The second major issue raised by The DaVinci Code regards the nature of Jesus of Nazareth.  Mr. Brown's "historians" reserve their most blistering attacks on orthodox Christianity for their assessments of his divinity.

"Historical" rejections of his divinity

Teabing begins with kind, albeit historically inaccurate, praise: "Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen.  As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies.  As a descendant of the lines of King Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews" (p. 231).

Which kings did he topple?  Pilate was no king.  Herod Antipas (Lk 23:7-12) was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, not a king.  And his "rule" survived Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.  As regards his "rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews," Jesus was one of thousands who could claim similar lineage to David and Solomon.  And he never tried a single time to seize such an earthly throne.  In fact, he testified before Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36).

While Teabing is complimentary toward the human Jesus, he is convinced that's all he was: "until that moment in history [at the Council of Nicaea, AD 325], Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.  A mortal" (p. 233, emphasis his).  Remember the claim that his followers saw him only as a man--we'll return to it momentarily.

It was Constantine who made Jesus a divine figure, according to Teabing: "By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was unchallengeable" (p. 233).  Making Christ divine "not only precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel--the Roman Catholic Church" (p. 233, emphasis his).

In conclusion, "It was all about power. . . . Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state.  Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power" (p. 233, emphasis his).

This position should not surprise us, according to Teabing.  Sophie asks, "And I assume devout Christians send you hate mail on a daily basis?"  Teabing replies, "Why would they? . . . The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith.  Jesus was indeed a great and powerful man.  Constantine's underhanded political maneuvers don't diminish the majesty of Christ's life.  Nobody is saying that Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives.  All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ's substantial influence and importance.  And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today" (p. 234).

Here's the summary: "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false" (p. 235, emphasis his).  I have never read a more devastating indictment of Christianity's central affirmation that Jesus is Lord.  Made in the guise of a supposedly reputable historian, claiming that "the vast majority of educated Christians" agree with him, it is easy to see why so many readers have been confused and misled.

Is there objective evidence for orthodox Christian affirmation of the divinity of Jesus Christ?  Absolutely.

Non-Christian evidence for Jesus

You would expect the Bible to claim that Jesus is Lord, as it does consistently.  For instance, Jesus makes a claim before his ascension which is found nowhere else in recorded literature.  No Nero, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, or Hitler ever thought to speak these words: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Mt 28:18).  If we believe the Bible, we must believe that Jesus is Lord and God.

Teabing would claim that the biblical records were doctored centuries later to promote this thesis, of course.  The previous section gives the lie to such supposition and makes clear that the Bible we have is the Bible they wrote.  But another critic might easily claim that Jesus' followers were mistaken.  We have what they wrote, but what they wrote was wrong, or even deceptive.  Is there evidence for the life and divinity of Christ outside the biblical materials?

We'll look at the record as it was produced chronologically, beginning with Thallus the Samaritan.  In A.D. 52 he wrote a work tracing the history of Greece from the Trojan War to his own day.  In it he describes the darkness of the crucifixion as an eclipse of the sun, attempting to refute its supernatural origin.  This is the earliest pagan reference to Jesus' existence and death, made by no friend of the faith.

Mara bar Serapion (writing after A.D. 70) adds, "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?  It was just after that their kingdom was abolished."  He makes clear that Jesus was seen by his followers as a "wise King," not just a religious teacher.  Such a claim would lead to the conflict with Rome which Suetonius documents next.

Suetonius (AD 65-135) records, "Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief" (Nero 16.2).  The Empire would not punish people who followed a religious teacher, only one who made him Lord in place of Caesar.  Clearly they did not see him as simply a human teacher or religious leader.

Now we turn to Tacitus (AD 55-120), the greatest ancient Roman historian, who writes (ca. AD 115): "Christus . . . suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition broke out" (Annals XV.44).  "Superstition" makes clear the fact that Tacitus considered the followers of Christus to believe something miraculous, not simply that he was a great human teacher.  The historian documents clearly his life and death, and the fact that his disciples considered him in some sense to be supernatural.

