The prophet like Moses (Dt 18:15–22): Some trajectories in the history of interpretation

Christoph W Stenschke

doi:10.4102/ve.v41i1.1962

Abstract

This article traces some of the trajectories of the Deuteronomic announcement of a ‘prophet like Moses’. After examining its meaning in the immediate context, the article first traces references to this figure in early Jewish sources. It then examines how Jesus is portrayed as the prophet of Deuteronomy 18 in the Gospels. What is meant when people ask whether Jesus could be the prophet? Would he himself identify with this figure through word and deed? What implications would such an identification have had for his contemporaries? Why does this designation only appear rarely outside of the Gospels? A further trajectory is the quotation of Deuteronomy 18:15,19 in Acts 3:22–23. What is meant by Peter’s identification of Jesus as the prophet like Moses? What does Peter link with the acceptance and rejection of this prophet? How has Luke altered the text of Deuteronomy in the application of this prediction to Jesus? The article closes with a summary and suggests implications for the understanding of early Christian rhetoric, of Israel’s response and of prophets in today’s church and society. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is placed within the discipline of biblical studies and Jewish studies (for the reception history in early Judaism). An in-depth study of the reception of the Deuteronomic prophet like Moses in Acts 3, where the prediction is explicitly quoted and declared to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, reveals how this reference functions for the Christology of Acts, its proclamation of the Gospel and its understanding of Israel. Those revering Moses must now listen to Jesus. To reject Jesus means to forfeit one’s membership in the people of God. This challenges studies which do not pay sufficient attention to this claim.

Highlights

One of the storm centres of biblical research is the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament
In the course of the reception history, Moses’ prediction of another prophet or other prophets through whom God would communicate with his people as he had done through Moses took several interesting turns
What was originally intended as an assurance that God would continue to speak to his people through special agents from among the people became in early Judaism a prediction of a particular eschatological prophetic figure

Summary

Introduction

When the religious leaders reject Jesus, they discredit themselves They forfeit their leadership role, and their very belonging to the people of God. By definition, the prophet and his followers surpass the religious establishment (Rowland 2013): The sense of the present communion with the divine, in which tradition and accepted channels of authority are relativized by the prophet’s conviction that his vision or word has an authority, which is at least as great as that of the authoritative texts from the past [one may add the authoritative institutions], typifies much of what is central to the New Testament. The first two establish him as a prototype of Jesus, while the third disposes of the charge that Stephen reviled Moses and the Torah (6:11, 13). (p. 188)

Summary and implications

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