volume 12, issue 2, 2020, pages 227-251

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64438/sbsDFMF7334
Published online: 2020-12-01
Published in print: 2020-12-30

Abstract: Elijah is mentioned twice in John’s Gospel (John 1:21a and 1:25), and only in the context of the first day of the narrative (1:19-28). He is found exclusively in company with two other figures: “the Christ” and “the prophet”. The article aims to demonstrate that on the lips of John the Baptist, this trio is meant to provide a first, although indirect, description of Israel’s Studia Biblica Slovaca Maurizio Marcheselli 251 messiah. However, in the johannine view, Jesus’ portrait as the Christ, the Elijah redivivus, and the prophet like Moses – although not wrong – is insufficient. Carefully observing how the fourth evangelist structures John the Baptist’s testimony to the messiah of Israel in 1:1923, this contribution shows that the identification of Jesus with Elijah – but also with the Christ and the prophet – cries out to be clarified and surpassed by the use of the title kyrios (1:23), a term the Greek Bible of Israel uses to translate the divine tetragrammaton.