John prophesies the survival of Jerusalem's temple amid the Judean-Roman War, and predicts the martyrdom of a prophet like Elijah to the eschatological tyrant. This tract probably underwent multiple editorial passes. The first paragraph of John’s tract seems to have originated separately. The temple is supposed to be measured, but God abruptly turns John’s attention to the two witnesses, abandoning the topic of Jerusalem’s suffering. Parallel versions are found in the Revelation of Elijah and the Divine Institutes of Lactantius. While the Revelation of Elijah is recognized as originating as a Judean apocalyptic text, it appears to have undergone extensive redaction by a Christian editor who was dependent on the Revelation of John. How much of it existed before this redaction is impossible to determine. The parallel in Lactantius incorporates elements from older Christian texts, but the differences from the Revelation of John are pronounced enough—particularly that his version contains just one prophet—that Lactantius appears to have received his equivalent of this tract independently. There is a category of scribal errors called ‘editorial fatigue’. This is when an author incorporates a source into a new document, and the author decides to correct or otherwise change some element of their source. As the author continues on, they may overlook occasions where these changes need to be made, or they simply forget as their attention is drawn elsewhere. (An example can be seen in the synoptic gospels. Mark 6 refers to Herod Antipas incorrectly as a ‘king’. Where Matthew 14 copies from Mark, it initially changes ‘king’ to the correct title ‘tetrarch’, but soon fails to continue this correction, falling back to Mark’s title of ‘king’.) The Revelation of John says of the two witnesses that ‘fire will come from their mouth’, which appears to be such an example of this sort of error. In altering the story of a single prophet to instead have ‘two witnesses’, John made numerous changes to accommodate for there being more than one character, but failed to correct the detail of a singular mouth. It would appear that John’s tract began from a core story about a prophet killed by the eschatological tyrant, which John expanded with the details of the ‘great city’. He later made a variety of changes to harmonize with Tracts 4, 5, and possibly 9, probably during the second stage of composition, when he inserted the tracts into the apocalypse. Based on these clues, the oldest detectable form of Tract 3: lacked the first paragraph (about the temple); contained just one prophet; lacked the influences from Zechariah and Daniel; and, lacked any references to any cities. These details—where Tract 3 most differs from the parallel in Lactantius—are the points where John’s text has obvious editorial seams and internal narrative difficulties.

And a measuring rod like a staff was given to me, saying, ‘Rise and measure God’s temple and the altar and the worshipers in it, but exclude the courtyard outside the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty two months.’

‘And I will give my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.’

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing in front of the earth’s Lord. And if anyone desires to injure them, fire will come from their mouth and devour their enemies. And if anyone desires to injure them, he must be killed this way. These have the authority to shut the sky so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophecy. And they have authority over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague whenever they desire.

And when they have completed their witness, the wild animal rising from the abyss will make war with them, and will conquer them and kill them. And their body will be on the street of the great city that is pneumatically called Sodom and Egypt (where their Lord was also crucified). And the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will look at their bodies for three and a half days, and they will not allow their bodies to be placed in a tomb. And those dwelling on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate and send gifts to each other, because these two prophets tortured the ones who dwell on the earth.

And after the three and a half days, a pneuma of life from God went into them, and they stood on their feet. And a terrible fear fell on those looking at them. And they heard a loud voice from the sky, saying to them, ‘Ascend here.’ And they ascended to the sky in a cloud, and their enemies looked at them. And in that hour there was a massive earthquake and a tenth of the city fell, and the names of seven thousand men were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the god of the sky.