Holy Spirit in Christianity the Book of Acts. The Holy Spirit does not simply appear for the first time at Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus, but is present in the Gospel of Luke (in 1–2) prior to the birth of Jesus. In , John the Baptist was said to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" prior to birth, and the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary in . In John the Baptist stated that Jesus baptized not with water but with the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus during his baptism in the Jordan River. In Jesus provided assurances
Baptism of Jesus of his being the author of the Gospel of John himself. In the Gospel of John, the disciples follow Jesus thereafter, and bring other disciples to him, and portrays the disciples of John as eventually merging with the followers of Jesus. According to the non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes, the idea of being baptized by John came from the mother and brothers of Jesus, and Jesus himself, originally opposed, reluctantly accepted it. Benjamin Urrutia avers that this version is supported by the Criterion of Embarrassment, since followers of Jesus would not have invented an episode in which Jesus changes his