Gospel of Matthew in Jesus' lifetime on earth, at his baptism and transfiguration. Matthew and Luke go back further still, showing Jesus as the Son of God from his birth. Matthew more than all the other gospels identifies how his coming to earth was the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies. Finally John calls God the Word (Jesus) pre-existent before creation, and thus before all time. Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark, stressing Jesus' teachings as much as his acts, and making subtle changes in order to stress his divine nature: for example, Mark's "young man" who appears at Jesus' tomb becomes
John the Baptist "personification" of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Elijah did not know the True God (as opposed to the Abrahamic God), and thus had to be reincarnated in Gnostic theology. As predicted by the Old Testament prophet Malachi, Elijah must "come first" to herald the coming of Jesus Christ. Modern anthroposophy concurs with the idea that the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah, (cf. Mark 9:11–13), Matthew 11:13–14, Luke 7:27 although John the Baptist in the Gospel of John explicitly denies being linked to Elijah (John 1:21). Among the early Judeo-Christian Gnostics the Ebionites held that John, along with Jesus and