Thanks for that link to that Dr. Jones with Bible newsletters.  I found some interesting points, like in his handling of the 144,000 virgins and I want to peruse his other issues. 

However, I don't know about you, but his alternative translation of Rev 14's "144,000..among women not defiled; for they are virgins" really did not make any better sense, or solve the problem of the viriginity for me. Why are they among only undefilied virgin women or why is that noteworthy?

As far as doubting that Elijah is the one spoken of because it says he will "restore all things" as Jesus himself said and is said about him at his return in Acts, well, I always hesitate to say the Bible should be spiritualized that far (i.e., "Elijah" is not Elijah but a reference to himself, Jesus), as you hinted at. The solution in difficult cases like this usually turns up after carefully looking at multiple Bible version since the Greek NT we have is not perfect but a patchwork of many incomplete fragments subjectively pieced together by each translator. 

After looking, I found that the Aramaic for these passages says "to prepare everything" (Mk 9:12 Peshitta) or "comes that everything might be fulfilled" (Mt 17:11 Peshitta) which of course fits a lot better than saying he "restores all things". I'm glad I looked into it thanks to you raising the question, since this bothered me as it did but not enough to look for a solution. =)

As I state in my in my About page, if you always accept that the Bible means what it (originally) says, a good answer will present itself without resorting to spiritualizing the text away from its face value meanings (plural because as we saw in this case, there are often more than one possible face readings because of the manuscript variants or word ambiguities).

My Approach To The Bible

http://timmchyde.com/about.htm

Tim