According to White, the earliest oral traditions about Jesus, though brief, did include statements about the Last Supper, his death, burial, resurrection and appearances. These early traditions, he says, over time and with the help of storytellers’ artistic
enhancements, were developed from “loosely connected story ‘moments’” to “a flowing narrative” and the Passion narrative we know today. These alleged new components include the Judas story and the ascension scene. But why add these embellishments? White’s answer is that references to Jewish scriptures were a way to fill in gaps in the oral traditions, fleshing out a narrative and adding a sense of “divine guidance”, as well as serving an apologetic function to defend the young movement against its critics.

Matthew and Luke’s Gospel Passion accounts have many similarities with Mark’s, and the differences are largely additions rather than subtractions. This has led many scholars to suggest that Matthew and Luke actually got their material from Mark, and added to it. All three Gospels contain that the women went to the tomb on the Sabbath very early with spices, that they saw the stone rolled back, and finds someone at the tomb.

Matthew adds that there was an earthquake (v.2), names the person at the tomb as an angel that descended (v.2), mentions guards at the tomb (v.4), and that after hearing from the angel the women ran to tell the disciples.

Luke lacks some of the information in Mark, but adds that the women specifically didn’t find the body in the tomb (v.3), instead that there were two men at the tomb (v.4), the message of the angels described (v.5-8) is different than the descriptions in Matthew and Mark. This description includes a reference to Jesus’ predictions of his death in Luke 9 and 18. Finally, Luke also has the women going to tell the disciples about Jesus’ absence in the tomb (v.9). Both Luke and Matthew stick out from Mark in this regard, whom on the the contrary has the women overcome with fear and telling no one about the risen Jesus (Mark 16:8). There are some later verses (v.9-20), which do not appear in some of the earliest manuscripts, that tell of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene who subsequently went and told the disciples.

In our methodology in evaluating the writings of the early Christians, it is important to fairly examine the documents before jumping to conclusions about whether they are historical or not. The authors of 1^st John and 2^nd Peter identify themselves as eyewitnesses who themselves observed Jesus, not “inventing clever stories” (1^st John 1:1,3 and 2^nd Peter 1:16). Luke on the other hand, states he wasn’t an eyewitness to the events of his gospel, but  is relying on eyewitnesses for his depiction (Luke 1:1). This seems to indicate, in contrast to the aretaology, the gospel writers saw themselves as eyewitnesses to record history. Evaluating these texts, it’s important to keep in mind witness testimony is colored by personal interests, predispositions, ambitions, and individual quirks. Furthermore, the perspectives of eyewitnesses would be limited to their own perspective. Many times, as modern readers, we don’t realize it was commonplace to round off specific numbers and descriptions, and confuse imprecision with error. Common details between gospel accounts would then be the most central, and variation in supplementary details can be expected. The gospel authors and the early church certainly had the chance to eliminate variations and supposed contradictions between gospel accounts, but they didn’t. Why? For the most part, the gospel traditions were circulated in the name of the eyewitnesses from whom they originated. This strikes me as a distinguished form of oral tradition distinguished by eyewitness backing. These are all integral points that should be a part of the historical study of the gospel accounts and their Christian writers.