The purview of this paper is to examine the relationship between John the
Baptist and Elijah. The paper will be divided into four parts: Old Testament
background to the Elijah motif, John the Baptist and the Elijah motif in the Synoptic
Gospels, as well as in the Johannine Gospel, and correlative issues.
Luke includes a reference to food in many chapters of the Third Gospel. It is obvious
that meals play an important part in the Lukan presentation of the story of Jesus.
The meals of Jesus have profound theological significance, and this significance
mounts as each scene is carefully unfolded by the author. This paper is directed
towards the establishment of a fixed pattern or type-scene which will serve to identify
those scenes that can technically be called meal-scenes.