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Assuming this is a reasonable accounting of the “history” involved, why did Jesus’ disciples insist he had resurrected and risk their necks for seemingly no gain and a lot of hardship when they would have been so much better off slinking away?
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I'm reading Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Christian" right now, and this one part seems as if could shed some light on your question:
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He says, for instance, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come." Then he says, "There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom"; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, "Take no thought for the morrow," and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count.
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http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
basically, Christ's followers wouldn't care about what could happen to them because they believed the second coming was imminent.
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Christ himself never said it was imminent. He said this:
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." "Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with the hand mill; one will be taken and the other left." "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." (Matthew 24:36, 40 & 42)
It was only humans who reasoned it was imminent.