In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[Pat Mustard]

I think the belief in a risen Jesus is better explained by potential naturalistic explanations than by a potential supernatural one, and you don't even need to argue the Gospels are complete myths to come up with a naturalistic explanation that's more compelling than a miracle case. One example: Joseph of Arimathea ended up moving Jesus' body to a private place during the night, in the hope that it would make things easier for the Messiah to come back to life and fulfill the expectations that he was supposed to meet. When that didn't happen, Jesus' body nevertheless stayed there and was never moved back to the original tomb. Joseph also decided not to let anyone know about this, so when rumors spread that Jesus had risen, he chose not to say anything about it.

Or it may be he decided to lie to the other disciples and have them believe Jesus rose from the dead (he or one of his men could have been the "angel" in the empty tomb when the women came to visit Jesus' body). Perhaps to spark some strong faith-based rebellion against the Romans.

Too many necessary information withheld from us so that one cannot really make any confident case for what triggered the Christ faith, but the point is the case for the Resurrection is just damn weak.

Or, much more likely still, none of it happened.

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Secondly when Messiah claimant dies, their communities and followers tended to die along with them. There's no coming back from the Cross, hence why the cross was such an effective tool of Roman power. 

Of course the fact that given the bible narrative, there is no rhyme nor reason for Rome crucifying Yeshua. At the time Iudea was a separate client state not part of Rome proper, so Roman law didn't apply. Secondly if it did apply Yeshua didn't commit any crime under Roman law, beither was he a political threat (in fact, given his utterances Yeshua was the kind of religious figure Rome would have liked). And finally he wasn't convicted by Rome but by the Sanhedrin, who didn't apply crucifiction as a punishment. And they were very careful to not step on the toes of local laws and courts.