The Da Vinci Code

Tapestry of deceit

I was somewhat loathe to undertake this subject, not because it's not worth the time and effort (very little) to destroy the arguments of Dan Brown, but because everyone and their dog has already had too much to say about it.

I've read (and heard and seen) reams of material on (1) why Christians need to read the book and see the movie; (2) why Dan Brown is right; (3) why Dan Brown is wrong; (4) Dan Brown is the emodiment of antichrist; (5) why Christianity "must" rethink its roots, and about two dozen other equally insipid commentaries.

Let's begin here: Christians do NOT NEED to see the movie, or read the book. Why? Because it is a work of fiction, based on fiction (although Brown says differently), and arrives at fictional conclusions, none of which are edifying to those who call themselves by the name of Christ.

The arguments and postulations given by the books characters are nothing more than seedy innuendo that fly in the face of scripture....not the scripture that was supposedly recrafted, rewritten and hidden by the Church (according to Brown), but the scripture that was well established in the Christian Church long before any of the source material Brown uses ever came into existence.

Unfortunately, almost all of the previously written, spoken and televised commentaries on the Da Vinci Code fail to compare what is presented as "fact" against history, and scripture.

The book is based on a storyline that asserts the following: that Jesus married Mary Magdalen, they had children, that Jesus was not divine (that was invented by Constantine, according to Brown), that early Christianity had a multitude of forms and beliefs, that there were more than 80 Gospels, and that the Catholic Church conspired to hide the truth of Christian "diversity," which included goddess worship, mystical Christian schools, and blends of mystical Judaism and Greek philosophy.

Wow! What a storyline!! Especially for the conspiracy theorists and the gullible who either don't know or don't care a whit about truth.

Let's look at each of the major postulations and alleged "facts" that Brown calls upon to develop his story (and quite a story it is).

Jesus was not divine

We'll start with the source material that Brown bases most of his "facts" on, those being the writings of various Gnostic sources. Very early in the history of Christianity, a group of Christians fell into a belief pattern that was more Greek than Jewish, and incorporated heavily a well-developed Greek philosophy. Among some of the more esoteric meanderings of these Christians was a statement that Jesus (divine), although real in the spiritual sense, NEVER came to earth, or in the flesh, and that the Jesus (flesh) that was seen on the earth was no more than a regular mortal man who just happened to be a great teacher of spiritual truths.

What did the early church leaders have to think of this? John addressed the problem head on. In the Gospel named for him, John writes: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1). In John 1:14 we see "and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..." That seems to be pretty clear. The Word (Jesus) was with God and was God (sounds divine to me), and became flesh and lived on the earth. Hmmm. If this weren't enough, John wrote to a group of believers that apparently were being bedeviled by this same heretical philosophy, and said "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have SEEN WITH OUR EYES, which we have looked upon, and OUR HANDS HAVE HANDLED, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested and we have seen it, and bear witness..." (1 John 1:1-2). John continues by making a statement that has no possibility of being misconstrued: "hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is COME IN THE FLESH is of God: and every spirit that cofesses NOT that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is NOT of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard ..." (1 John 4:2-3)

In no uncertain terms, John states that anyone who denies that Jesus the divine came to this earth in fleshly form is NOT of God, and IS of the spirit of antichrist.

Score one for TRUTH (fact) and scripture, and put a negative mark on the side of Dan Brown and the Gnostics.

Jesus married Mary Magdalene.

Hmmmm. It would seem that if this were in any slight measure true, that some mention of this fact would have been made somewhere in the New Testament. Instead, what we see in the Gospels are a complete lack of mention of even a slight possibility of this. Keeping in mind that the 4 Gospels of the NT were penned during the first century (between roughly 50 to 65 AD), and that the oldest copies we have date to around 120 AD, there appears to be a discrepancy in Brown's postulation and established fact. Add to this the fact that in NONE of the epistles of Paul is such consideration given, or in the epistles of Peter, James, Jude or John. Even the unknown writer of Hebrews didn't say any such thing None of the Apostles had any difficulty in discussing marriage, or the fact that they themselves were or were not married, so why then wouldn't they mention Jesus' marriage if it were a fact? Simple....because it is NOT a fact.

The first historical allusion to any marriage doesn't show up until the late third century, and then it is not a statement of fact, but instead a very nebulous reference that, like the prophecies of Nostradamus, leave open to the imagination of a talented few the possibility of such an event.

Jesus had children. Well, if Jesus did NOT marry Mary, then they obviously had no children....UNLESS Jesus "cohabited" with her (or someone else), which would unequivocally mean that Jesus sinned, since fornication (sex outside of marriage) was (and is) a sin. What does scripture say? "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet WITHOUT SIN. "(Hebrews 4:15). While Jesus may have been tempted to sin, and apparently was, He still DID NOT SIN, or fall for the temptation. Therefore, Jesus DID NOT fornicate or cohabit, for if He had, He could not possibly have been without sin in the sight of God, and become our atonement or propitiation for sin.

Score two for scripture and TRUTH (fact).

Jesus' divinity was fabricated by Constantine.

(shaking head sadly). Once again, scripture comes to the rescue. As previously shown, John addresses the issue of Jesus' divinity in John 1:1. How about this: in John 20, the disciple Thomas expressed reservations (doubting Thomas) about Jesus' resurrection. When Jesus appeared and told Thomas to touch Him, Thomas responded: "And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God." Sounds divine to me.

