Hong's claim about himself is specific and consistent across the Taiping documents: he is the second son of God, Jesus' younger brother, with a wife in heaven and a family relationship rather than a divine nature. Protestant missionaries who visited Nanjing in the 1850s found this intolerable while finding a great deal else familiar — the printed Bible, the Sabbath, the ban on idols and opium, the hymns. Some, including Issachar Roberts, who had taught Hong briefly in Guangzhou, went to Nanjing hoping to correct him and left in disgust. The question of whether the Taiping were Christians was argued fiercely at the time and has never been settled since.