What are the best naturalistic models for the minimal facts of the resurrection?

[Pytine]

When discussing the resurrection, Christian apologists often challenge atheists to provide an explanation for a set of claims/facts about the origins of Christianity (Jesus was crucified, people claimed Jesus appeared to them, sometimes the empty tomb, etc.). The atheist doesn't need to provide a full explanation, they only need to refute the resurrection hypothesis. However, some people have come up with models that explain the data we have. I'm interested in those models. Here are 3 of them:

How Christianity probably began by Paulogia

The RHBS model by James Fodor

How cognitive dissonance explains Christianity by Matthew Hartke

The last one is quite different from the first two, but I still include it as it gives an explanation for the origin of Christianity.

If you had to come up with a naturalistic explanation for the origin of Christianity, what would it be? I'm especially interested in the answers of Christians, since they believe the resurrection is better than any naturalistic explanation.

[elphidium55]

Kamil Gregor, also posits a naturalistic interpretation of the resurrection. You can find him on both the Pine Creek Doug and the Kam and Cam youtube channels.

[Difflugia]

If you had to come up with a naturalistic explanation for the origin of Christianity, what would it be?

You mentioned the "minimal facts" arguments. These generally derive from the arguments of Gary Habermas. He has a number of lists in different books, but I'll reproduce the one from The Case for the Resurrection by Habermas and Mike Licona.

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus' disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.
3. The Church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed.
4. The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed.
5. The tomb was empty.

Even if we take all of these facts at face value, the best naturalistic explanation is that a weird cult got lucky. Paul was the one that apparently started the Asian, "gentile" churches that allowed the cult to survive the destruction of Jerusalem. Assuming that the Roman church mentioned in Galatians was the precursor to the medieval Roman church, it was still small enough to later absorb Paul's "gospel" in a pretty thorough way. Crazy people starting cults isn't anything new and my guess is that what passes for pre-Pauline Church history is the Pauline churches trying to backfill details into their origin story after the destruction of the Jerusalem church. Even if a few of the broad details were accurate, there's nothing supernatural about a small religion managing to hit the right conditions to become a big religion.