Well, that's what I say towards the end of the article. The problem is that there are two conflicting yet plausible accounts of Christianity's origin. One posits the man Jesus who gained a following and was deified in something like the manner you laid out.

The other is some Christ myth theory, which says that Jesus began as a mythical figure and was historicized by the Church for political or other dubious reasons (or based on a failure to understand the initial Gnostic allegories and myths).

So the question is whether we can know now which scenario is more probable. And that's where I turn to apathetic agnosticism.