Thoughts on John 1:19-28 and John being Elijah

John 1:19-28 is a really interesting exchange between John the Baptist and those priests and Levites sent from the Pharisees. Especially since the first question which is recorded that they asked was "Who are you?" For the record, of course they knew "who" John was. He was the son of the former High Priest Zechariah, and should have himself become a priest being of the Kohanim. Clearly, John did not. I sincerely doubt the story of what happened there was forgotten by that point in time among the priests and Levites, or that John's father was forgotten so quickly. Until a certain age when he made the choice to head off into the desert, John would have been raised in and around the temple. Some of the men questioning him might have even been his peers as a child. So, these most likely weren't strangers. So, when they ask him, "'who' are you?" They're not asking him for his ID.
     What's also interesting is the possibilities they offer for him to be, "The Christ," "Elijah," or "The Prophet." There, by that point, had been a few guys who had risen up claiming to be "the Christ," and then after causing trouble, they came to nothing and life went on. Clearly, John wasn't raising an army or doing anything typically regarded as messianic in nature. He was just preaching and baptizing people, something which priests did in order to cleanse people from being unclean so that they could enter the temple grounds. That he was doing it at the Jordan River, far from the temple, was a bit strange though. "The Prophet" in question is generally assumed to be The Prophet spoken of by Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. What's interesting here is that "The Prophet" and "The Christ" were considered to be two different people by those versed in religion and theology, whereas in modern Christian theology, they're generally regarded as the same Person.
     The really interesting possibility they bring up is Elijah, who was prophesied by the prophet Malachi to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. In the Old Testament, Elijah didn't actually die, but was bodily assumed into heaven. Regardless, he left the earth. Given that they knew "who" John was as far as his ID was concerned, why would they ask if he was someone who hadn't been seen for seven to eight hundred years? John denies being Elijah, or the Prophet, or the Christ for that matter and just calls himself "a voice shouting in the desert, 'make the Lord's way straight." Further frustrating and confusing the priests and Levites questioning him.    This becomes even more interesting when, later on in the Gospels, Jesus completely contradicts John's own testimony about himself and says, "If you can accept it, he is Elijah."
     So, according to the Son of God Himself, John the Baptist was Elijah, and according to John the Baptist, at the very least, he himself didn't know it. But let's just focus for a minute on the fact that Jesus said flat out that John was Elijah. He didn't say that he was 'like' Elijah, he didn't say that he came "in the spirit and power of Elijah" as some preachers like to teach. Jesus Christ said that John "was" Elijah. John didn't know that he was Elijah, but Jesus did; much like He knew things about other people in the Gospels which no one had informed Him of. John knew what his mission was, but he didn't know who he was.
     There's another interesting passage where Jesus asks His disciples who the people are saying that He is. His disciples reply, "John the Baptist risen from the dead, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." At the very least, most people knew that His name was Jesus ('Yeshua' in Aramaic and Hebrew). Many probably knew He was from Nazareth in the Galilee. Again, why, or better yet how would people think that this Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet from the Scriptures walking among them again? In both cases, why or how would the general populace assume or even question whether or not either man, whose origins were known, could be a person who had lived hundreds of years prior?
     The answer is simply that reincarnation was a common belief at the time. We in the modern Western world like to think that reincarnation is a fringe belief of Eastern Religions, but in truth it was described by Plato in his Socratic Dialogues three or four hundred years prior to Christ's birth. Like many other philosophies and belief systems that found their way around the Hellenistic world, the idea of a soul returning from the Underworld to be reborn in this one was commonly held as a possibility. Even today, it is held as an accepted belief within Orthodox Judaism. And all this being understood, Jesus not only did nothing to correct this belief, He confirmed that John was Elijah reborn, even if John himself didn't know.
     In the end, of course, it didn't matter if John himself knew who he was or had been in a past life. He still fulfilled his purpose for returning, and heralded the coming of Yahweh made flesh.