbler classes of a community. It was in an age of the world comparatively rude that the ship which carried Jonah sailed from Joppa to Tarshish; yet the seamen who manned it "feared God and regarded man." It was in the palmy days of ancient civilisation, the culminating time of classic poetry and art, that Alexandrian sailors bore Paul over the waters of the Levant; yet these sailors were godless, and selfish, and morally but savages. It might have been expected, that with the advanced knowledge and refinement of the later period, the seaman-class would have morally improved; instead of which, the seamen of Paul's day seem to have been much worse, morally and religiously, than the seamen of Jonah's. So far is a high civilisation from necessarily benefiting, other than physically, the humbler classes of society, that it may well be a question whether the working-men of an advanced country are not, upon the whole, more sensual, more irreligious, more discontented, more of the earth earthy, than the working-men of a country comparatively unrefined. It almost seems as if the effect of mere scientific and industrial improvement, was to advance man's physical condition, at the expense of his moral and religious character; to augment his wealth, but impoverish his soul. At all events, this much is certain, that something more than science and art—something more than trade and commerce —something more than books, and pictures, and statuary, and music, is needed to sustain the moral and religious life of a people. Civilisation is but a fabric of painted straw when it is not based upon those holy, humanising influences which emanate from the Christian home, the Christian school, and the Christian Church. - Jonah and Paul at Sea

The Three Days of Jonah, Jesus and Paul

Typology is not limited to the spiritual sense!

When we read the Church Fathers and explore the treasure of “types,” we can see how they open Scripture to greater spiritual discernment. Join Cleopas on the road to Emmaus and your heart will also be burning. Remember that typology is not limited to the spiritual sense:

Typology is not always rooted in spiritual exegesis. Sometimes the historical meaning of the text is typological. When Matthew says, to fulfill Scripture, “out of Egypt I have called my son” looking back on Israel coming out of Egypt in the Exodus, not Jesus coming out when Herod died, and yet the literal-historical meaning of Matthew’s text is a typological interpretation of Hosea. Hosea, in other words, is a type of Christ to come. That’s why the literary-historical study of the text requires not just logic, grammar and rhetoric, looking at events and other relevant historical testimony. It means looking at the entire canon of Scripture! Why stress this? Yet if you lined up a hundred Catholic exegetes and ask them what am I doing when I do a canonical exegesis of Matthew’s text “out of Egypt I have called my son” what would they say? Is this literal-historical exegesis? They would say no, it isn’t. Catholic exegetes don’t include canonical exegesis as a part of the historical-critical task of determining the literal meaning of the text, even though Vatican II and the Catechism says that it is essential! (paraphrase of lecture of Dr. Scott Hahn).

Finally, I would recommend Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians by Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina. This book deals with these signs, types, or what we might call the “mystagogy” of the sacraments. The sacrament is itself a reality, wherein heavens touches earth, but they represent divine mysteries, spiritual realities, which human senses cannot see in their deepest reality. “That is what Christ taught His disciples and His disciples taught their disciples, in the Church’s tradition: to read the Bible typologically, to see the events of the Old Testament as a ‘shadow of the good things to come’ in Christ, and so to see the events of the New Testament as a ‘true form of realities that are real and invisible.” Mystagogy teaches the new born Christian how they are to understand the Church as the Kingdom promised in the Old Covenant, to see their baptism in the context of salvation history from the time of Adam. According to the Catechism mystagogy initiates people into the mystery of Christ, “by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the sacraments to the mysteries” (CCC 1075). By reading short elucidations of this typology in St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Clement of Alexandria, the St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John Chrysostom and St. Leo the Great you will get a taste of mystagogy that can open up our spiritual mind and heart. Understanding Biblical Typology