Ah, you’re a Richard Carrier devotee. That explains a lot.
There’s a book by Colin Hemer that you should read, called “The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History”. Acts and the Gospel of Luke contain geographic information that contradicts the reference materials of that day but that is shown to be correct based on fairly recent scientific discoveries regarding the coastal sediment, etc for the areas mentioned. That’s just one example of how the claim that the historical claims about Jesus and the early church were made up later, as “myth”. Hemer has page after page after page of similar instances.
I once debated with atheists/agnostics about the historical accuracy of Luke, versus Josephus and other historians - I think that was about whether the proper historic word was “prefect” or “procurator”, and etchings in stone confirmed that it was Luke who was accurate. To his credit, at least one of the atheists with whom I was conversing acknowledged that Luke was more trustworthy than Josephus and that Luke was proven by the stones themselves to have knowledge directly from that time period.
After debating with Carrier devotees for some time, I met socially with a friend who was working on his doctorate in antiquities and asked him how he deals with people who claim that the Gospels were “myth” written long after the witnesses were dead. He laughed and said, “Nobody serious in academia is still making those claims. There’s way too much evidence in stone and papyrus for anybody to credibly make those claims any more.” He said those arguments come from the RELIGIOUS STUDIES people, not from the HISTORY/ARCHAEOLOGY or ANTIQUITIES people. It’s the “religious studies” people who can give “scholarly opinions” (like Carrier does) without having any documentation to back them up. The hard sciences such as archaeology, geology, etc operate much more scientifically than that.
But enough of that. You still haven’t answered my question as to why the claims of Christianity arose from Jerusalem/Judea at the very time that the hostile witnesses were there to refute the claims - and as evidenced by both the Jewish and Roman writings showing they had much motivation to refute the claims if they could.
Why do you suppose that happened? Archaeological remains show Christian symbols in first-century ossuaries for Temple priests. Temple priests became Christians. Why is that, if their own guard watched the tomb of Jesus and knew that the resurrection claims were bunk?
Should have said, “That’s just one example OF THE DEBUNKING of the claim that the historical claims about Jesus and the early church were made up later, as ‘myth’.”
There's Ehrmann on the other side who claims that the evidence is solid that Jesus did exist, so it's not like non-believers all agree.
However, for me personally, the myth hypothesis makes more sense, and more accurately describes why the New Testament is so weird. Looking at the Epistles of Paul and reading them as if Paul were talking about Christ in a heavenly realm instead of Earth, it's a remarkable exercise. It works. I wouldn't expect any devout Christian to even be able to have the mindset to do such an exercise, as religious presupposition is so strong. But if you're ever able to do it objectively it's eye opening.
It perfectly explains why Paul, in writing over 100,000 words about Christianity, didn't once mention anything about the Virgin Birth, Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Christ's miracles, Jesus' ministry, Palm Sunday, Pontius Pilate, the Jewish Mob, nor does Paul even quote anything Jesus is supposed to have said.
The Christ myth theory, coupled together with the 100% proved fact that the Epistles came first, and the historical fiction gospels coming second, is the best explanation in my opinion.
I think many of the "majority of scholars" are presupposed to believe in the historical Jesus, and perhaps unaware of the evidence or think it unimportant.
...why the claims of Christianity arose from Jerusalem/Judea at the very time that the hostile witnesses were there to refute the claims?
Well, the Gospels were written around 70 or after, so it's highly doubtful that there were many "eyewitnesses" around to debunk the claims. It's likely that early Christians viewed the Gospels for what they were; a reinterpretation of history putting Jesus in middle of it, much like other people in the same era believed in other resurrection myths. There were all sorts of resurrection cults that combined Hellenism with other cultural myths, and Christianity just happened to be one that combined Hellenism and Judaism.
No one can say for sure, but I don't see any reason to believe that the explanation for all of this is that this ONE religion is actually true, and that the laws of nature were violated. You wouldn't accept this incredibly poor standard of evidence for anything not related to your religion.
Also, I needed to correct you on this. Carrier has a PhD in ancient history, and is an ancient history scholar, not a religious studies academic.
However, I think your friend may have confirmed a lot of what Carrier says about the poor nature of Christ-myth scholarship out there (even if your friend was wrong about Carrier's background).
Carrier said that the reason Christ-myth theories are rejected by a lot of academia is that most of the arguments have been really poor, and not thoroughly researched. Carrier is actually quite helpful in debunking a lot of the Christ-myth garbage out there that I'd read, such as Mithras being a resurrected god, whose birthday was on December 25th, and the thoroughly discredited idea that the Romans invented Jesus.
Carrier said that at many levels he was having to start from scratch.