New Testament that Luke the Evangelist, an associate of St. Paul who was probably not an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. Scholars are also divided on the traditional claim that Mark the Evangelist, an associate of St. Peter who may have been an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, wrote the Gospel of Mark. Scholars are more divided over the traditional claim that Matthew the Apostle wrote the Gospel of Matthew and that John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John. Opinion, however, is widely divided on this issue and there is no widespread consensus.
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