The New Testament writers would have nothing to gain by making up a resurrected Jesus. They were all Jewish believers in Yahweh, and they had everything to lose by saying that Jesus had risen from the dead…not everything to gain…! They got excommunicated from the synagogue, and then they got beaten and tortured and killed. That’s not a list of perks…!
So they had everything to lose by saying that Jesus rose from the dead, but they said He rose from the dead anyway, and then many of em’ ended up dying for it when they coulda just said, “hey don’t kill me dude’s, we’re just makin’ this stuff up.” So even though there were non-Christian writers attesting to the historicity and reality of Jesus, I think the most persuasive people were the Jewish eyewitnesses who said they’d never seen anything like this ~ that a man who claimed to be God could be killed before them and then rise from the dead, and they saw Him alive afterwards ~ and they knew it firsthand and were willing to die for it. They were the people who had everything to lose…and they’re saying it’s true anyway…so they’re worth believing.
