Jayjay, I think your OP premise is quite accurate. However, it’s founded on a misunderstanding of what the “no one would die for a lie” claim is, or at least is supposed to be.
Clearly I could have the most erroneous beliefs in the world, and hold them so firmly that I would die for them. (There are a few people on this board who claim I [d]do**. :))
However, precisely what is being said regarding the early Christians is that they did not perpetrate a fraud regarding their testimony about Jesus and his resurrection, since the majority of the leading figures were persecuted and died for insisting on this, or to be more specific, on insisting that because only Jesus was Lord, they would not therefore pay the appropriate tribute to the Emperor’s genius (tutelary spirit, more or less) as Lord. Specifics on this can be posted by someone with more of a fondness than I for First Century Roman history, but it’s accurate in essence, if not in complete detail.
The traditional Christian use of this is:
[ul]
[li]People do not as a rule rise from the dead.[/li][li]Jesus claimed to be the physical, living representation of God, more or less.[/li][li]Jesus rose from the dead in proof that He was such.[/li][li]The apostles and others witnessed that He had.[/li][li]They insisted on this, even on pain of death.[/li][li]Since nobody dies for a lie, they were telling the truth in so witnessing and insisting.[/li][li]Therefore, Jesus is what He claimed to be.[/li][/ul]
So far, so good. There is a logical sequence to this.
The problem, as David B. pointed out to me when I decided to work through this on a long-dead religion thread, is that the apostles could have been mistaken in what they thought they saw. David also maintains that it could have been the rapid generation of an urban legend, something I take issue with, since we are talking of specific people here who both were present with Jesus and were later martyred, presuming that there is any accuracy to First Century Christian history at all. While they could have been mistaken, and their subconsciouses later confabulate a “proof” out of fuzzy memories, and it might be possible for one or two of them to have convinced themselves of a “revisionist” scenario based on urban legend, it does not seem reasonable to me that all of them would have done so. It only takes one sharp-memoried and honest person to skewer an urban legend, as Snopes clearly shows.
The mistaken impression scenario, however, does remain as an obstacle to this as a proof of Christianity. The sequence described above does seem to me to be strong evidence for the likelihood of the accounts being in the main accurate portrayals of a miraculous occurrence, allowing for the usual differences in eyewitness testimony. I do consider that it disproves fraud, and strongly mitigates against the likelihood of a team mistaken impression or the growth of an urban legend.
Even if valid, of course, it does not therefore demonstrate the accuracy of the various conclusions drawn by assorted muzzy thinkers from it. E.g., it does not suppose that the Bible is literally and verbatim true in every detail (except obvious fictions like Jesus’s parables, a point intelligent literalists are quick to make in order to clarify that they are not total idiots for believing in literal inspiration).
This is, of course, a case where mileage will vary greatly.
