They didn’t trust someone else for their testimony; they were making a firsthand assertion. The martyrdom of these original eyewitnesses is in a completely different category from the martyrdom of those who might follow them. If their claims were a lie, they would know it personally, unlike those who were martyred in the centuries to follow. While it’s reasonable to believe you and I might die for what we mistakenly thought was true, it’s unreasonable to believe these men died for what they definitely knew to be untrue.
