And when we ask why such stories, so different in many ways and yet so interestingly consistent in these and other features, could have come into existence so early, all the early Christians give the obvious answer: something like this is what happened, even though it was hard to describe at the time and remains mind-boggling thereafter. The stories, though lightly edited and written down later, are basically very, very early. They are not, as has so often been suggested, legends written up much later to give a pseudohistorical basis for what essentially was a private, interior experience.
The Gospels are better explained by real events and not legends.
