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 James the Just – all of whom they revered – were vegetarians. Epiphanius of Salamis records that this group had amended their Gospel of Matthew, known today as the Gospel of the Ebionites, to change where John eats "locusts" to read "honey cakes" or "manna". John the Baptist is considered the chief prophet of the Mandaeans, and plays a large part in some of their writings, including the Ginza Rba and the Draša D-Iahia (The Mandaean Book of John). They view John as the only true Messiah, and are opposed to Jesus. The Mandaean scriptures state: "If the carpenter [Jesus]