Gospel writers have developed blocks and eye witness accounts into narratives of Jesus life. White explains the practice of selecting passages from the Jewish scriptures that have already been translated into Greek and creating an interpretive narrative of Jesus’s life. Elaborations upon these Passion narratives we’re simply stories to fill in the gaps between the Last Supper and Resurrection. White adds how the play of each scene varies with the efforts to create the characterization and provide a more fitting ending. One of the sources used to create the gospels, mostly in Paul’s case, was oral tradition. Several examples of story nodes in Paul used in the development of the passion narrative include phrases like “took bread/cup” “dinner/evening” quoted in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 elaborating on those clues to develop the Last Supper or Passover Meal. Referring to post Passover in 1 Corinthians 11:23 when Paul says “delivered up” to death referring to the gospel story of Jesus’s arrest and the story of Judas’s betrayal. The narratives regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus vary from book to book based off the time frame; more and more details were added on as time went on. Paul took “crucified” and “death on a cross” (1 Thessalonians 4:14, Philippines 2:8) elaborating and emphasizing that this was the plan all along by saying “according to the scriptures”, creating more of a messianic figure of Jesus. “None of the gospels give any details of the actual procedure or the specific sequence of actions in placing Jesus on the cross” (White p.132). In 1 Corinthians 15:4 “buried” in extended by Paul into the story of his preparations and burial in the tomb, including the two guards at the tomb depicted in Matthew and how the women observed the tomb in Mark. More nodes used by Paul come up when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to several groups of people. The phrase “appeared to” reoccurs practically begging Paul to carry out further details to create more of a narrative.

Going from loosely connected “moments” to a glowing narrative is where the art of storytelling comes into play. New components, such as the Judas story or the “ascension” scene fill gaps in the narrative to resolve differences between earlier versions of the oral tradition (White p.124). The Hebrew scriptures play a role in this storytelling by giving the gospel writers a sense of divine guidance to the events elaborated on (White p.125). In the Gospel of Luke there is an added scene portraying a trial Herod Antipas, which occurs as an interlude in the trial of Jesus before Pilate (White p.125). Pilate seeks to avoid dealing with Jesus’s case by sending him to Antipas where he was further mocked and abused just to be sent back to Pilate again. This part of the narrative was added in Luke to give off the idea that Pilate did not think that Jesus was guilty of any crime punishable by death. The Lukan trial fits the formal Roman judicial procedure more accurately compared to the other versions.

When you picture the Passion narratives, the fact that Jesus was beat and whipped by the Romans seems to be something that sticks out to most believers, feeling emotion and sadness for their savior in suffering. Luke in contrast to the other gospels claims Pilate never flogged Jesus. Luke even adds the comment that after this exchange Pilate and Antipas became friends following the course of these events. Based off the way the additional trial was written (in favor of accurate Roman tradition and procedure) it could be that Luke was simply trying to give off a better, less guilty, more positive image of the Romans than what was given in other narratives.

Early Christian story tellers used the Hebrew scriptures as an outline to write the gospels, using numerous parallels from Psalm. Their goal was to fulfill the “prophetic” words of these scriptures through creating flowing narrative that the Greek-Romans could relate, understand and abide to. As mentioned in class, many of the early Christian authors felt superior to those of the Jewish religion that struggled to understand their scriptures. Able to interpret these nodes, the Gospel writers used oral tradition, storytelling and quotes from Jesus’s life on earth to develop a full narrative of his existence.