How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[Tonus]

I tend to agree with you on most of your statements. The one I have trouble with is about inventing the story. If it were the priest or other authorities I could see it being possible. But, with the common man, who is going to believe tax collectors and fisherman, none had note worthy positions in the community.
The priest and other religious would be able to keep themselves from harm since they basically controlled the religious community where all the problems for the apostles originated. Why would these men invent a story that would cost them their lives or no less than great trouble with the religious community, a community of men that were able to bring death to Jesus. They saw this happen and If Christ was dead in the tomb why still His body to eventually bring death to them. In the Book of Acts the priest and Council gave then the opportunity to deny Jesus, yet their response was to go directly to preaching about Jesus even with the threat on there lives. They all died for their beliefs and were poor, so where was the motive.

I think it depends on what we know about the gospels from sources other than the gospels themselves. Who wrote them? When did they do so? Are all of the characters real, or are they invented, or perhaps some of them are an amalgam of several people? Did the body of Jesus really disappear from his tomb? If it did, was there any alarm about it or did people generally shrug their shoulders because they didn't think anything of it? It seems to me that there is a lot we don't know, and we have to trust the gospels themselves a lot more than is reasonable if we're trying to determine their veracity.

Christianity may have taken a considerable backseat to Jewish concerns for the Romans. The gospel writers seemed to recognize this; deliberate care is taken to show Pilate as innocent of the death of Jesus-- it is the Jews who bully Pilate into handing over Jesus, after they insist on accepting the guilt for his death (and just in case it isn't clear enough, they demand the release of a seditious killer instead). Pilate is the one who identifies Jesus as "king of the Jews," to the disgust of the pharisees. It is a Roman soldier who, at the end, remarks that "this truly was the son of God," even as the temple curtain is being rent in half. It is the Roman Cornelius whose prayer is answered by god and to whom Peter is sent.

The gospel writers are very keen to show Jews in a negative light and Romans (leaders and soldiers in particular) in a positive light. This could be a deliberate attempt to get Roman officials to see Christianity as a useful and non-threatening religion. It did not work very well at the beginning, that is true. But the attempt to hedge their bets gives reason to think that they were less interested in the truth and more concerned about being accommodating to the empire that might have the power to annihilate them.