Read your scriptures. They say that elias both would and did return. You need not argue it with me - your argument is with the Lord and the Apostles. When they make you a liar or show you uneducated in scripture, I have nothing whatever to do with it.
First, with regard to the Transfiguration, that's pretty much my interpretation as well.
Second, I may well be uneducated with regard to Scripture (I'm still trying to find the Old Testament scripture to which Matthew was referring when he said the Messiah would be born of a Virgin), but I'm not a liar. Perhaps you would be so kind as to point me to the scripture in which Our Lord and the Apostles said that Elijah had returned.
Isaiah 7:14, but from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew. The Hebrew word used in this verse is almah, which means "young woman". The Septuagint interprets this in its translation when it renders almah as parthenos. Many modern English translations rely on the Hebrew original and go with "young woman" instead of "virgin".
Cake. Here you go:
Matthew 17:10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
[11] And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.
[12] But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
Not only is it prophesied that elias must return first. Not only is it noted by one of the apostles. It is confirmed by Christ who then states Elias had already returned and had been "dealt with" in a fashion that Christ would also suffer. IE, can you find anyone in Scripture that matches this - there is only one person that had to come and make way for Christ. There is but one man who suffered and died at the hands of the Romans to this point. That was John the Baptist. Mark 9:11 - 13 reiterates the above. And then there is Luke:
Luke 1:17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
If there is any vaguarity about this, Jesus has cleared that up. So there is no problem with saying Elias returned in the person of John the Baptist and made the way for the ministry of Christ. Once dead, he could no longer return and influence things on earth and as moses was also dead, only a vision of them could appear in the other instance aforementioned.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to point me to the scripture in which Our Lord and the Apostles said that Elijah had returned.
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.
For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John;
and if you are willing to accept it, he is Eli'jah who is to come. (Matthew 11:11-14)
But I tell you that Eli'jah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him." (Mark 9:13)
Sometimes it takes me awhile to find scripture I am looking for too. I could use the cheat sheet but I retain more when I have to search. I would much rather talk with someone who is searching in the Bible than some puffed up, know it all Bible scholar that trys to talk down to me.