Resurrected? NOT!

There has been no shortage of hypotheses explaining why early Christians believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Most feature one of three types of explanation: 

(1) Jesus did not really die; he survived torture and crucifixion.
(2) The tomb was empty, but nothing else happened.
(3) The disciples had visions of Jesus, but without there being an empty tomb.

The first can be disposed of swiftly.  Roman soldiers knew how to kill people especially rebel kings.  And, yes, even first-century Jews knew the difference between a survivor and someone newly alive.

The second is only a little more complicated. Faced with an empty tomb, but with no other evidence, the disciples would have known the answer - someone had stolen the body. These things happened.  They were not expecting Jesus to rise again; by itself, an empty tomb would prove as little to them as it would to us.

And lastly, visions were frequent and well known —including visions of someone recently dead.  Faced with Peter knocking on the door when they thought he was about to be killed, the praying church assumed he had died and was paying them a post-mortem visit; “it must be his angel”, they said.  

But even lifelike visions would not prevent people conducting a funeral, continuing to mourn, and venerating the tomb.  They knew the difference between a vision and a resurrected Jesus.  In fact, the Gospels tell us that thinking Jesus was a vision was the first conclusion of witnesses and they had to be convinced otherwise by Jesus’ behavior.  Again, the Gospels are by and about people no less skeptical or intelligent than people today.