The next verse in Malachi is equally important:
“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
While this isn’t the only reason, it is a significant reason members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do geneology.
I *think *you are commenting on this article.
Which is darned impressive; for, talking of prophets, it manages to present itself with a dateline of 15th August 2006!
Man, man, your time is sand…
That’s the date that it will be up on the front page. Staff reports run on Tuesdays. If you are on the mailing list, you get a preview of the next week’s reports.
There will be a few minor edits before it formally appears on Tuesday.
In writing such a report, rdchdwck, it’s hard to know where to start and where to stop. I tried to stick to Elijah, so only purpose of the Malachai quote was top show that the association of Elijah as herald of the Messianic Era is an ancient tradition indeed. Iwasn’t trying to say that one line was “more important” than another; I was just quoting the one line that emphasized my point.
Thanks for the interesting addition.
Re:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/melijah.html
“He is sometimes classified as a pre-classical prophet: he doesn’t have his own book, and he doesn’t prophesize about the future.”
Thanks for the discussion about Elijah, but could I point out two common errors in this line from your response? Firstly, Biblical prophecy is not the same thing as fortune-telling or the prediction of future events. This is one of the least interesting things about prophecy, unless of course one literally believes the words of Scripture to be historically accurate. A better definition is one who speaks on God’s behalf. Admittedly, this doesn’t refute your point on why Elijah is considered a pre-classical prophet. I only wanted to point this out.
Secondly, the correct verb is “prophesy”, not “prophesize”, a common mistake my students used to make all the time.
Thanks for letting me comment. I enjoy reading Straight Dope each week.
Also from the article:
It’s sometimes amusing to try to get a Christian theologian to explain how this does not constitute reincarnation, since John the Baptist was born like any normal human, not brought down bodily directly from Heaven (in fact, the first we “meet” J the B in the Gospels, he’s still in his mother’s womb).
Is there any notion in the Jewish tradition that the “voice in the wilderness” referred to in Isaiah 40 is Elijah? John the Baptist explicitly identifies himself as that one, which may or may not be significant.
(? I thought I had posted earlier this morning, but it ain’t here…)
Anyhow, thanks for the comments, Clover66. Fixing “prophesize” is one of the minor edits that are supposed to be done before Tuesday’s formal appearance.
Elijah’s appearance in the New Testament is up on Mount Tabor, as himself – when he, along with Moses, appear to chat with the transfigured Jesus (thus fulfilling the aforementioned messianic prophecy).
You can read about all the other stuff that happened here: Matthew 17:1-6, Mark 9:1-8, and Luke 9:28-36. There are also allusions to this in: 2 Peter 1:16-18, and John 1:14.
This event is known to Christians as the Transfiguration (or in Greek, Metamorphothe). Catholics just celebrated its feastday last week. Unfortunately, I was unable to persuade my local fellow Catholics that we should revive the old custom of spraying each other with water in honor of the day… 
While that would seem to make more sense than casting John in the role of Elijah, this is the first time I’ve ever heard the appearance of Elijah at the Transfiguration argued as the fulfilment of the prophecy that he would herald the coming of the Messiah. In my eight years of formal Catholic schooling and 29 years of Catholic upbringing, the explanation (when one is given at all) has always been that it was John the Baptist, in some sense that nobody can seem to explain. Did you come to this conclusion yourself, or learn it from elsewhere?
OK, very few C’tians hold to John da Baptist as the LITERAL return of Elijah but most hold that he came “in the spirit & power of Elijah” (that God’s Spirit endowed JtB with Elijah-like authority). As to John’s denial that he was E.- either
he was denying that he was LITERALLY E, while not denying his Elijah-like mission; or John was unaware of his E-mission/identity. However, when asked,
Jesus affirmed that John somehow fulfilled the Elijah prophecy. W/o looking up the passage, JC actually said something like “If you can accept it, JtB was E who is to come”, perhaps meaning “If you acknowledge me as Messiah, you’ll see JtB as E.”
Btw, I at one time did hold that JtB was indeed E reincarnated (but JtB was unaware when asked)- I don’t believe that now but I don’t totally disbelieve it.
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
OK, very few C’tians hold to John da Baptist as the LITERAL return of Elijah but most hold that he came **“in the spirit & power of Elijah” ** (that God’s Spirit endowed JtB with Elijah-like authority).QUOTE]
(bolding mine)
Wow. That sounds soooo Mormon.
Sincerely,
OneCentStamp
ex-Mormon