John the Baptist come after him who will not baptize with water, but with the Holy Spirit. Jesus comes to John, and is baptized by him in the river Jordan. The account describes how; as he emerges from the water, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends on him 'like a dove'. A voice from heaven then says, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." () Later in the gospel there is an account of John's death. It is introduced by an incident where the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, hearing stories about Jesus, imagines that this is John
John the Baptist , 'Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?' The disciples are then told by Jesus that Elijah came in the person of John the Baptist, These passages are applied to John in the Synoptic Gospels. But where Matthew specifically identifies John the Baptist as Elijah's spiritual successor (), the gospels of Mark and Luke are silent on the matter. The Gospel of John states that John the Baptist denied that he was Elijah. Many scholars believe there was contact between the early church in the Apostolic Age and what is called the "Qumran-Essene community". The Dead Sea