Minor Characters in the Gospels

One modern myth about Jesus is that the Bible's accounts were made up and altered during a long period when they were passed on by word of mouth. According to Professor Richard Bauckham, people in the ancient world would have recognised the Bible's accounts as biographies. Such biographies had to be based on living memory. The writers of the Bible's accounts give us different clues that they are using eyewitness testimony. One of these is when they give us the name of a minor character who does not play a central part in the story.