Elijah The ninth-century BCE prophet active during the reign of King Ahab and Ahaziah as told in the book of Kings (1 Kings 17–19; 21; 2 Kings 1–2). In Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) the prophet presents to the people his famous either/or: ‘How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; and if Baal, follow him!’ Elijah, even in the Bible, is a mysterious figure, whose sudden appearance is announced without preamble and without the name of his father or any other details of his early life: ‘Elijah the Tishbite, an inhabitant of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord lives, the God of Israel whom I serve, there will be no dew or rain except at my bidding”’ (1 Kings 17: 1). In the book of Malachi (3: 24), Elijah is the figure who will reappear on the great judgement day of the future; on the basis of this, Elijah, who did not die but was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2), becomes, in later Jewish thought, the herald of the Messiah.
In the Talmudic period, it was believed that Elijah frequently returns to earth to teach and converse with certain Rabbis of special merit. Two later Midrashim, The Great Teaching of Elijah and The Lesser Teaching of Elijah, purport to be the record of these discourses of Elijah and the Talmudic Rabbis.
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