Chapter II

It Is They that Bear Witness to Me

(John 5:39)

“You search the scriptures”, says Jesus to the religious leaders in Jerusalem who have found fault with him for claiming to exercise the divinely-delegated functions of raising the dead and pronouncing judgment. “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39 f.).

In the immediate context, Jesus invokes a wide variety of witnesses to the authenticity of his claims: the testimony of John (the Baptist), the testimony of the Father, the testimony of his own works, the testimony of scripture. The testimony of scripture involves pre-eminently the testimony of Moses. “If you believed Moses”, Jesus goes on to say, “you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46 f.). In speaking thus Jesus confirms the testimony of Philip to Nathanael that “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).

Can we ascertain from the wider context of the Fourth Gospel something about the specific terms in which the scriptures, and Moses in particular, bore witness to the coming Christ? I believe we can, and would direct attention primarily to the passage about the coming prophet in Deuteronomy 18.

1. The prophet like Moses

Looking forward to the Israelites’ settlement in the promised land, Moses tells them that when they wish to ascertain the will of God, they must not have recourse to necromancy, soothsaying, or divination such as the Canaanites practiced. When God wished to reveal his will to them, he would do so through a prophet, as he did through Moses. “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed” (Deut. 18:15). According to Moses in the plains of Moab, Yahweh had announced that he would do this thing nearly forty years before, “at Horeb, on the day of the assembly” (Deut. 18:16). In the Masoretic text of the Pentateuch there is no word of this earlier announcement, but the Samaritan edition, true to its propensity for filling in parallels, inserts it between verses 21 and 22 of Exodus 20.36

It might be supposed that the announcement was fulfilled every time a prophet was sent to communicate God’s will to the people. However, even in Deuteronomy itself, and in the historical corpus which it introduces, it is clearly indicated that not every prophet was a prophet like Moses. In the short obituary notice of Moses with which Deuteronomy ends, it is said that “there has not risen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). Earlier in the Pentateuchal narrative a distinction is made by Yahweh between an ordinary prophet, to whom he would make himself known in a vision, or “speak with him in a dream”, and “my servant Moses”. “With him”, says God, “I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech, and he beholds the form of theLord” (Num. 12:6-8). It was long before a prophet of this caliber arose again in Israel. How extensive a perspective is implied in the language of Deut. 34:10, “there has not arisen a prophetsince . . . like Moses”, may be disputed; it is plain, however, that while Joshua succeeded to Moses’ leadership, he did not succeed to his prophetic office.

In the course of pre-exilic history, only two prophets appear who are comparable with Moses. These are Samuel and Elijah. To Samuel, acknowledged by all Israel as “a prophet of theLord”, “theLord revealed himself . . . at Shiloh by the word of the