Empty Tomb Puzzle

[FallentoReason]

Anyone can be a disciple, but there were only 12 apostles. I suspect that each of the Gospels were not necessarily penned by the actual apostles, since simple fishermen would not have to learn to read or write. Pure speculation on my part, but I image each apostle having their own band of believers and each of the gospel accounts come out of those separate communities.

This sounds reasonable. That means all we have is hearsay.. That throws open the door to a whole bunch of theories about how these stories originated.

In the Swedenborg tradition the 'revealed' texts have an inner spiritual meaning. The two fish and five loaves of barley are symbols for the type of instruction that Jesus 'fed' to the crowd. What I'm trying to say is this. Whether what happened that day was a miracle or not does not matter to me. Belief in miracles does not by itself cultivate lasting faith. Conviction comes from receiving instruction and applying it to life. As such the miraculous events are not so much 'evidence' of divinity but object lessons.

Hmm this resonates strongly with me. I used to think like this as well I think but the influence of my 'literal reading' Christian friends made it hard to know how I really should look at scripture.

No one can prove or disprove for certain the writers of the gospels are who they say they are.

Naming the gospels after 100 years or whatever the figure is doesn't really help their case. There is too much room for error.

and you did not answer my question about dying for a lie.

So the apologetic argument goes like this: Jesus was either a lunatic or telling the truth. Well what about the 3rd option? He never existed. No one had to die for a lie because there's no evidence that proves Jesus or his Apostles for that matter.