So, What if Jesus wasn't raised from the dead?

Barry Carey at WithAllYourMind.net hits the nail on the head again.

The Rabbi’s Got it Right!

If Jesus did not rise, bodily from the dead, then I'm a chump! That's really all there is to it. If Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead, Peter, Matthew, John, James, Paul, Mark and Luke are not just shysters, they are evil, despicable men.

There are no two ways around it. Even Paul said that if Christ is not raised, we are to be pitied above all men. He was not being hyperbolic when he said that. If Christ is not raised, Christians are the single most, undisputed group of fools the world has ever know.

So, where's that leave us? Well, the tomb was empty. All the Jewish or Roman authorities had to do was produce a body, and they never did. In fact, the fact that the body was missing from the tomb was never disputed in antiquity. Something transformed Jesus' followers from cowering, fearful people to a force that transformed the world. Nearly all of that first generation of Christians fled or died rather than renounce the claim that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead.

People don't die like that for a lie.... I have yet to see another hypothesis with better explanatory power than that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to ~500 people over 40 days. As hard as that is to wrap one's head around, that's the one explanation that holds together.