Thursday, December 30, 2021

Richard Bauckham on the Similarities between Moses and Elijah and the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11

  

This does not mean that the two witnesses are Elijah and Moses. The contrary is indicated by the fact that the powers of each of the Old Testament prophets are attributed to both of the two witnesses, not divided between them (11:5-6). . . . John’s choice of Moses and Elijah as the Old Testament models for his two witnesses is readily intelligible in terms of his own work, whatever apocalyptic traditions about eschatological prophets he may or may not have known. Both were great prophets (often regarded as the greatest of the prophets) who confronted pagan rulers and pagan religion. In Moses’ care, he confronted Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s magicians, who were able to imitate some of his miracles, and later Balaka bd Balaam 9cf. 2:14). (It may be significant that the plague which is specified in 11:6 was one of the two plagues of Egypt which Pharaoh’s magicians were able to imitate [the miracles of the two witnesses in 11:5-6 are implicitly imitated by the false prophet’s miracle in 13:3].) In Elijah’s case, he confronted Jezebel (cf. 2:20) and the prophets of Baal. Moses’ contest with Pharaoh and his magicians and Elijah’s with Jezebel and the prophets of Baal were the two great Old Testament contests between the prophets of Yahweh and pagan power and religion, in which Yahweh’s power and authority were vindicated against the claims of pagan gods and rulers. The same is to be true of the great eschatological contest between the two witnesses and the beast, though the vindication will take a different form and have greater consequences. The allusions to Moses have the further importance of integrating the story into the theme of the new Exodus which runs through Revelation. The great city is called Egypt, after the nation which oppressed the Israelites at the time of the Exodus and suffered divine judgment, as it is also called Sodom, after the city renowned for its evil from which righteous Lot escaped when it was judged (11:8). Its fate, however, is to be notably different from that of either Egypt or Sodom (11:13). This is one of the deliberate twists in the story where it takes a different turn from its Old Testament precedents.

 

The power of the two witnesses to call down fire to consume their enemies (11:5) indicates their immunity from attack for as long as—but no longer than—they need to complete their testimony (11:7). (Richard Bauckham, “The Conversion of the Nations,” in The Climax of Prophecy: Studies in the Book of Revelation [London: T&T Clark, 1993], 275-77)