Earl Doherty on his Jesus Puzzle web site discusses this as midrash. I've not seen mention of midrash in these discussions but I've read that it was a common approach to the Torah in those times. Folks looked to the Torah for hidden connections and used the passages to arrive at new formulations. For example, Doherty sees the Gospel according to Mark as a midrash to explain Paul's mystical Christ. This was accepted in those times when folks believed in layers of being rising up into space or the heavens. The result was that mystical Christ came to be identified as an actual historical person though that was not the messiah that Paul was talking about.
Check his site if you wish to learn more, or the Jesus Mysteries group at yahoo. This is modern scholarship of course and those who are emotionally attached to the religion presented to them by the various churches will not be happy about this. I find Doherty and the mythicist position to be the most convincing argued. I no longer think there was a historical Jesus at all. The early Christians created this Helenized version of the Jewish messiah along the lines of other solar saviours like Mithras and the centuries of absolute rule by the Roman church has resulted in the myth being thoroughly imprinted on European culture. It's hard to let go of comforting cultural myths even when the evidence overwelmingly reveals them to not be literal truth. On the other hand myths are not lies. The modern christians are engaging in self deceptive thinking though but that is more complicated than lying and involves a misplaced sincerity and often as I see here an inability to deal logically and factually with these powerfully emotional expressions of humanities needs that have been formulated in mythic ways.
peace,
lfen
™ Version 4.2