Religion

It is entirely possible for two or more people to witness the same event and come away with entirely different narratives. "Eye witness" testimony is in fact often woefully unreliable.

A classic example: the final hours and minutes of the Titanic were witnessed by the 700 or so people who managed to make it into the lifeboats. During that time this huge ship was the only feature visible out in the middle of the Atlantic, outlined against the clear night sky, and no doubt the center of most everyone's attention.

And yet, those hundreds of eyewitnesses were pretty much evenly divided as to whether the Titanic went down in one piece, or split in two before sinking. This was an event that took place in their presence, and testimony that was gathered only days or weeks after the sinking. And yet there was no consensus on what should have been an easily observable phenomenon.

The writers of the Gospels--or more likely the sources, whether written or oral, that they drew on--could very well have been reporting what they saw or what people told them they saw. They may well have thought they were telling the truth. And they may well also have gotten it all totally wrong, or fudged the parts that they thought needed to be filled in. These were polemicists, not historians, and anyone reading these accounts has to take that into account.

Fascinating read: I thank the OP for posting it.