Q. Third reason...
3. If Jesus' divinity is a myth invented by later generations ("the early Christian community", often a code word for "the inventors of the myth"), then there must have been at least two or three generations between the original eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus and the universal belief in the new, mythic, divinized Jesus; otherwise, the myth could never have been believed as fact because it would have been refuted by eyewitnesses of the real Jesus. Both disciples and enemies would have had reasons to oppose this new myth.
However, we find no evidence at all of anyone every opposing the so-called myth of the divine Jesus in the name of an earlier merely human Jesus. The early "demythologizers" explicitly claimed that the New Testament texts had to have been written after A.D. 150 for the myth to have taken hold. But no competent scholar today denies the first-century dating of virtually all of the New Testament - certainly Paul's letters, which clearly affirm and presuppose Jesus' divinity and the fact that this doctrine was already universal Christian orthodoxy.
4. If a mythic "layer" had been added later onto an originally merely human Jesus, we should find some evidence, at least indirectly and secondhand, of this earlier layer. We find instead an absolute and total absence of any such evidence anywhere, either internal (in the New Testament texts themselves) or external, anywhere else, in Christian, anti-Christian or non-Christian sources.
5. The style of the Gospels is not the style of myth but that of real, though unscientific, eyewitness description. Anyone sensitive to literary styles can compare the Gospels to any of the mythic religious literature of the time, and the differences will appear remarkable and unmistakable - for instance, the intertestamental apocalyptic literature of both Jews and Gentiles, or pagan mythic fantasies like Ovid's Metamorphoses or Flavius Philostratus' story of the wonder-worker Apollonius of Tyan (A.D. 220).
If the events recorded in the Gospels did not really happen, then these authors invented modern realistic fantasy twenty centuries ago. The Gospels are full of little details, both of external observation and internal feelings, that are found only in eyewitness descriptions or modern realistic fiction. They also include dozens of little details of life in first-century Israel that could not have been known by someone not living in that time and place (see Jn 12:3 for instance). And there are no second-century anachronisms, either in language or content.
6. The claim of Jesus to be God makes sense of his trial and crucifixion. He disappointed the political expectations of both his friends and his enemies. The main reason why most Jews rejected his claim to be the Messiah was that he did not liberate them from Roman political oppression.
It was not easy for Jesus to be apolitical. In his day, religion and politics were closely interwoven. He was not afraid to touch political issues (e.g., calling King Herod "that fox" [Lk 13:32] and saying, "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" [Mt 22:21]), but he would not be identified with any of the polarized political parties of his day. He went so far as to forbid his disciples to speak publicly of his miracles because the people wanted to make him a king.
Why then was he crucified? The political excuse that he was Caesar's rival was a lie trumped up to justify his execution, since Roman law did not recognize blasphemy as grounds for execution and the Jews had no legal power to enforce their own religious laws of capital punishment under Roman rule.
7. There are four Gospels, not just one. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by four different writers, at four different times, probably for four different audiences and for four somewhat different purposes and emphases. So a lot of cross-checking is possible. By a textual trigonometry or triangulation, we can fix the facts with far greater assurance here than with any other ancient personage or series of events. The only inconsistencies are in chronology (only Luke's Gospel claims to be in order) and accidentals like numbers (e.g. did the women see one angle or two at the empty tomb? And even this last question has a very probable and plausible answer as posted earlier in Easter post after Q&A 90 and the post just before Q&A 146.)
(To be continued)
7th July 2017