. . . it is significant that in Rev.
12 it is the angel Michael who defeats the seven-headed and ten-horned dragon,
the ten horns clearly deriving from the fourth beast of Dan. 7. Since in Dan. 7
it is implicitly the one like a son of man who overcomes the fourth beast, and
since it is very probable, as various scholars have argued, that a Jewish
source underlies Rev. 12 - it is striking, for example, that it is Michael and
not Christ who is said to defeat the dragon - we appear to have here evidence
of an underlying Jewish tradition which equated the one like a son of man with
Michael. It is possible that further evidence for the equation of the one like
a son of man with the angel Michael in sources underlying the Apocalypse is
provided by Rev. 10;1ff. and 14:14. In the former passage, we have a description
of what is clearly the most important of the seven archangels who appear in
Rev. 8:2ff, and ought therefore to be the angel Michael, yet the description of
him 'wrapped in a cloud . . . his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars
of fire' (Rev. 10:1) recalls the 'one like a son of man . . . his feet were
like Burned bronze . . . and his face was like the sun shining in full
strength' (rev. 1;13-16), and who customarily comes with the clouds of heaven
(cf. Rev. 14:14). This suggests an equation of the angel Michael with the one
like a son of man, but since the one like a son of man in Rev. is Christ, it
may be argued that the equation pertains to a source underlying the book.
Similarly, in Rev. 14;14f. the one like a son of man is alluded to in terms
which suggest he is simply another angel (cf. vv. 17-18), and since six other
angels appear, the addition of the one like a son of man would make seven, the
number of the archangels. Since, however, in the book as it stands, the one
like a son of man must be Christ (cf. Rev. 1:13), it is arguable that, as in
Rev. 10:1ff., we have here further attestation of the archaeological
identification of the one like a son of man with the angel Michael in a source
underlying the work. (John Day, God's Conflict With the Dragon and the Sea:
Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985], 172-73)
