The trajectory from Paul (bare “appeared”) to Mark (empty tomb, no appearances) to Matthew and Luke (appearances) to John (Thomas touching wounds) looks like a legend getting more physical over time.

The sequence looks neat until the dates are checked. Paul’s creed, the earliest source, already implies bodily resurrection through buried and raised and through his argument later in the chapter. Luke and John, the most physical accounts, are also the ones that stress the risen Jesus could appear and vanish and was not immediately recognized, which is not the direction a legend of crude physicality would run. And the physicality in Luke and John serves an anti-docetic purpose that already existed in Paul’s day. The trajectory argument requires the earliest source to be non-physical, and it is not.