DEALING
WITH THE DA VINCI CODE
by
The Da Vinci Code, by
Dan Brown, has sold over 60 million copies worldwide, been
translated into at least 42 languages, and has just been released as a profitable movie.
It’s made a lot of money and attracted
much attention and controversy. Why
such controversy over a novel?
Wherever I went, I heard
about the book.
I live in
I decided to read it myself.
My conclusion –
the book is a fraud. The
Da Vinci Code (DVC)
presents false information about history
and the Christian faith. Its
arguments are incoherent and contradictory. And yet , it has convinced many people. According to polls, a significant
percentage of the book’s readers buy into the book’s claims.
Therefore, in
one manner or another, a believing Christian has to deal with it.
That is the purpose of this
article.
SECTIONS :
THE MANY ERRORS AND DISTORTIONS OF THE DA VINCI CODE
WHEN WAS THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITTEN ?
DID THE EARLY CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN THE DEITY OF CHRIST ?
PAGANISM AND THE "DIVINE FEMININE"
GNOSTICISM
THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA
VATICAN ANACHRONISMS AND OTHER FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY
But it’s only a novel,
some say . What’s the big deal?
In the first place, ideas are important . Ideas have consequence, regardless of what form
of literature in which they appear. Fiction is a powerful method of promulgating ideas.
Secondly , author Dan Brown sees The Da Vinci Code as more than a
novel. The novel format is only a
vehicle for presenting his point of view.
Why do I think that? Three
reasons.
1.
At the beginning of the novel,
on a page entitled “Fact”, Dan Brown assures the reader that “All descriptions
of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are
accurate.”
2.
In interviews, Dan Brown has
said the information and history presented in The Da Vinci Code is accurate.
For example, on the
“Today Show”, Brown was asked “How much is this
based on reality
in terms of things that actually occurred?” To which Brown
replied
“Absolutely all of it. Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of
the art,
architecture, secret rituals, secret societies—all of that is historical
fact.”
3.
The Da Vinci Code is supposedly of
the thriller genre. But the action is frequently interrupted
by long monologues and dialogues, where characters explain Dan Brown’s view of history. The DVC plot is a vehicle for presenting this point of view. So what is the Dan Brown’s worldview?
?
Here, in a
nutshell, is the religio-historical view being propagated in The Da Vinci Code.
According to Dan
Brown, ancient paganism was more humane and balanced than Christianity, it was
in touch with the “divine feminine” and “the goddess”.
According to
The Da Vinci Code (DVC) Jesus of
According to Brown, Jesus married Mary Magdalene and when Jesus was
crucified she was pregnant with their child.
In Brown’s gospel, there is no resurrection. But, for some unexplained
reasons, there were followers of Jesus after his crucifixion. In fact, there
were followers of Christ, who didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, and
didn’t believe in the resurrection, from the time of Christ until the 300s, when
After Jesus was crucified, Brown asserts that Mary Magdalene escaped to France, where Brown
says, their daughter Sarah was
born. The line was preserved and
later, a descendant of Sarah married into what became the French royal
family.
According to Brown, in the
300s A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to abandon paganism in favor of
Christianity. At this time, according to Brown, Christianity was just some kind
of belief that Jesus was a good man. But
However,
throughout history, the bloodline and the truth were preserved. In the Middle
Ages, the crusader Godfrey of Bouillon, a descendent of the Merovingians,
founded the Priory of Sion, an organization which has continued to the present
day, guarding the truth about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the “divine feminine”.
There really isn’t much of a plot. It involves Robert Langdon, an American
professor in
THE MANY ERRORS AND DISTORTIONS OF THE
DA VINCI CODE
The book’s main ideas are filled with distortions and unsupported
assertions . The arguments are contradictory. It presents bogus history, phony
etymologies, anachronisms and errors of geography and astronomy. Dan Brown didn’t even take the time to
carefully research the details, to make it seem more realistic, as Tom Clancey and other novelists would
have .
There are already plenty of books and articles that refute the many wrong
ideas of this novel. I would like
to deal with the historical and
religious errors which are the main ideas of THE DA VINCI CODE
.
WHEN WAS THE NEW TESTAMENT
WRITTEN ?
Is the New Testament
an authentic document, written in the 1st century A.D, or was it put
together later and canonized by
Here is Dan Brown’s
view in DVC :
“
Brown says Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John were written later than the “true gospels”,which were repressed.