Pliny the Younger was a Roman administrator and governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor; 2 volumes of his letters are extant today.  The tenth of his correspondence books (written around AD 112) contains the earliest non-biblical description of Christian worship: "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a god."  Note that they worshiped Christ as God, not merely a religious teacher or leader.  And they did so in AD 112, not AD 325 after Constantine.

Finally we consider Flavius Josephus (AD 37/38--97), the great Jewish historian: "Ananias called a Sanhedrin together, brought before it James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others . . . and he caused them to be stoned" (Antiquities 20.9.1).  Thus the Christians called Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.

The so-called Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.3.3) is perhaps the most famous ancient non-biblical description of Jesus: "Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Whiston's translation).  While most historians do not believe that this paragraph represents Josephus's own faith commitment, it does document the beliefs of the Christians regarding Jesus.  And note that it was written before the end of the first century.

So what do we learn from non-biblical ancient records?  That Jesus existed, that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that the first Christians believed him to be the risen Lord, and that they worshiped him as God.  Everything orthodox Christianity claims for Jesus, the ancient records document as the belief of Christians from the beginning.  I am not claiming that these records prove that Jesus is Lord and God, just that they prove that the first Christians considered him to be Lord and God.

Teabing claims that "Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet" until "that moment in history" when Constantine and the Nicean Council declared him divine.  But Teabing is simply wrong on the merits.  The historical record conclusively proves otherwise.  The "vast majority of educated Christians" know this to be the true story of our faith.

Early Christian evidence for Jesus

Mr. Brown's thesis that Jesus was seen by his followers as human and not divine is disproven by non-biblical records made by non-Christian historians.  And when we turn to the ancient writings of Christians, we find even more clearly their consistent belief that Jesus was and is the divine Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Here is a brief sampling from hundreds of letters and documents written by the first followers of Jesus Christ.

The Didache (meaning "teaching") records the beliefs of the apostles.  In its current form it was compiled in the fourth century, but is based on documents and statements which go back to the first century of Christian faith.  It repeatedly calls Jesus "the Lord," and ends, "The Lord shall come and all his saints with him.  Then shall the world 'see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven'" (16.7-8).

Clement of Rome (AD 95) repeatedly refers to the "Lord Jesus Christ."  He also promises a "future resurrection" on the basis of his "raising the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead" (24.1).  Ignatius (AD 110-15) refers to "Jesus Christ our God" (intro. to Ephesians).  To the Smyrnaeans he writes, "I give glory to Jesus Christ, the God who has thus given you wisdom" (1.1).

And Justin the Martyr (AD 150) repeatedly refers to Jesus as the Son of God (cf. Apol. 22).  He also describes the fact that God raised him from the dead and brought him to heaven (Apol. 45).

We could go on and on.  Evidence that the first Christians believed Jesus to be divine is simply overwhelming.  Mr. Brown's claim that they saw Jesus as only a man is impossible to maintain on the basis of the historical record.  The early Christians were absolutely united in their common affirmation, Jesus is Lord.  They may have been right or wrong, but that is what they believed.

Why did Christians believe Jesus to be Lord?

We know Jesus existed, and was crucified at the hands of Pontius Pilate.  We know that the first Christians believed him to be raised from the dead (cf. the letter of Pliny the Younger, the descriptions of Josephus).  But believing doesn't make it so.  Is there objective evidence for their faith in a risen Savior?

David Hume was an 18th-century Scottish philosopher, known today as the "Father of Skepticism."  He made it his life's work to debunk assumptions which he considered to be unprovable, among them the veracity of miracles.  He argued for six criteria by which we should judge any person who claims to have witnessed a miracle: they should be numerous, intelligent, educated, of unquestioned integrity, willing to undergo severe loss if proven wrong, and their claims should be capable of easy validation.  Each is appropriate for determining the truthfulness of a witness.  How do the eyewitnesses to the risen Christ fare by such standards?

