Who are the two witnesses of Revelation 11? They shoot fire from their mouths, they stop rain from falling, they turn water into blood, they even strike the earth with plagues (Rev. 11:5-6). But despite their great powers, the two witnesses are eventually killed by a horrible, beastly enemy, and lie dead and unburied for three and a half days (Rev. 11:7-9). Yet after the three and a half days, they raise from the dead and ascend into heaven (Rev. 11:11-12). This is gripping reading, but what does it mean? Who are the two witnesses?
The description of the two witnesses is so symbolically rich, it’s difficult to interpret. This has led to many different interpretations throughout Church history. The earliest that we know of is that they represent two literal individuals.1 This dates back to some of the most well-known early Christian writers, including Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Augustine.2 But what two individuals are they? Enoch and Elijah were the first to be proposed. Others mentioned Moses and Elijah. Still others suggested Elijah and Jeremiah, or Peter and Paul among others.
Another early interpretation is that they represent two groups of people rather than two individuals. They are, in other words, an example of corporate identity or corporate personality. Many other examples can be seen in the Bible: the man Israel is identified with Israel the people, the Messiah Jesus is identified with the Body of Messiah. But if so, what group or groups do they represent?
The Church itself was an early proposal (Tyconius3), as was a remnant of the Church in the final generation. Other suggestions include Israel and the Church, Jews and Gentiles (Oecumenius), and the two branches of the church as originally understood: Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus (Primasius of Hadrumetum4). This identification with the Church or with some part of the Church grew in popularity among Protestants after the Reformation.
Other, even more symbolic interpretations identified the two witnesses with the Word and the Spirit, the Old and New Testaments, the Law and the Gospel, and the Law and the Prophets, among others.5
This incredible diversity shows the difficulty Christians have had in interpreting not only this one chapter of Revelation, but the entire book. No one method of interpretation has been able to win over a majority in the Church. Most have resorted to ad hoc interpretations of individual images or sections. But occasionally, interpreters have drawn on similar images elsewhere in the Bible, using these to shed light on the meaning of the passage. This has the advantage of relying on the authority of the Bible, rather than depending on private interpretation (2 Pet. 1:20). But no one that we know of used this method consistently throughout the Book of Revelation. What if we relied solely on the Bible to help us interpret the images of Revelation? This is what I call the Parallel Method: letting the Bible interpret the Bible. This is the method used in our book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John.
How does it work? Let’s use Revelation 11 as a case study to test this method. The chapter begins with an instruction to measure the “sanctuary of God and the altar [of sacrifice] and those who are worshipping in it” (Rev. 11:1). Since the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins by the time John was writing, this couldn’t refer to that physical sanctuary.6 So what sanctuary is it? Let’s use the Bible to find the answer: As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”7 The same idea is repeated in 1 Pet. 2:5: “And you yourselves, as living stones, are being built up, a spiritual House [i.e. a Temple] into a holy priesthood.” These two verses fulfill the requirement of the Parallel Method: we must have at least two witnesses from other parts of the Bible. As the Bible teaches: “By the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter will be established” (2 Cor. 13:1, also Deut. 19:15, Matt. 18:16, 1 Tim. 5:19, Heb. 10:28). This may sound random at first. But there is almost always only one set of parallels for each image in Revelation. By applying these parallels, we learn that the “sanctuary” in Revelation 11 is the Church.
The next verse mentions a “court which is outside of the sanctuary” (Rev. 11:2). In the physical Temple in Jerusalem, the court outside the court of the sanctuary was the court of Israel. John is told, literally in Greek, to “throw out” this outer court. The reason for this is that “the nations [i.e. the Gentiles]...will trample the holy city for forty-two months.” Does this sound like anything else in the Bible? In Luke 21:23-24, Jesus prophesied: “There will be great distress in the land [of Israel] and wrath to this people [Israel], and they will...be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the times of the nations are fulfilled.” Another parallel can be found in Dan. 8:13: “How long will...the sanctuary and the host be a place of trampling?” Both prophesy the destruction of Jerusalem. From this we learn that Revelation 11:2 is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem. This took place exactly as Jesus prophesied forty years later, in AD 70. It even assigns a period of time to this trampling: forty-two months. In an idealistic calendar of 30 days in a month, this is a total of 1,260 days.
