The Birth of Christianity 4: Passion Narrative
The passion narrative was a text that described the last few days of Jesus from his entry to Jerusalem, up to and possibly including the Empty Tomb. It was one of numerous texts used by the very early church that are now lost. Although I have placed this after Paul, it may well have pre-dated Paul's epistles. Although today the gospels are "carved in stone" this was very much not the case back then, and the texts were subject to frequent modification. The Passion Narrative was a text that developed over time, and much of it was devised from scripture rather than history. Why think it changed? We do not know what the original passion narrative was, let alone its version history, so why suppose it changed? We can look at the way other texts have changed. The second half of the last chapter of Mark is absent in the earliest manuscripts. The verses that are in the Bible today were a later addition - and some Bibles even acknowledge this: https://www.biblegateway.com/pa...