Halloween (All Hallows eve) is not a pagan festival, but a Christian celebration of the eve of All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Halloween, the evening before, is historically the vigil of these solemn feasts. The term "hallowed" means "holy.”
It is conceivable that they would have faced torture, vilification, and even cruel deaths for what they believed to be true, but inconceivable that'd have been willing to die for what they knew to be a lie.
What happened as a result of the Resurrection is unprecedented in all of history. In the span of 300 years, a small following of seemingly insignificant believers succeeded in turning an entire empire upside down and conquering it in spite of persecution, torture, and death.
It’s implied that Mary Magdalene held on to the resurrected Jesus when he told her, “Do not hold me”. Jesus even invited the apostle Thomas to touch his wounds from his crucifixion. Hallucinations and visions don’t eat food and can’t be touched.
Hallucination and vision theories fail when we consider the bodily nature of encounters with the resurrected Jesus: He ate with his disciples two times—on the seashore & in the home of the two disciples traveling on the road to Emmaus.
In the upper room on the night of the Resurrection , on the seashore, for a succession of forty days, and on the Mount of Olives before his ascension, as well as to 500 people, as noted by Paul.
Jesus' post-resurrection appearances explained as hallucinations might explain a single appearance of Jesus, but they fail to explain the diversity of Jesus’ appearances—the multitude of appearances to different people on different occasions.
Paul claimed that Christ appeared to hundreds of people who were still alive & available for cross-examination. It's one thing to attribute these supernatural experiences to people who had already died. It is quite another to attribute them to multitudes who were still alive.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians, states that Christ "was raised on the third day… and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve, then to more than five hundred brethren at once, most of whom are still alive, then to James, then to all the apostles.”
She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbi,”which means Teacher.
They would have taken the body as it was. Myrrh acts in such a way as to glue linen to the body very firmly; unwrapping it would have been a painstaking process. No grave-robber would have taken that long or been that careful.
If any person had removed the body of Jesus, would they have stripped it before doing so? Or if anyone had stolen it, would they have taken the trouble to remove the cloth, and roll it up, and lay it in a place by itself?
John 20:6-7 notes that Peter & John found Jesus' burial cloths folded and the head cloth rolled up separately. This detail is a strangely specific & deeply significant description showing that His body was not stolen.