Tuning one's historical radar to oral tradition and belief systems causes one to recognize that folklore tends to embrace people and events with an amazing rapidity. Stories told to be believed can be extremely persuasive and they circulate quickly. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "A lie can travel around the world before the truth gets its boots on." Saying anything is "a lie" is extremely harsh from a folklore point of view, because we don't want to be in the position to judge belief - but you get my point.

One common motif from the realm of folklore is the denial of death for a culture hero. After the demise of Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway (995 to 1000), for example, stories quickly circulated that he was alive and was going to return to reclaim his crown. Similarly, rumors persist about the survival of Hitler. And let's not forget Jim Morrison, Elvis, or Andy Kaufman! People circulate stories about the survival of cultural heroes, perhaps because they want them to be true or perhaps because someone who seems so alive and relevant to the time cannot simply depart the world's stage that easily. The reason for this may be hard to fathom, but stories about the survival of the culture hero are a common reaction in folk belief.

I am not surprised that these sorts of stories embraced someone in Jerusalem during first century. The easiest explanation for these stories is that they are merely part of the common currency of the folk, a predictable folkloristic reaction to a tragic situation. The more difficult explanation would be to accept that there was a deity who walked the earth. That's not to say that it is impossible - calm down true believers! - it's just to say that folklore offers an explanation for all these instances of stories about survival.

This has not been my experience as a student of history or even as a Christian -- for one, there's a staggering wealth of historical topics that in no way concern first-century Christianity in the Near East and upon which the question of whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was the son of the Christian God has little bearing. Historians come from a full range of religious backgrounds, and they deal with the histories and events of a full range of religious traditions as well as people who participate in those traditions. As a historian, I don't discount the validity of religious experience and religious feeling in all its strangeness -- I think interpreting religious practices in history through the lens of "they must have been lying" or "there must be a purely material explanation for this" is not necessarily productive and it can be incredibly condescending, especially applied to religions beyond Christianity -- but it's not my business (with respect to myself as a student of history, even as someone who particularly loves religious history) whether any particular god or gods exist even if I'm directly studying oral traditions surrounding their existence and worship. Whether or not "most" historians come from an Abrahamic religious background (just because of the sheer number of people in the world who do) or personally practice an Abrahamic faith, even specifically Christianity, is not a support in itself for the historical Jesus of Nazareth being divine. That's not how that works.

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This is going to be a reply based primarily on my personal and professional experience as someone who studies and writes about the past in general, given that I'm not actually a biblical scholar.

I should begin this answer by declaring that I am a Christian, and a practising one at that. I believe in a single supreme God, that Jesus Christ was an incarnation of that God, and that the Holy Spirit is active in the world. I believe in the crucifixion, in the empty tomb and in the Resurrection. I believe that the Church was established by Christ after the Resurrection to spread a particular message around the world, and win converts to the faith we today call Christianity, which I as such believe to be the closest thing we have to a 'One True Faith' on Earth. In all these senses it's safe to say my beliefs are broadly in line with the global Christian average (at least as presented by Church leaders around the world); in others they are not in alignment, but that isn't really relevant to this question. My views on the life of Jesus, in the nature of God as a being and in the events of Jesus' life conform to Christian orthodoxy. I haven't always held these views - I was an atheist for many years before coming to Christianity.

I don't study the Bible or the life and times of Jesus in any professional way, but I am a historian with extensive academic training. Whilst my general education is not as well rounded as many of my professional peers thanks to the particular path I took to university, I was very privileged to study my discipline at world-class institutions of higher learning, and I am lucky enough to hold multiple advanced qualifications from those institutions. I would meet the definitions of 'intelligent' and 'well-educated' in the eyes of most people. In Britain, where I live and work, tracking religious belief is a notoriously difficult task. Calling oneself 'Christian' (or a specific denomination) is as much a cultural identity marker as it is a statement of belief, and unpicking what people mean from answering survey questions can be complex (because we never know for sure how the respondent is interpreting the phrasing of a belief-based question). There is constant debate and discussion over whether or not education reduces religiosity in the western world, but my understanding is that it does seem generally to be the case in the west that a higher level of formal education correlates with a reduced likelihood to express a belief in God.