Historically, Jerusalem was ruled (or “trampled”) by Gentile nations from the time of its destruction in AD 70 until the restoration of the State of Israel in 1948. This tells us that whatever the exact meaning of the 42 months may be, it refers to a period of time that lasted more than 1,000 years.8
The next verse is where we’re introduced to the “two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3). Their ministry is given the same amount of time as the trampling of Jerusalem: 1,260 days. But since this indicates a long period of time, more than 1,000 years, how could they be two individual human beings? They must instead represent a group of people. But what group of people are they? They’re called witnesses (martusin in Greek), a word often used of the disciples of Jesus. As Jesus himself said, “You will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, also Luke 24:48 etc.). Since many of the witnesses of Jesus have been killed for their testimony, the Greek word used for witness here (martus) soon came to mean a martyr: someone who died for Jesus. The “sackcloth” they’re wearing is also a sign of the difficult life they lead, a reminder of the challenges Christians have had in many parts of the world from the time of Jesus right up until today.
More evidence comes in the next verse. Here the witnesses are identified as “two olive trees” and “two lampstands.” Earlier in Revelation, lampstands are used to represent seven churches located in what is today western Turkey (Rev. 1:4,11,20). But why are there only two lampstands here?
The image of two olive trees appears in Zechariah 4 in association with a single lampstand (Zech. 4:2-6). The connection was clear in Bible days. Olive trees were the source of the oil (olive oil) used to keep lamps lit. This single lampstand was a symbol of Israel, as the rabbis also interpret it (Song of Songs Rab. 4:17, etc.). Why then does Revelation have two lampstands?
Two olive trees are mentioned by Paul in Romans 11. We often think of this passage as talking about a single tree. But in Greek, Paul mentions two different trees: a wild olive tree and a cultivated olive tree. “For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree (agrielaios) and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree...” (Rom. 11:24). Grafting doesn’t change the identity of a grafted branch. It still produces fruit unique to its own DNA. This is why Paul continues to identify the branches of the wild olive with the tree itself: “but you, being a wild olive tree (agrielaios)” (Rom. 11:17). But those branches now receive sustenance from the tree into which they've been grafted.
The wild olive tree in Romans 11 refers to Gentile believers in Jesus. The cultivated olive tree refers to Jewish believers in Jesus. Here we have a Biblical basis for understanding the two trees of Revelation 11.
These two trees are also described as two lampstands. This implies that they are divisions of the Church, as with the lampstands in Revelation 1. And this is how the Church was originally understood: to be made up of Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus. These two groups provide two distinct witnesses to the truth about Jesus.
This understanding of the Church can be seen in the New Testament, where it distinguishes between believers “from the circumcision” (Col. 4:11), that is Jewish believers in Jesus, and believers from “the uncircumcision” (Rom. 3:30, 4:9-12, 15:8-9, Gal. 2:7-12, Eph. 2:11), that is Gentile believers in Jesus.
Evidence of this early self-understanding can also be found in Christian art. An early Christian symbol from the Roman catacombs shows two fish caught on a cross-shaped anchor. One has scales and fins—it’s permitted according to the Jewish food laws (Lev. 11:9-12). The other lacks scales and fins, which means it’s not permitted for Jews to eat. What does it represent? The two major divisions of the Church as they were understood at the time: Jewish believers in Jesus and Gentile believers in Jesus, both “caught” on a symbol of the cross of Jesus.9
This isn’t the only example of this self-understanding in the Church. A fifth century mosaic from the Church of Sta. Sabina in Rome has images of two women, one on each side of a large inscription. One is labeled, the “Church from the Circumcision” (Eclesia ex Circumcisione), and the other, the “Church from the Gentiles” (Eclesia ex Gentibus). This is evidence that this two-fold nature of the Church was still understood in the 5th century.
