Brown’s claim that the canonical gospels were altered to embellish Jesus’ divine nature, as if this idea was first conceived at or near the time of the Council of Nicea (325 C.E.), is also hogwash.  There are a number of verses in these gospels that clearly affirm Jesus as “God” or as the “Son of God” (see list below), and there is no evidence whatsoever that these verses are later additions to the texts in which they are now found.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

“Then Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.’  Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:27-28).

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

“Again the high priest asked Jesus, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’  Jesus said, ‘I am’” (Mark 14:61-62).

“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘But who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’’ (Matthew 16:15-16).

What is perhaps most significant is that the only Christian literature that is earlier than the gospels (namely the letters of Paul, which date from 50-60 C.E., making them the oldest surviving Christian literature), also speak of Jesus’ divinity.  For example there is the hymn Paul cites in Phillipians:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who,  though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phillipians 2:5-8).

There are letters of Paul that appear to be written later by his followers, but Phillipians is not one of them.  It is indisputably Pauline.  There are passages in letters of Paul that appear to have been altered in some way, but this passage is not one of them.