Glossary
The terms and abbreviations you'll meet on The Hyperlinked Bible, in plain words — each with a link to the page that explains it in full. They are only tools. The aim is to see Christ in all the Scriptures (Luke 24:27) and, beholding his glory, to be changed into his likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The site's instruments
The Bible — the whole Bible in paragraph form, with every connection marked by a coloured, underlined phrase or a † cross. This is where you read. See What the Links Mean.
Threads — the same chapter verse by verse, each verse ending in a row of small links (IP · C · TOSK · TT · LT · ATN) to everything that verse connects to.
Interlinear — the chapter word by word in Hebrew or Greek, each word linked to its Lexicon entry.
LXX (Septuagint) — the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, made before Christ, which the New Testament writers often quote. Reading it lets you hear the Old Testament the way they heard it.
TOSK (Treasury of Scripture Knowledge) — a classic verse-by-verse cross-reference index. Each verse is broken into key words, and under each word is a chain of parallel passages. See the TOSK Index.
IP (Intertextuality Pair) — one connection between two passages: a later text that quotes, alludes to, or echoes an earlier text, shown side by side with an explanation of why it matters. See the Intertextuality Pairs.
OT to OT / NT to OT — the two main kinds of Intertextuality Pair: a later Old Testament author drawing on an earlier one (Isaiah on Genesis), or a New Testament author taking up the Old (Matthew on Isaiah).
TT (Trajectory Table) — one Old Testament thread (a person, an event, an institution, a theme) followed stage by stage until it arrives at Christ and the age to come. See the Trajectory Tables.
LT (Longitudinal Theme) — one great theme, such as covenant, temple, or shepherd, traced across the whole canon from Genesis to Revelation. See the Longitudinal Themes.
ATN (Anchor-Text Network) — the whole "career" of one significant Old Testament passage: every later text, in both Testaments, that takes it up. A Trajectory Table follows a subject; an ATN follows a text. See the Anchor-Text Networks.
Anchor text — the Old Testament passage an Anchor-Text Network is built around, such as Psalm 110 or Genesis 3:15. The ATN link appears only on the anchor verses themselves.
FT (Foundation Text) — a close study of one key passage behind a Trajectory Table: its Hebrew or Greek key words, its context, and the texts it connects to. You usually reach Foundation Texts from inside a Trajectory Table; they are also listed in the Foundation Texts Index.
C (Chiasm) — a mirror-pattern the author built into a passage: ideas given in order, then repeated in reverse, with the weight at the centre. See the Chiasms.
Lexicon — the dictionary of Hebrew and Greek words, arranged by Strong's number.
Strong's number — the standard numbering of every Hebrew (H) and Greek (G) word in the Bible, e.g. H3068 or G5547. It lets you find every place the same original word is used.
BSB (Berean Study Bible) — the English translation used across the site. The site keeps one fixed edition of it (not the newer, similarly named Berean Standard Bible), so every quotation and link lines up with the same wording.
Reading the marks
Quotation — a word-for-word, or nearly word-for-word, citation of an earlier passage. Shown in red with a solid underline.
Allusion — a clear, deliberate reference to an earlier passage without its exact wording. Shown in blue with a dashed underline.
Echo — a fainter resonance: a word or image that recalls an earlier passage without a clear, deliberate reference. Shown in green with a dotted underline.
† (cross) — on an Old Testament chapter, a coloured † marks a phrase the New Testament takes up. The cross uses the same colours: red quotation, blue allusion, green echo.
Superscripts (IP¹ IP² … TT¹ TT² …) — more than one connection of the same kind on a verse; each number is a different link.
Later text / Earlier text — the two cards on an Intertextuality Pair: the passage doing the quoting, alluding, or echoing, and the earlier passage it draws on.
Reference Type — on an Intertextuality Pair, how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo.
Significance — the short essay on an Intertextuality Pair that explains why the link matters and where it leads in Christ.
Found via — the source in which the connection was identified or confirmed, for example the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, a classic commentary, or an Anchor-Text Network.
CRITICAL — on a Trajectory Table, marks a load-bearing connection, one the whole thread depends on.
Stage colours — on a Trajectory Table, blue marks an Old Testament stage, green a promise or prophecy, gold a turn or contrast, and red New Testament fulfillment. (This is a separate key from the red, blue, and green of quotation, allusion, and echo.)
Wider web — the panel on a chapter that gathers all of its connections, grouped by kind.
Graph View — a map that draws a page's connections as a web of linked points; open it with the icon in the top bar.
Reader's Mode — hides the study links so you can read clean Scripture.
How a connection reaches Christ
Connection Method — the kind of road a text travels to Christ. The site uses Sidney Greidanus's seven ways. Many texts travel more than one road, and typology is never assumed: it must pass the five tests below. See Seven Ways to See Jesus.
- Redemptive-Historical Progression — the text is one step in the single story of God's saving work that leads to Christ. See Redemptive-Historical Progression.
- Promise-Fulfillment — God makes a spoken promise, and it is fulfilled in Christ. See Promise-Fulfillment.
- Typology — a real person, event, or institution that God designed to preview Christ, who fulfills and surpasses it. See Typology.
- Analogy — what God was and did for Israel, he is and does for his people now, through Christ. See Analogy.
- Longitudinal Themes — a theme that grows across the whole Bible and comes to its fullness in Christ. See Longitudinal Theme.
- New Testament References — the New Testament itself cites the Old Testament text and points it to Christ: the Bible's own answer key. See New Testament References.
- Contrast — the Old Testament reality points to Christ by falling short: what the old order could not do, Christ does. See Contrast.
Christological — having to do with Christ: who he is and what he has done. A Christological reading asks how a passage bears witness to him.
Type / antitype — the earlier person, event, or institution (the type) and the greater reality in Christ that it previews (the antitype).
The five tests of a type — a connection counts as typology only if it passes all five: analogical correspondence (they share essential features, not incidental details), historicity (both are real history), escalation (the antitype is greater), pointing-forwardness (God designed the type to point ahead, whether or not its first readers saw it), and retrospective interpretation (the link becomes fully clear once the fulfillment has come). See How We Identify a Type.
Forward-looking / backward-looking type — a label describing the earlier text itself. Forward-looking: the Old Testament passage, in its own words, already looks ahead ("a prophet like me," "a priest forever"). Backward-looking: the passage does not look ahead on its own, and its preview of Christ is recognized when the fulfillment comes. God designed both; both are real types.
Allegory — attaching meanings to a text's details that neither its words nor its history support, such as reading the scarlet cord in Joshua 2 as the blood of Christ. Typology rests on real history, essential likeness, and God's design; allegory does not.
Clowney's Square — Edmund Clowney's diagram for reading an Old Testament text toward Christ. Its four corners are the text in its own world, its meaning for its first hearers, its fulfillment in Christ, and its application to us. The sound path runs the edges: meaning first, then Christ, then application drawn from Christ. Only a true type earns the diagonal straight from the text to Christ. See Seven Ways to See Jesus.
Moralism — reading a passage only as an example to copy or avoid, with Christ left out. The seven ways, and the Four-Step Application, guard against it.
Four-Step Application — the close of every Trajectory Table: what you must do, why you can't, how Christ did it, and how through him you can. It keeps the thread ending in grace, not in a moral lesson.
Already / not yet — what Christ has already done at his first coming, and what still awaits his return. Many fulfillments come in both stages.
Consummation — the last stage of God's plan, when Christ returns and makes all things new (Revelation 21–22). Many Trajectory Tables end there.
OT / NT — the Old Testament and the New Testament.