Why did Mr. Brown write his novel?  According to his web site, "I chose this topic for personal reasons--primarily as an exploration of my own faith and my own ideas about religion.  I believe that one of the reasons the book has become controversial is that religion is a very hard thing to discuss in quantitative terms.  If you ask three people what it means to be a Christian, you will get three different answers.  Some feel being baptized is sufficient.  Others feel you must accept the Bible as immutable historical fact.  Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell.  Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. . . . I consider myself a student of many religions.  The more I learn, the more questions I have.  For me, the spiritual quest will be a lifelong work in progress.  Deciding to write about this topic was simply part of my own personal quest for understanding."

In this "personal quest for understanding," however, the author makes very clear his assessment of traditional, orthodox Christianity: "The Church's version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and . . . the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold" (pp. 266-7, emphasis his).

Now you and I must decide between Mr. Brown's version of Jesus' life and significance, and the one held sacred by Christians.  On the basis of objective historical evidence we have seen that the Bible we have today is trustworthy, reflecting with extreme accuracy the records left by first-century eyewitnesses to Jesus.  From the first, his followers believed him to be the risen Lord and worshiped him as God.

Now we are each offered a personal invitation to meet him for ourselves.  If we will acknowledge him as God, admit to him our mistakes and failures, ask his forgiveness, and invite him to be our Lord and Master, he will answer our prayer.  He will make us the children of God.  And we will spend eternity with him in his Father's house.

Of course, no discussion of historical evidence can compel us to make this decision.  Faith is a relationship, and all relationships require a commitment which transcends the evidence.  If you are waiting to be married until you can prove that you should, you'll never walk to the altar.  If you're waiting to have children until you can prove that you will be good parents, you'll never paint a nursery.  Every relationship in your life requires a level of faith commitment.

Such faith then becomes self-validating.  If you are married, you now know more about the marriage experience that you could possibly have understood beforehand.  No parent can explain fully to others what it is like to hold a newborn baby.

But let us not leave our subject with the possibility that Jesus Christ was a good man and nothing more.  That option does not really exist.  C. S. Lewis, himself a converted atheist, makes the point better than I can:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.'  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."

The New Testament writers are the real painter of the gospel.  If you'll examine the historical evidence for their truth claims, I believe you'll find a compelling case for trusting Christ as your personal Savior and Lord.  The rest is up to you.