They were numerous: over 500 saw the resurrected Lord (1 Cor 15:6).  They were intelligent and well-educated, as the literature they produced makes clear (the Ac 4:13 claim that they were "unschooled, ordinary men" meant only that they had not attended rabbinic schools).  Paul was in fact trained by Gamaliel, the finest scholar in Judaism (Ac 22:3).  They were men and women of unquestioned integrity, clearly willing to undergo severe loss, as proven by their martyrdoms.  And their claims were easily validated, as witnessed by the empty tomb (cf. Ac 26:26, "this thing was not done in a corner").

So the witnesses were credible.  What of the objective evidence for their claims?  It is a fact of history that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and buried, and that on the third day his tomb was found empty.  Skeptics have struggled to explain the empty tomb ever since.

Three strategies center on theft.  The first was to claim that while the guards slept, the disciples stole the body (Mt 28:11-15).  How would sleeping guards know the identity of such thieves?  How could the disciples convince 500 people that the corpse was alive?  And why would these disciples then die for what they knew to be a lie?  A second approach claims that the women stole the body.  How would they overpower the guards?  How would they make a corpse look alive?  Why would they suffer and die for such fabrication?  A third explanation is that the authorities stole the body.  When the misguided disciples found an empty tomb, they announced a risen Lord.  But why would the authorities steal the body they had positioned guards to watch?  And when the Christians began preaching the resurrection, wouldn't they quickly produce the corpse?

A fourth approach is the wrong tomb theory--the grief-stricken women and apostles went to the wrong tomb, found it empty, and began announcing Easter.  But the women saw where he was buried (Mt 27:61); Joseph of Arimathea would have corrected the error (Mt 27:57-61); and the authorities would have gone to the correct tomb and produced the corpse.

A fifth strategy is the "swoon theory"--Jesus did not actually die on the cross.  He or his followers bribed the medical examiner to pronounce him dead, then he revived in the tomb and appeared to be resurrected.  But how could he survive burial clothes which cut off all air?  How could he shove aside the stone and overpower the guards?  How could he appear through walls (Jn 20:19, 26) and ascend to heaven (Ac 1:9)?

There is only one reasonable explanation for the empty tomb, the changed lives of the disciples, and the overnight explosion of the Christian movement upon the world stage: Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  He is therefore who he claimed to be: our Lord and God.

Worship on Sunday

Before we leave the question of Jesus' divinity, let's consider one other related assertion.  Robert Langdon, the Harvard "historian," states that "Originally, Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration day of the sun. . . . To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god's weekly tribute--Sunday" (pp. 232-3, emphasis his).  Is this true?  Again, let's check the historical record.

The Didache (written from documents which go back to the first century) references the fact that Christians worshiped on Sunday, and called this "the Lords' Day of the Lord."  This was centuries before Constantine.

Justin (writing in AD 150) further documents: "On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read . . ." (First Apology 67).  He describes their worship: "Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.  For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things which we have submitted to you also for your consideration" (ibid).

I have no idea why Mr. Brown would have his Harvard "historian" claim that Sunday was chosen by Constantine as the day of Christian worship.  Documents from two centuries earlier prove otherwise.  The "Lord's Day" to which John refers on Patmos (Revelation 1:10) was always the day when Christians worshiped their risen Lord.

In conclusion

Evidence from non-biblical records made both by non-Christians and by followers of Jesus Christ is clear: his disciples have always claimed that he is Lord and God.  Why else would the Empire have persecuted Christians?  They were moral citizens, as even their enemies admitted.  But they were unwilling to call Caesar their Lord, insisting instead on no Lord but Jesus.  And they died for their faith by the thousands.

What else explains the radical faith and courage of the first apostles except that they met the risen Lord and made him their God?  How else do we account for the rapid spread of the Christian movement?  How do we explain the changed lives of billions of people, mine included?

If you would like to learn for yourself whether or not Jesus is Lord, there's one more step you can take.  You can meet him for yourself.