In modern times some scholars argue that Jesus never c​laimed​ to be God, and that the first Christians didn’t believe he was God. The teaching that Jesus is God was a later one, they argue. Some say the belief originated with the Gospel of John, commonly thought to be written around sixty years after the death of Jesus. Others say the divinity of Jesus was a teaching invented at the Council of Nicea three centuries after the time of Jesus. But they agree that the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—don’t claim divinity for Christ.