Prophecy in Philo and the Fourth Gospel

Abstract

Wayne Meeks argues that Philo’s presentation of Moses as king, prophet, and priest in De vita Mosis may reflect the traditions lying behind the Fourth Gospel’s depiction of Jesus as both prophet and king. This article proposes more specific parallels between the prophetic roles in De vita Mosis and the Gospel. First, the water miracle at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11) has substantial similarities to Philo’s rewriting of Moses’s water miracles in the wilderness (Mos. 1.181–213) that are not shared by the LXX (Exod 15, 17). Second, both the Gospel and Philo assign to the prophetic office a close proximity to the divine. Third, in both the Gospel and Philo, the prophet is a heavenly revealer who returns to the Father. Philo thus helps explain Jesus’s prophetic role in the Fourth Gospel, not simply regarding the merging of prophet with king, but also regarding the particular form that prophecy takes.