"And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. They are 'the two olive trees' and the two lampstands, and 'they stand before the Lord of the earth.' If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up here.' And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.
At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.” (Revelation 11:3-14 NIV)
In the interlude between the 6th and 7th trumpets in Revelation chapter 11, two prominent and potent witnesses are appointed.
Why does the action in this account mix past, present and future tenses? Why are there two witnesses and who are they?
"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen genera-
tions; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."
Even if this statement matched no facts of veridical history, it marks a specific cycle of fourteen generations, and once more the Bible is found to hold to "pagan" usages. The Magi, the Zoroastrians, Chaldeans, Jews, Gnostics, Essenes and others kept the reckonings of the great religious cycles that were astronomical from the first. There were the Phoenix Cycle of 500 years and the great Cycle of Neros of 600; also the Egyptian Sothiac Cycle of 1461 years.
The 1260 "days" of Revelation became the basis of another measurement.
Horus, Iusa, Iu-em-hetep and the Jesus of the "Infancy" Gospels all wrought miracles of resurrection in their childhood. At
three years of age Iusa performed the wonder of making a dead
fish (Pisces, the house of the birth of Christs) come to life (
Latin Gospel of Thomas, Bk. 3, Ch. I). At five years of age he takes clay and molds twelve sparrows, which he commanded to fly, and not in vain. Here is a beautiful little allegory of bringing the dead divinity to life in twelve aspects of evolving intelligence. Papias emphatically declares that the Gospels originated in the
Logia, or Sayings of Mu, or Ma.
Mythoi were also
Ma-ti (
-ti being an Egyptian plural ending). Mati, the goddess of the Hall of the Two Truths or the equipoise of truth, would be the deity who uttered the true sayings or
Logia. Research discloses that all the salient features of the life and character of Jesus were anticipated in the person of Horus, including the virgin motherhood, the divine sonship, the miracles, the self-immolation, the compassion, the discourses, the resurrection and a host of minor particulars. Egypt was the cradle of the Jesus figure, and in that cradle lay Iusa and Iu-em-hetep, Khunsu and Horus, Amsu, Khepr and Aten, all resurrected sons of dead fathers. In a sense both humorously and ironically unsuspected, the proclamation of the God of Christendom has been true: "Out of Egypt have I called my son." God sent his sons into this "Egypt" of the flesh-pots to gain what such an experience alone could yield; but in the turn of the cycle he called them home to him.
