[Mendacious]

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But the Bible is also the only source you have for the actions of those disciples (I'm including the apocrypha when I say "Bible"). And it's second-hand.

It's a plausible hypothesis, but it's not very testable and it doesn't indicate much.

Personally I'm in the "Jesus led a cult" camp. I find it much less surprising that his followers remained loyal after his death than that (for example) the followers of Jim Jones killed themselves at his command.

Psychology also established that certain factors (authority and conformity in particular) can cause people to doubt their own memories and factual evidence. I think there's significant evidence that false memories can arise in certain situations (but I'm not too familiar with it). So it's certainly possible that some of his disciples really believed that they saw him after he died. I think one of two things is more likely, though - either someone in Jesus' group had some power they didn't want to give up (and perhaps they even used the name of Jesus to increase their power over his followers) and so fabricated the resurrection story, or it's a matter of cumulative embellishment as in the game of "telephone."

The gospels were written decades after Jesus died. And even in the gospels themselves, the description of the resurrection is inconsistent - earlier gospels describe it as a straightforward event, but later gospels add angels and earthquakes and other fireworks. My guess is that the whole story of Jesus as we know it is the product of oral transmissions that became more and more exaggerated over time. The original story of the resurrection? People very often have experiences of being "contacted" by loved ones after their death, and Jesus almost certainly had some very devoted followers. I'm guessing that some of those followers had similar experiences of Jesus and believe he wss communicating with them after his death - perhaps even "telling them" that he was alive. These people could easily have ended up being eyewitnesses to a physical resurrection later on - particular given the vague and surreal quality of the supposed experiences.

But the information really is limited, so everything is speculation.

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I agree that this is fairly plausible. I think what makes Jesus different then most "cult-like" situations is that typically in those situations you are dealing with a leader with an almost hypnotic hold over his followers-- which Jesus may have had-- but in this case the link was clearly severed in that Jesus was executed. This is usually where cult's disband etc. If Jesus' followers had all killed themselves shortly after his death, or simultaneously or some such, I would think that was a much more natural explanation.

I can't deny that substantial filtering has obviously gone on in the retelling of the story. But it does seem from very early on, the ressurection BECAME the message, and it certainly wasn't a message that people wanted at the time. They wanted a bonafide HERO messiah, not some afterlife abstraction.

Clearly there are many plausible theories, I just find the theory that the disciple believed they had witnessed a ressurection to be very difficult to discredit.

I appreciate the discourse and ideas about this, and the fact that many of the "skeptics?" are VERY well informed on the relevant history.