The candlelight flickered in the dim chamber, casting long shadows across the worn parchment on my table. I dipped my quill into the ink pot, pausing for a moment as doubt gripped me. Was this right? Was this…justified?
But the memory of the dwindling crowd in the square—once so vibrant, now so sparse—pushed me forward. If the truth wasn’t enough to save the faith, then perhaps the truth needed help.I am Marcus, a scribe of the Way. I have spent years chronicling the teachings of Yeshua, the man many called the Christ.
I walked among the apostles, listened to their stories, and wrote down their words as faithfully as I could. Yet as time passed, I saw the fire of belief begin to dim. The common people, swayed by spectacle and wonder, wanted more than teachings about love and forgiveness. They craved signs. They hungered for miracles.
It started simply enough. Peter had told the story of how Yeshua calmed the storm—a tale passed around by those who were there. The way he told it, it seemed more like Yeshua calmed the hearts of frightened fishermen rather than the sea itself. But when I wrote it down, I added a flourish: the winds stilled, the waves flattened, and the men stared in awe at their teacher.
The effect was immediate. When I read the account aloud in the square, the crowd leaned in, their eyes wide with wonder. “Surely this man was the Son of God,” they whispered. They wanted to believe, and I had given them the reason they needed.
From then on, it became easier. The healings were the most natural to embellish. If Yeshua had prayed over a sick man and comforted him, why not write that the man stood up, cured of his affliction? If a blind beggar felt hope in his presence, why not say his sight was restored? The people didn’t want a wise teacher—they wanted a miracle worker, a saviour who could bend the world to his will.
I justified my actions at first. It wasn’t deceit, I told myself, but an amplification of the truth. Yeshua did inspire people to see the world differently, to rise from despair, to find new life. Was it so wrong to use the language of miracles to convey that?But as the stories grew, so did my discomfort. I wrote of Yeshua walking on water, a symbol of his mastery over chaos, yet the idea came not from the apostles but from my own imagination. The feeding of the five thousand? A tale inspired by the generosity of a shared meal, stretched into divine abundance. And Lazarus? He was never truly dead, only gravely ill, but the tale of his resurrection was too powerful to resist.
People believed these stories. They flocked to the faith, their hearts alight with the promise of a man who could defy death itself. And yet, late at night, as I sat alone in my chamber, I wondered if I had betrayed the very man I sought to honour.Yeshua’s teachings were simple, profound, and full of truth. But truth alone did not capture hearts in the way that spectacle did. Would his message have endured if I hadn’t adorned it with wonders? Would the Way have grown without the spark of the miraculous?
I will likely never know. But as I write now, I do so with trembling hands. The accounts of my embellishments are being copied and carried far beyond our little community. Other scribes will add their own touches, and soon these stories will no longer feel like mine. They will take on a life of their own, far removed from the quiet, humble man who once walked among us.
Will the world remember the teacher, or only the miracles? Will they follow his message of love and forgiveness, or will they worship the spectacle?
The candle burns low, and I press my quill to the parchment once more. My heart is heavy, but I tell myself that the ends will justify the means. After all, what is a miracle but a story that gives people hope? And hope, I pray, is worth the cost of truth.