Your error is in presuming that because someone testifies to seeing miracles or about things you reject as "not possible" that they must be lying. I haven't seen your answer as to why these people would have wanted to "invent their own religion" - as you put it - when all that it brought on them was persecution, ostracization and execution - sometimes in the most brutal ways. Guys like L. Ron Hubbard invented his own religion and it made him a millionaire. Mohammad got his followers to conquer, loot and pillage entire countries for him. Tell me what, other than actually witnessing the teachings of Jesus Christ, his many miracle and his resurrection, would have motivated these people? Many people die for what is a lie, but NO ONE dies for what they KNOW is a lie.
I get the impression from reading your responses to the many challenges thrown your way that you probably never did have a personal relationship with the living God and that you have closed your heart to any evidence that might shake your basis for your rejection of Christianity. I probably won't spend anymore time discussing this with you but I AM praying for you and mean you no disrespect or animosity. I know, without a doubt, that the truth WILL be found when we search for it with all our heart.
they might not be lying... they may be deluded. That doesn’t speak well for their credibility either.
Again, the early Christians (1) didn’t write down the gospels until the adults of that time were dead, and (2) wrote down things that could not be true.
So they were in error, and we are trying to decide what was error and what was not. Gosh, what could go wrong with that?
To be fair, they call Herodotus ‘the father of history’ and he was notably credulous in putting down travelers tales. That doesn’t mean that his stories of people with one leg and a single large foot who lie on the ground and use their single large foot as a sunshade should be given credence. As evidence goes, it isn’t worth much.
Joseph Smith died for what he knew to be a lie. He just didn’t expect to die.