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The story of John's birth is told in the Gospel of Luke. John's parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth were old, and childless. Zechariah received the news of his son's birth while on duty as a priest of the temple. The angel who appeared before him told him the child would be named John. Mary, then pregnant with Jesus, left Nazareth to visit Elizabeth, who was her relative, in the "city of Judah." In the Byzantine period, the place of this visit was identified as the village of Ein Karem, today one of the neighborhoods of modern Jerusalem. From a young age, John lived in the desert. According to tradition, it was in the Judean desert, near Ein Karem, that he prepared for his journey to the barren desert near the Jordan river and the Dead Sea. Near the modern farming village of Even Sapir, there is a Greek Catholic monastery, John in the Desert, which marks the place of John's first seclusion. John first became a public figure in the year 29 CE, when he announced the coming of the Messiah to the Jews In physical appearance, John the Baptist resembled the prophet Elijah. He "wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6). There is a vast resemblance between John the Baptist, as described in the New Testament, and the members of the Judean Desert cult (the Essenes), as portrayed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like them, his activities took place in the Judean Desert. Furthermore, he saw his generation as the last before the redemption, as they did. . However, John the Baptist was not an Essene. The Essenes preached hatred of anyone who was not a "son of light," and they believed in predetermined fate, while John baptized hundreds of believers from all classes, as a symbol of their return to religion and a significant change in their lives. There is also a strong resemblance between John and Jesus. Their fathers were both informed of their births by an angel, they began missionary work at a similar age, and they were both executed by the Romans. John was imprisoned by Herod Antipas for opposing his marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife, as such a marriage was explicitly forbidden in the Bible. When Herodias's daughter - Salome, danced for him at his birthday banquet, Herod promised to grant her any request. She demanded the head of John the Baptist, and it was brought to her on a platter (Mark 6:17-29). According to Christian tradition, the banquet was held in Sebastia. At a fourth-century church built in memory of the event, we see the grave of John the Baptist, close to that of Elisha, a student of the prophet Elijah. According to Christian tradition, John was actually a reincarnation of Elijah the prophet, as implied by Jesus "if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear" (Matthew 11:14-15).