In New Testament times, we find that the Jews were still expecting the fulfillment of the prophecy of One like Moses, refer John 1:19-25.

When Jesus claimed to be the Messiah of the Jews, the Jews began to esquire as to where was Elias? The Jews had a parallel prophecy that before the coming of the Messiah, Elias must come first in his second coming. Jesus confirms this Jewish belief:

“Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not,.. then the Disciples understood that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist.” (Mathew 17:11-13).

We Muslims are really interested in the last questions posed to John the Baptist by the Jewish elite – Art thou that prophet? And he answered, “No.”(John 1:21).

Three Questions!

Please note that three different and distinct questions were posed to John the Baptist, and to which he gave three emphatic No’s as answers. To recapitulate:

“Art thou the Christ?”

“Art thou Elias ?”

“Art thou that Prophet?”

But the learned men of Christendom somehow only see two questions implied here. To make doubly clear that the Jews definitely had three separate prophecies in their minds when they were interrogating John the Baptist. Let us read the remonstrance of the Jews in the verses following:

“And they asked him, and said unto him: ‘Why baptizest thou then, if

thou be not that Christ..

nor Elias..

neither that Prophet ?’ ”

(John 1:25).

The Jews were waiting for the fulfillment of three distinct prophecies: a. the coming of Christ. b. the coming of Elias, and c. the coming of that Prophet.