I don't know of any instance of someone willingly dying for what they knew was a lie and didn't believe in.
Taking another's place in being put to death is not an appropriate parallel situation. A parent loves her child who is being sentenced to death for a crime. The child committed the crime not the parent. The parent is willing to take her child's place. It is not a lie if parent confesses the crime, because she is doing it to save her child and believes in her cause. It would be a lie if the parent didn't believe in the cause yet willingly died anyway. She is not dying for what she believes is a lie, but for the love of her child like God of the Bible for His creation. This is the type of death Jesus died for out of love.
A proper parallel of "someone willingly dying for what they knew was a lie" would be like standing before a firing squad, not believing in a faith being persecuted for, yet declaring that is his faith anyway and subsequently killed for when he could have saved his life by telling the truth. That is all the persecutor wanted to hear that you recant or reject that heathen belief then you would have saved your life. Even if you held that heathen belief, you could have lied to save your life. People simply don't die for what they know is a lie. This is the type of situation the Apostles faced. Why would an Apostle if he never saw Jesus resurrected claim he saw Jesus resurrected and be willing to be put to death for it? What greater good could come of this? No plausible explanation fits. At least none you present.
Therefore, we can be confident the Apostles truly believed they saw, talked with, touched, ate with, and walked with Jesus physically after He died. They did not lie since people don't willingly die for what they know is a lie. The Apostles were not being put to death for exchanging the life of someone else, as in the example above, but died like so many times individuals were tortured, near death and ultimately put to death in the NT for their faith. Paul almost died 7 times for his eyewitness testimony seeing Jesus alive from the dead and talking with Him. The precedence was set. The Apostles knew what to expect. Their walk would be anything but easy. Jesus even warned them they would all die for their faith in Him.
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