In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul uses a unique word to describe Jesus. He says: "But to us [there is but] one God, the Father, of whom [are] all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom [are] all things, and we by him.." Paul uses the word kyrios for Lord. In the Greek, kyrios was uniquely used to denote divinity. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament which pre-dated Christ), the word kyrios was used in place of the Hebrew Jahweh, or YHWH, the unique name of the Holy God. Josephus wrote in the first century that the Jews refused to follow the Roman tradition of using kyrios to denote the divinity of their emperor, because "only God himself was kyrios." And, in the Didache, an extra-canonical book written in the late 100's, the Aramaic speaking Christians call Jesus "kyrios."

Irenaeus, in the second century, had a canon of faith he recited that was based on the 1 Cor. 8:6 statement of Jesus as kyrios. Also in the second century, Justin Martyr baptized int he name of the triune God, thus ackonwledging equality among the three.

By the time we arrive at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, the question was NOT whether Jesus was divine, but was one of "codifying" the beliefs of the early church while at the same time refuting the Arian and Gnostic heresies that had arisen concerning His divinity. Constantines part in all of this? Absolute zippo....nada.....none.....nothing. He was the host of the confab, and a good politician.

Early Christianity had a multitude of beliefs and practices.

In this allegation, Brown probably comes as close to truth as he ever does, while still doing a remarkable job of exaggeration. Early Christianity indeed had some odd practices, which is why Paul wrote so many letters to so many churches....and why Jesus had some specific things to say through His revelation to John. But the factual matter of practice and belief was NOT a "multitude," and was not indicative of a lack of continuity or solidity of foundational belief, but rather a series of misunderstandings in MINOR matters of practice. That the early church had those within it that "wrested with scripture to their own destruction" is self-evident, but there is NO indication, scripturally or historically, that the early church was beset with pagan practices and rituals or mysticism adopted from Greek and Jewish philosophies.

As noted earlier, John, along with Paul, James, Peter and Jude addressed some issues that were arising, notably in the form of the Gnostic heresies that were eventually promoted by Marcion and Arianus.

There were more than eighty Gospels considered for the New Testament.

*Sigh* Such utter hogwash! During the first 500 years of Christianity, there were many letters written, sermons reduced to writing, and codices or documents passed among the churches. But if everything that was called a Gospel is totaled, we MIGHT have about two dozen (that's 24). Out of those 24, about half are known about only because of some obscure quotation in one of the early church leaders missives, but there are no known fragments that have been found. In those quotations, there is nothing "unorthodox" to be found. That leaves about 12. Out of those 12, about one third are clearly Gnostic (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the latest "find", the Gospel of Judas), and the rest are either parallelled in the canonical Gospels or are neither Christian OR Gnostic. By the time of the council of Nicea, the "canon" had pretty well been established among the early Church leaders, with very few disagreements among them. Primary among the disagreement was the Revelation of John, with only a few being concerned over whether or not it actually was written by John the Apostle. One particular leader whose name escapes me right now also didn't like the general epistles of Peter and James, or Hebrews. Other than that, the 27 books we currently have, plus the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Gospel of Barnabas were the ONLY ones consistently referred to in the early church. Of the Old Testament books, all currently included were considered canon, and several others were looked upon highly ( but not considered canon), including the Book of Enoch referenced by Jude.

At this point I think it's appropriate to note that the Gnostic writings, of which much has been made lately, all began to surface in the mid-3rd century, around 250 AD. The oldest known copies that have been recovered all date to the 4th century. Although many of these "gospels" make a claim to be about things that Jesus did or said, not one of them directly identifies the author. The Gospels of Judas, Barnabas, Thomas and Mary Magdalene never make a claim to have been authored by their namesake. Add to that the fact that in each case, the writings say things that are at complete odds with the REAL Gospels certainly gives rise to the question of who authored them, and why....what was their agenda? Consider this....the Gospel of Judas allegedly tells about things Jesus spoke to Judas in private. Since Judas committed suicide within hours of Jesus' crucifixion, one must wonder....when did Judas have time to write these sayings down? And if he didn't, when did he have time to tell them to someone else? And who was the someone else? Most assuredly it wasn't Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or John, or any of the other disciples. And why did it take over 300 years for these sayings to come to light? Hmmmmmmm........have a ball with that one, conspiracy theorists!!

Brown's biggest stab at confusing the truth (where does confusion come from?) is in making constant references to the Dead Sea Scrolls as if they themselves included Gospels. Facts be known (something Mr. Brown apparently likes to play fast and loose with), the Dead Sea Scrolls containd NO Christian documents at all. They were Jewish, written by a Jewish sect (the Essenes), and were notably copies of OT scripture plus a few business documents in Greek.

The Da Vinci Code does prove several things, though....that the world clamors after conspiracy theories, there are multitudes of gullible folks who have itching ears, and that anything involving controversy over Christ will make the author rich! Brown's postulations also prove another thing beyond any shadow of a doubt, and that is that the deception begun in the Garden of Eden by satan is alive and well in todays modern world...and todays (and Browns) theories are the same as those practiced by Montanus, Arius, Marcion and Lucifer.

The early church fathers were in full agreement over certain "facts", and they were that Jesus is God, Jesus came in the flesh, Jesus died for our sins, Jesus was resurrected and that Jesus is coming again.....and it didn't take the Council of Nicea, Constantine, or Leonardo Da Vinci to make it true......or Dan Brown, for that matter.

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