It must be said that in my experience, I am quite the anomaly in Britain. I am generally quite open about my faith even in professional settings where it is appropriate, and it is uncommon for me to encounter someone else who considers themselves to be a practising Christian. It is somewhat rarer still for me to encounter someone who shares a conviction of faith in the Resurrection as an actual event, as opposed to a more symbolic reading of the events depicted in scripture. Whilst it might just be that I happen to have moved in unusually secular academic circles, it is also fairly uncommon for me to encounter someone who would consider themselves to be an Atheist with a capital-A, or fiercely anti-religion, but my personal experience has been that professional academics are generally irreligious on the whole. It is the case that among the over 25s, the irreligious are more likely to be degree holders (26%) than Anglicans (17%) by a significant margin according to one respectable survey. Catholics fare much better in that survey but 'Catholic' remains an extremely strong and important cultural identifier across chunks of Britain, and does not necessarily correlate with religious belief - or at least conformity to official Church doctrine - very well at all.

So I can't tell you for certain that across the world the vast majority of professional historians are Christians, but it certainly seems unlikely (not in the least because there are also many historians from countries where Christianity is a minority religion!). I also can't tell you what the demographics of religious belief are in theology or biblical studies courses in higher education - but it stands to reason that you are much more likely to end up on a programme focused on the Bible if you already have an interest in it, and you are in turn more likely to have an interest in the Bible if it holds some special significance to you. As /u/cdesmoulins explains, a majority of Biblical scholars being Christians would not prove the authenticity of the Bible or the legitimacy of the Christian faith - it simply shows that Christians are most likely to be interested in the history of the Bible, which is unsurprising given that it is our holy book and the main source/foundation for our articles of faith. The strong representation of Christians in the western world helps, too.

In my own personal life, I have three copies of the Bible. One I keep clean and unmarked, with no reference except where the translation uses footnotes to indicate alternative renderings of a word/phrase in English or other ancient manuscripts. This I use when I am interested solely in the emotional and spiritual significance of the words to me in a particular moment; when I want to get to grips with how I feel about and respond to scripture. The other is an academic study Bible with commentary from Biblical scholars, which I use alongside academic material and research to deepen my understanding of the historical and social context in which the text was written. The final is a personal study copy where I add my own thoughts and comments from my use of the other two, which differ in character depending on the passage. Though I am not an ancient historian, I am fortunate enough that my training provides me with the critical thinking and historical analysis skills to scrutinise the Bible as an historical document and not just a religious one; I am able to get to the grips with how academic historians and biblical scholars have approached the text because I am able to understand their mindset and the skills they have employed, regardless of their own personal beliefs.

Now here's something important to understand: professionals and experts studying the Bible, and the life of Jesus Christ, are generally not interested in flatly proving or disproving the Resurrection. They are on the whole going to be much more interested in understanding what early Christians - the people who wrote the New Testament - thought about the Resurrection; what they believed and why they believed it. Historians try their best to leave their personal biases at the door when writing history, and to make arguments from the evidence we have to hand rather than to advance the argument we would like to be right. Whether or not the Resurrection actually happened does not matter when you're writing about the first Christians and their beliefs; what matters is that they believed it happened. It is a common belief in radical anti-religion circles online that Jesus Christ is a fictional character who never existed but you would be hard pressed to find an irreligious scholar who shares that view - mainstream academia overwhelmingly agrees Jesus was a real person. Whilst it is the case that the Resurrection either did or didn't happen in some objective material way, it is not the case that we can neatly and concretely prove or disprove it in the historical record.

It's also important to understand that historians who offer alternative perspectives or explanations for events are not necessarily trying to be anti-Christian or demean faith. 'The Bible is true because it is the Word of God' is not an acceptable thesis in History. It creates a paradox (you believe in the Bible because you believe in God; you believe in God because you believe in the Bible. /u/itsallfolklore has pointed out that an alternative explanation of Christ's deification in Christian faith is that this is simply another case of a phenomenon that occurs throughout history, and for complex historical reasons this particular piece of folk lore managed to grow into a global religion. That's a challenge to, but not an attack on, the Christian faith. Understanding alternative perspectives helps me to consider what I believe and why I believe it. Alternative explanations based on historical research help me form an understanding of why I feel my faith has unique worth and should still be my faith of choice even when the world is filled with competing claims about the nature of God and His relationship with the world. Whilst this isn't the forum for an in-depth discussion, examining the Bible as a historical document and reading what experts have to say on the subject has both challenged and supported my faith in different ways. On the whole, my faith has been enriched by developing a stronger understanding of the Bible from the colder perspective of historical studies but there are others who find their faith seriously hurt by that process.