Disciples' Boldness

[skeptic]

Perhaps it's been addressed somewhere on this site, but I'm curious to know what your take is regarding an explanation for the disciples' willingness to be martyred for professing Jesus' resurrection.  These folks supposedly witnessed his death as well as the risen Christ.  I understand someone being willing to die for a lie that they genuinely believe is true, but I have a difficult time understanding someone being willing to die for something they know to be a lie.

I covet your thoughts on this

[Taylor]

As I understand it, this idea is generally directed at the resurrection -if the disciples had not really witnessed a risen savior, they would not have allowed themselves to be martyred. My first question is always: who says they would've known they were following a lie? The "die for a lie" issue is built on the assumption that the gospel stories are true accounts, but we have still yet to find Jesus' tomb (as if we could even identify it), the resurrection narratives in the gospels conflict in numerous ways, and there is always the possibility that the disciples indeed witnessed something they did not understand which was later embellished by the anonymous gospel authors into resurrection tales. I also have to challenge the evidence that the disciples were martyred, because most of it originates 50+ years after the supposed resurrection, and different sources give different stories about how certain disciples died (such as Matthew and Philip), and some disciples have no martyrdom stories at all (such as John, son of Zebedee).

To summarize, there's little credible evidence of martyr's deaths for the disciples and no reason to presume that they would've known if they were following a lie.

[squirrel_nut]

i love it when someone points out how many years after the fact the gospels were written. 30-100 or more years later. the significance of this is often
not fully understood today. a few points...  1) folks didnt live as long then. 3-5 or more generations had passed. 2) people didnt have cars, telephones,
computers or even paper to write letters. we have no way of knowing how good communication was 2000 years ago, but use your head, it was all
word-of-mouth. 3) language.  many dialecs in a tribal fashion. sure people talked to each other, but how well and to what degree of understanding?
the fact that any of the gospels resemble each other would be amazing if the story was new and innovative. but it wasnt. the ressurection, noah's ark, etc, etc, etc...  were the re-telling of tales from 100s to even 1000s of years before. that is the common strand through the bible. anybody here ever told
about the tooth fairy?

[skeptic]

Thank you Taylor.