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From the first centuries of its existence, the Church has interpreted the historical events recounted in the Old Testament as being "types" or "figures" of the events of the New Testament and of the sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ. Jean Cardinal Danielou, one of the foremost Catholic scholars of the twentieth century, and a theologian especially concerned with the relationship between history and the Christian revelation, examines in this book the typological interpretation of the Fathers of the Church and their contemporaries during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Among examples he discusses are the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites as a type of baptism, Rahab as a type of the Church, and the fall of Jericho as a figure of the end of the world. The complex interpretations of Adam, the flood, and the sacrifice and marriage of Isaac are also described in full and commented on. The work is divided into five books entitled "Adam in Paradise," "Noah and the Flood," "The Sacrifice of Isaac," "Moses and the Exodus," and "The Cycle of Joshua". Each book is divided into chapters discussing the various types and the interpretations of Irenaeus, Clement, Gregory of Nyssa and their contemporaries, including Philo. Published by Ex Fontibus Company.

All of our attempts to find the historical backgrounds to texts have led us to believe that we have "figured out" the Bible. Steering a course between modernity's obsession with historical readings and fundamentalism's compulsion for ahistorical readings, Christopher Seitz recovers a figural/typological approach to both the Old and New Testament that shapes a theological understanding of Scripture. Figured Out examines the loss of figural assumptions and models another way forward.

Catholic scholar Jean Danielou considers the centrality of prayer for the Christian layperson, developing the insight that the active, missionary dimension of the Christian life is in fact the "self-unfolding" of contemplation.