Given I live in a society ostensibly based on Judeo-Christian values, I found myself putting a bit of time in to try and get a handle on the historical events behind the accepted narrative that has come down to us. And wow, is it a ball of wax. I can see now why academics can spend their entire professional lives on this topic.
Having said that, I've constructed what I think may have happened. Fair warning, it won't please traditional Christians but then, everyone has their own Jesus. This is mine;
My take (as a non-scholar), is that there likely was a historical person; a peasant rabbi proclaiming an imminent world changing event. This kind of guy still pops up ever so often today, usually when they've led their followers into trouble, but it seems to be a facet of human behavior and not one that began exclusively with Jesus (although I haven't heard of similar in Islam? Possibly because they're a bit more strict about that sort of thing?)
So Jesus proclaimed a soon-to-arrive apocalypse after which a Kingdom Of God would be established in Judea. The mighty would be brought low, the Romans would be swept away and Jesus's followers would be God's favored people. It would be a new world and one that was likely very attractive to the poor who rather than receiving representation for their taxes, were more likely to get a punch in the mouth from the elites of their world.
But it didn't happen; the problem with prophesy is that it almost always doesn't happen. At this point the leader either has to institute a purge or find the next big thing with which to satiate the doubters, at least for awhile. And this may be why Jesus took his little roadshow to Jerusalem where he pulled a few stunts to gain public interest, but also ticked off the wrong people. A such he was promptly arrested, given a quick 'trial' - if it could have been called that - and handed over to the Governor.
Now there may have been a public reading of the charges, but given what we know of Pilate, he probably didn't give the affair much thought. It was just before Passover, the city was packed with pilgrims and Pilate likely had other more important things on his mind, such as everyone going home and reporting Jerusalem was well run and please continue to pay your tax. It's also highly unlikely he had a private chat with Jesus, a chat that we somehow know the contents of. Or that he offered to pardon Jesus if the crowd so wished. Instead Pilate condemned Jesus to death, as had happened to all the previous would-be messiahs and I doubt he gave it much thought after that.
But it was a catastrophe for Jesus's followers. Afraid of being arrested and likewise executed, a group of them holed up somewhere in Jerusalem or possibly Galilee, and at least one of them (possibly Peter), realized that unless a way forward could be found, it would be the end of the movement.
And so with fasting, lack of sleep and grieving that went on for days, they worked themselves into an emotional catharsis. And at some stage (but possibly even some time later), the idea was floated that Jesus hadn't died, that he had been saved from true death by God. Furthermore, he was coming back and the promises he'd made were still to be fulfilled. It was their duty therefore to be even more faithful and continue to spread the word. A classic rationalization when a cult is confronted with unyielding reality which in this case, was both the death of their leader and the failure of his prophecy.
They probably lost some members - it's interesting that the church is somewhat hazy on what happened to the bulk of the apostles apart from lurid legends of execution. Likely a number returned to their old lives and disappeared from history. After all, if you didn't believe, you wouldn't be in the group for very long. But enough stayed on such that the sect continued, each individual's acceptance of the new concept of Jesus being mythologized by the gospels as appearances of Jesus in the flesh (although some doubted because wouldn't you?).
So the resurrection was spiritual in nature to begin with, but in the following decades, the story changed. Because stories change over time in the retelling and a physical resurrection was easier to grasp and more impressive. Plus the religion was moving into the cosmopolitan Roman world, moving away from it's Jewish origins and coming into contact with old established gods and legends that it needed to compete with.
When it came to the gospel of Mark (the earliest gospel we know of), the author had a problem though; in writing a physical resurrection narrative for Jesus, what had happened to his body had to be addressed. As an enemy of both the Jewish leadership and the Roman State, likely the corpse had been unceremoniously disposed of by the Romans. But in following through with this, the gospel of Mark would have seen Jesus potentially rising from the charnel pit; a very unclean spot and possibly a source of criticism. Hence the invention of the empty tomb narrative and that suspiciously convenient rich benefactor; Joseph of Arimathea.
Oddly, the author of Mark didn't finish his narrative. Perhaps he ran out of creative puff, we'll never know. Maybe he just ran out of papyrus or was an old man who knew his time was short. It may also have been that he realized that to continue would see him creating more narrative that would take him far beyond any existing tale that he knew of and he had cold feet about doing so. It's interesting that he breaks off at an inflection point in the story where to go forward he would have had to address what happened after.
But regardless, the author of Matthew had no such qualms; he had dead saints rise from their tombs and walk around Jerusalem during the crucifixion and Jesus hang around for forty days, eating fish and doing all sorts of things.
But what were those things? We don't know, even though it might be expected that in reality everything a messiah did or said after being miraculously resurrected would be hugely important. Instead the gospels handwave it away and move to wrap it all up with Jesus returning to heaven. Because what Jesus did when he returned is only secondary to the climax of the story. And it is a story, not history.
So with these texts agreed upon as dogma, the early church purged alternative accounts and we end up where we are today; debates about the historical Jesus being heavily dependent on a small set of church approved texts and letters, that are deeply embedded in western history. As such, biblical apologists enjoy a home town advantage every time.
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