The odds of someone surviving crucifixion long enough to pull this off....pretty slim.
That said, the earliest gospel - Mark - didn't originally even include anything about Jesus rising from the dead. Personally (and I know the massive majority of Christians would disagree with me on this), I don't think whether or not Jesus rose from the dead is really all that important when it comes to the religion.
I don't think Jesus (or his followers) were magicians...just cool people who impacted those around them so as to cause those people to write fantastic stories about their encounters which metaphorically capture their experiences.