Baptism of Jesus mind and comes to accept someone else's plan. Plus, the story came from the community that included the family of Jesus, who would have guaranteed the authenticity of the narrative. The Gospel of John () refers to Enon near Salim as one place where John the Baptist baptized people, "because there was much water there". Separately, states that John the Baptist was baptizing in "Bethany beyond the Jordan". This is not the village Bethany just east of Jerusalem, but is generally considered to be the town Bethany, also called Bethabara in Perea on the Eastern bank of the Jordan near
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