No one knows when stories of Jesus—the Jewish god-man—were first told. Ironically, it was probably before Christ. From the second to the first century BCE, there are references to a teacher of righteousness among the Zadokite exiles at Qumran, one who dies a violent death that is consolingly interpreted as redemptive. This is likely based on a real person. And it could be the genesis of it all, eventually becoming crossed with the basic Messianism among Jewish rebels and Mediterranean mystics, during and after the time of the Jewish War.
The Jesus stories were originally part of an oral tradition before any gospel was written. And as the stories were told, embellishments started creeping into the narrative. Those that people found meaningful became an enduring part of the narrative. And when the canonical Gospels were written, these additions became canonical as well.
This process can be documented within the canonical Gospels, which add more detail the later they were composed. To cite one example, let’s look at an incident from the Agony in the Garden. The earliest Gospel, Mark (14:47), tells us of a servant of the High Priest who gets an ear cut off by an unnamed disciple. Luke (22:50-51) adds the reassuring detail that Jesus healed the man. Yet people wondered, “Which disciple did that?” So John (18:10) tells us it was Peter, and we even learn that the servant’s name was Malchus for what it’s worth.
In another case, the embellishments create a confused mess of contradiction. Mark (14:3-9) and Matthew (26:6-13) both tell us of an unnamed woman who pours a box of expensive ointment on Jesus’ head while he visits the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany. The disciples object to the waste. But in Luke (7:36-45) this occurs earlier in the narrative, it occurs in the home of Simon the Pharisee instead, the unnamed woman penitentially anoints his feet (not his head), and it is Simon alone who objects—not to the waste, but to the woman being a “sinner.” By the time of John (12:1-5) the Simon is arguably Simon Iscariot, yet it’s in the home of Martha and Mary, both holy women, the latter anointing Jesus’ feet. And it is now Judas, Simon’s son, who objects because he’s greedy.
Adding to the confusion, many conclude that the unnamed sinful woman was Mary Magdalen, certainly not the same Mary who is sister to Martha and Lazarus—who’s the leper here. (But not when he was raised from the dead.) There’s simply no way to get this story straight.
We should note, by the way, that Lazarus is Greek for Eleazar. Was he even real? Apparently only to John—the Synoptics don’t know him as brother of Martha and Mary. John may have borrowed the name from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, which interestingly enough resembles an ancient Egyptian folk tale. This Lazarus story alludes to rising from the dead.
The process of embellishment continued after the Gospels were set. Details that were invented afterward were too late to be accepted as valid, which is the only reason they were not. But such details could be interesting just the same. Catholics, with their hagiographies, have enjoyed and repeated them both before and after the rise of Protestantism, with their emphasis on Sola Scriptura.
Take the popular saint Veronica. As many know, she allegedly wiped the face of Jesus with her veil as he carried his cross to Calvary, leaving behind a Turin-like image. She is identified by some, quite arbitrarily, as the woman with the “issue of blood” whom Jesus cured in Mark (5:25-29). But for its late origin, this would have been a fine addition to the “official” story. But note that her name comes from the Latin words “vera icon.” We should posit that any character whose name has a meaning that pertains to the story itself is suspect historically.
And where is this alleged veil? If real, it would have been preserved and displayed.
Another popular saint, Christopher, illustrates this principle of symbolic names. The story of him carrying young Jesus across a flood is not found in any Gospel. That his name means “Christ bearer” is the tipoff that the story is fictional. As are the varying details that have him as much as twenty-four feet tall, appropriate stature for a Christ bearer. Because of the utterly implausible detail and the absence of evidence he even existed, the Catholic Church deleted him over fifty years ago.
A lesser-known, but likewise implausible saint added to the story, concerns the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus’ side with a lance. As in the case of the High Priest’s servant, people wondered what his name was. The name Longinus became attached to the story. This was the name of a legate from Syria as well as an earlier opponent of Caesar. Not only is he an example of a repentant offender, some versions of the story identify him as the one who supposedly exclaimed, “Truly this was an innocent man.” Or was it “Truly this was the Son of God!”? It was even claimed that he was a blind centurion (how likely is that?) whose vision was restored when drops of Jesus’ blood hit his eyes—excellent symbolism here. During the great medieval period of forged religious relics, the alleged spear (Spear of Destiny) became available. It may be an embellishment of history that Hitler sought to obtain it, believing it would make him invincible.
In the canonical Gospels we also read of two who were crucified with Jesus. Here again, people wondered what their names were. Eventually they became identified as Dismas and Gestas. The former became a Catholic saint, despite there being no evidence that this was his name, or that he even existed at all. Pious legend further claimed that they had crossed Jesus’ path before as thieves who robbed the Holy Family (of their gold, frankincense, and myrrh?) on their sojourn in Egypt. Dismas, of course, comes off better than Gestas. A nifty literary touch, but historically baseless.
As alluded to in the previous paragraph, let’s look at the story of the Magi. Magi were astrologer-priests from Persia, but eventually this embellishment in Matthew evolved, elevating them into Kings. They were specified as three, and given the names Gaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior, representing Europe, Africa, and Asia—the known world. If these details had been available to the author of John, perhaps only his bent of downplaying the humanity of Jesus (that he was born at all) would have kept him from incorporating them. As embellishments go, they certainly are popular. (The bodies of these fictional Kings are interred in the cathedral of Cologne, Germany.)
The embroidery of the overall story is furthered in the fable of the Wandering Jew by the legend of Prester John, which all started by the mistaken idea in Mark (9:1, 13:30) that the Apostles wouldn’t all die before Jesus’ return. The notion was inherited ultimately by John (and weakly refuted in John 21:22-23). The embroidery was also furthered by the detail of Pontius Pilate, described in the Gospels as so reluctant to condemn Jesus (embellished in Matthew 27:17-25) that he repented and, in the old Abyssinian Church, was made a saint. (Not to mention that “The Acts of Pilate” further exonerated him to incriminate “the Jews”.)
In more modern times, we’ve seen major motion pictures imagining what became of Barabbas[1], and what became of the Roman centurion who won Jesus’ robe by casting lots.[2] All of these would be as plausible as any other part of the Gospels if only they’d been canonized. Maybe John 21:25 isn’t totally hyperbolic after all.
As we see from the preceding examples, the process of legend involves embellishment over time. When it comes to the Gospels, some made it into the “official” story and some did not, and merely due to timing. The details are of the very same nature and quality, so the official story is no more demonstrably true than the elements derived later. It’s all about what one chooses to believe.
Notes
[1] A film adaptation directed by Richard Fleischer of Pär Lagerkvist, Barabbas, trans. Alan Blair (New York, NY: Random House, 1951).
[2] Movie adaptations directed by Henry Koster (1953) and Martin Scorsese (1988), respectively, of the novels: Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942) and Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960).