Heathen, I agree. As with most historical happenings, one needs to assemble the pieces, like a puzzle. After bringing them together, the picture you get hopefully makes sense. But whatever result, there is no guarantee that it is not necessarily right. It might even be distorted, because we just do not have all the pieces. As you remarked, each one must put the pieces together for himself to form a personalized opinion and build his/her own belief system (or not).
mP, I get the impression you distrust everything the Bible says. Don't you think that's going overboard. Add archeaological. geological, geographical, historical and linguistic evidence to the mix, then there are a lot of facts one can use to build upon. The textual critic insists on taking the Bible as they would any historical work and study it from that perspective. They look into the nature and origin of all the witnesses of a Bible book, describing how the texts were written, changed and transmitted. A lot of editing has gone into it some of the books. But what constitutes the original text is up to debate. My point is: We've got a lot to work with. You sift through the evidence, and you keep the gold nuggets. The rest you reject. Concerning the resurrection, as I have said before, I work on the premise that where there is smoke, there is a fire.
Leolaia, thanks for going to the trouble of explaining. Now those of us interested in the subject will have to try and assimilate all that. As a Witness I always steered clear of the apocryphicle and pseudo-apocryphical works, but I see it is worth while to see what these have to say (as additional witnesses). Because they are not incorporated in the canon, does not mean that they have no value. One that I am going to make a point of looking into is the book of Jubilees that often cropped up in the DSS. Because of the number of copies in their library, the Qumran inhabitants viewed it as important. Also interesting to see that the Christian version is different with a few additions.