Elijah in the New Testament and Apocryphal Literature

The prophet Elijah is according to the Hebrew Bible understood as a righteous individual who did not die but was taken to heaven on a fiery chariot. This thesis attempts to clarify how the New Testament and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha treat this legend in their own contexts which are dependent on the imagery of religious background in which Elijah is expected to return. Since both New Testament and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha deal with possible or fictitious continuum with the Hebrew Bible, (canon of which was not necessarily settled at the time of creation of a particular New Testament or Pseudepigraphic writing), explicit mention of Elijah the prophet leads to assumptions about the nature of belief in the era of the late Judaism and early Christianity and the manner this legendary motif evolved. Depending on the phenomena and characters Elijah the prophet is dealing with in a particular writing and taking into account religious context of the writing, it is possible to find out which motifs touching this character might be considered to be brought to an end in the Christian canon and which are sort of autonomous in realms influenced by Judeo-Christian materials