July 14: The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11

Two 17th-century London men, John Bull and Richard Farnham, claimed to be the "witnesses" of the book of Revelation. After creating a public furor and spending time in Newgate Prison for heresy, Farnham died of plague in early 1642. His wife - a woman also bigamously attached to a sailor - claimed she had seen Farnham rise from the dead a few days afterward. (Presumably, Farnham quickly went back to being dead.) Bull would die ten days after that himself from unrelated causes.

Now, the "two witnesses" Bull and Farnham referred to are from Revelation 11. In that chapter, three and a half years of the Tribulation are described, in which the Beast 666 will be in power over the nations of Earth. Virtually the only opposition to the Beast will be a pair of "witnesses" - often identified by later writers as Elijah and Enoch returned to Earth - who will testify against the Beast, then be killed by him, then rise from death into heaven. (That all of this is supposed to happen in Jerusalem did not seem to trouble Bull and Farnham, or the many others in history who have claimed to be the two witnesses.)