Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Revelation 11:1-14, the measured temple and the two witnesses
John is told to measure God's temple and its worshipers but to leave out the outer court, given to the nations to trample for forty-two months. Two witnesses in sackcloth prophesy with the powers of Elijah and Moses, are killed by the beast from the Abyss and left unburied in the great city, then raised and taken up to heaven.
Revelation 11:1-14, in every translation this tool compares.
John is told to measure God's temple and count its worshipers, while the outer court is left to the nations for a set time. Two witnesses, clothed for mourning and armed with powers like those of Moses and Elijah, preach until a beast from the Abyss kills them and their bodies are left exposed in the city where Jesus died, to the world's delight. After a short while God brings them back to life and takes them up to heaven, and a great earthquake shakes the city into giving God glory. What temple is meant, who the two witnesses are, and which city is the great city are all debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/apocalypses\/","n":"Apocalypses, visions and numbers that mean something","s":"Jewish books of visions, usually written in the name of a hero from long ago, in which a heavenly guide shows a seer what heaven sees in the present trouble and how God will end it. They spoke in pictures and in numbers that carried meaning, and Revelation is the one that calls itself an apocalypse.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/witnesses-and-advocates\/","n":"Witnesses and advocates in court","s":"Jewish law convicted no one on a single witness: it demanded two or three, examined them closely and gave little weight to the word of women. Courts also had accusers and advocates, and Jewish pictures of God's heavenly court gave those roles to Satan and to defenders of Israel.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/elijah-expected\/","n":"Elijah expected","s":"Malachi promised Elijah would come back before the great day of the Lord. By Jesus' time many were waiting for him, and the Gospels keep raising his name.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/burial-and-mourning\/","n":"Burial and mourning","s":"Mourners came at once, the dead were buried the same day, wrapped in linen in rock tombs, and family carried the duty of burial. Pagan mourning, with little hope beyond a shadowy underworld, could be bleak.","r":""}
Measuring marked a building for praise or preservation (Ezekiel 40-42; Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes); Heiser, with Aune, says protection. Gentiles were kept to the outer court by pillars warning "no foreigner should go within that sanctuary" (Josephus, War 5.5.2), and one found in 1871 survives (Price and House). The temple is read as a rebuilt one (the ESV Study Bible's dispensationalists), God's persecuted people (Beale), the church (Wright), the heavenly temple (Keener). Early-date readers see Jerusalem's temple before its fall (the ESV and CSB Study Bibles); the Zondervan dictionary calls that obvious yet prefers Domitian; Carson, Moo and Morris grant that the argument "is not without force" but allow a rebuilt or metaphorical temple; Heiser sets out both cases, notes each camp turns literal or symbolic to suit its date, and leaves it open. Daniel's forty-two months may describe the kind of time, not its length (the cultural backgrounds article Time in Revelation). The witnesses are Enoch and Elijah (Hippolytus), a new Moses and Elijah or the church (Keener), the church's witness (Wright; Beale), or, for Heiser, after Zechariah 4, God's redeemed people. The great city is Jerusalem (Keener; the dictionary), Rome or the world (the cultural backgrounds notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Revelation 11:1-13, and on 11:1, 11:2, 11:3, 11:4 and 11:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 11:1, 11:2, 11:3-6 and 11:8, and article Time in Revelation
- ESV Study Bible, Introduction to Revelation (Date), and study note on Revelation 11:1-2
- CSB Study Bible, Introduction to Revelation, Circumstances of Writing, and note on Revelation 11:1-2
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 11:1-14
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on Revelation 11:1-2, section The Metaphors in 11:1-2, and on 11:3-6
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 5.5.2, trans. William Whiston
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Acts 21:28-29, The Soreg Inscription
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, chapter on Revelation, Date (The existence of the Jerusalem temple)
- Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Revelation, Book of the (II. Date and place), Egypt and Jerusalem
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 11: The Two Witnesses and the Seventh Trumpet, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
