The first line of attack by those who want to deny the reality of Jesus' death and resurrection is to claim that the "story" about a supernatural resurrection from the dead is just a "fairy story" - a "myth" that circulated soon after Jesus' death to bolster the deluded beliefs of a small band of followers, who were in denial that he was gone for ever.

They were so devastated by his death, after they had hoped he would ride into Jerusalem as a conquering King, that they made up a story about him rising supernaturally from the dead.

Problems

There are two major problems with this theory.

•  Why would the apostles try to make up a story, when eyewitnesses to his resurrection were still alive and could have denied it?

The apostle Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthian Christians, written before 62AD, says there were at least five hundred eyewitnesses of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances and that many of them were still alive at the time of  writing. Some of these eyewitnesses could easily have refuted any false claim of resurrection if it was indeed a fiction. As far as we know there were no reports of such counter-claims at the time.

•  Why would ten out of the eleven apostles die a martyr's death for a lie?

Even less likely is the idea that ten out of the eleven apostles would die a martyr's death for what they knew to be a lie.

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