These same two women can be seen in a 4th century mosaic at the Church of Saint Pudentiana in Rome. Here they are crowning Paul for his mission to the Gentiles and Peter for his mission to the Jewish people. And these are not the only examples.
But there’s one more piece of evidence that strongly supports the idea that the two witnesses represent two groups of people. In two different places, their dead bodies are referred to as a single body. This is in Revelation 11:8 and again in Revelation 11:9. The original language is very clear: “And their corpse [singular] is in the wide street of the great city.... And they out of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations see their corpse [singular] three and a half days...” Most translators don’t know what to do with this, so they change it to a plural (“corpses”). But the singular form is not an error. There are no textual variants here with a different text in the original language.
So how can two individual people share a single corpse? They can’t. This is instead a prophecy of a terrible end-times persecution of the whole Church.10 It will be an intensification of the persecution we see taking place around the world right now, in our own lifetimes.
Where do these witnesses get their supernatural abilities, like the fire that comes out of their “mouth” (mouth is also singular in Greek, Rev. 11:5)? If we apply the Parallel Method, we’re led to Jeremiah 5:14: “I am making my words in your mouth fire and this people pieces of wood, and it will consume them” (also Jer. 23:29, Psalm 104:4, and John 12:48). It refers to the power of the gospel in the mouths of believers: a gospel that some will receive to eternal blessing, but others will reject, bringing eternal fire.
What about their ability to stop the rain of heaven? James tells us, “Elijah was a man with the same nature as ours, and in prayer he prayed that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months” (James 5:17). James is talking to believers: “The active prayer of a righteous person can do much” (James 5:16).
What about their ability to turn water into blood? This was done by another man with a nature like ours: Moses. “Stretch your hand over the water of Egypt...and they will become blood” (Exo. 7:19). Both Moses and Elijah were closely connected with Jewish expectations of the coming of the Messiah. Here, Revelation teaches that we, the Church, share their prophetic anointing. This is similar to what Paul teaches when he describes the Church as the Body of Messiah:
That you may know...what is the surpassing greatness of his power in us who believe, a power that matches the action of the intensity of his might, which he made active in the Messiah when he raised him from the dead and seated him on his right in the heavenlies. (Eph. 1:18-20)
This hardly exhausts the description of the two witnesses in Revelation 11. But it’s a good start to understanding the Parallel Method—and to understanding who the two witnesses really are.
NOTES
1 Ian R. Brown, A Historical Perspective on the Two Witnesses of Rev 11:1-13, 2024, 4-5, https://www.academia.edu/118758289/A_Historical_Perspective_on_the_Two_Witnesses_of_Rev_11_1_13
2 Yehnis Elantony, The Two Witnesses of Revelation, 3,5, https://www.academia.edu/95383790/The_Two_Witnesses_of_Revelation
3 Tyconius understood the two witnesses to represent the testimony of the Church from the time of Jesus until a final persecution and the resurrection of the dead. Brown, 17-18. He also saw the visions of Revelation as recapitulatory, rather than being arranged in a linear chronological order.
4 Though strictly speaking, Primasius identified these two branches of the church with the two lampstands that are identified with the two witnesses in Revelation 11:4.
5 Though these proved less popular than identifying them with individuals or groups of people. Brown, 32.
6 John wrote in about AD 95, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70.
7 The “you”s used here are plural, indicating that the believing community as a whole makes up the one true Temple of God.
8 In Daniel’s prophecy of 70 weeks each day refers to a year (Daniel 9). A similar symbolic meaning is likely here, too.
9 Many other depictions of two fish and a cross-shaped anchor have been found, though most don’t make such a clear distinction between the fish. Nevertheless, the same idea may have been in mind.
10 It’s also an allusion to the strange prophecy in Isa. 26:19 which says in Hebrew: “Your dead will live, my corpse [singular], they will rise...”
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