On the
contrary, the historical evidence indicates that the 4 gospels and the other
New Testament books were
written in the 1st century. That’s what the evidence indicates.
The problem is that most
people are completely unaware of how the Bible was transmitted to
us. Most schools don’t talk about
it . Even the church usually ignores it. Therefore, people are easily fooled by
Dan Brown’s nonsense.
How were ancient books transmitted to us and how can their age and authenticity
be determined?
Before the age of
printing, ancient books were copied and re-copied by hand.
To determine the authenticity of an ancient
book, several factors are considered.
We can see
how many manuscripts are found, where they were found, and how old they are.
Determinations of the age of manuscripts are made by carbon-14 dating and by
examining the writing style of the manuscripts.
Before looking at the evidence for the New Testament, let’s look at some
evidence for other ancient historical books.
Julius Caesar wrote a book called The Gallic Wars . Nobody would doubt the
authenticity of Caesar’s book. Yet
the book is based on only 10 existing manuscripts. And the earliest manuscript
of The Gallic Wars was
copied 950 years after Caesar first wrote it.
The Annals of Roman historian Tacitus were written in
the early second century. Yet its
transmission to us is based on only two manuscripts. Part of the Annals
is based on a manuscript from
The works
of Plato and Aristotle are based on manuscripts copied 1500 and 1400 years after
Plato and Aristotle wrote them. Yet
nobody doubts Plato and Aristotle .
These long gaps between composition and earliest copies, and the scarcity
of copies, is rather typical of ancient works.
The New Testament, however, is the best attested collection of literature
from ancient times. It surpasses all others in the quantity and antiquity of
its manuscripts.
There are over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts in the original Greek
language, and
The Greek manuscripts include some very early ones.
The earliest known
manuscript fragment of a Biblical book is the “John Rylands Fragment”, a
fragment of the Gospel of John. This fragment is dated at
The Bodmer papyri form an
early set of New Testament manuscripts.
One papyrus was copied about
The Chester Beatty Papyri , dated in the 200s, include portions of the Four Gospels and Acts, ten epistles of Paul, Hebrews
and Revelation.
The Siniaticus manuscript contains the entire New Testament, and was
copied in the early 300s.
These earliest manuscripts were written in the Greek. But even before
The manuscript evidence indicates the New Testament
books were written in the 1st century, long before
Besides the Biblical manuscripts themselves, there is also much evidence from
early church writers, who wrote in the generations after the apostles until
Clement of
All
told, there are 86,000 New
Testament quotes in the works of the ancient church writers and in the
lectionaries (liturgy books). There
are so many quotes that, if the New Testament disappeared, all but 20 verses (at most) could be reconstructed from quotes
in the works of writers and
lectionaries written within 200 years of the ministry of Christ.
The history described in
the canonical gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John portray the
historical situation of 1st-century Israel, not of Asia Minor or Rome
of the 4th century A.D..
It provides accurate information about
Dan Brown considers that Gnostic and apocryphal books have more reliable
information about Christ than the books of the New Testament. Yet, the evidence
indicates that the New Testemant was written in the 1st century A.D.
and these other books were written later.
DID EARLY CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN THE DEITY OF
CHRIST ?
Dan
Brown says they didn’t.
Brown tells readers that , “…until that moment in history (Council of
Nicea,
So what did the early Christians believe, according to DVC ?
Brown isn’t too clear about that. If they didn’t believe in the deity of
Christ, the sacrificial atonement, and the resurrection, what did they believe? When the early Christians died as
martyrs, what did they die for?
According to Brown, they apparently believed that Jesus was a really good
man, a prophet and the Messiah (though Brown never explains the significance of
that term). And, I suppose Brown
would say they believed in the “divine feminine”.
The New Testament is the oldest body of Christian literature , and dates
from the first century. It tells us that the early Christians believed Jesus was
the Son of God, the Savior, and that He had risen from the dead. That’s what
they were willing to die for, not “the divine feminine”.
It can also be demonstrated historically that the Christians who lived
between the first century and the 4th century (time of
Here are some quotes from some pre-Constantinian church writers who affirm the
church’s belief in the deity of Christ:
POLYCARP
(110-130)
This writer was a disciple of the apostle John, and was executed as a martyr in
IGNATIUS OF
This writer
spoke of “Jesus
Christ, our God”, spoke of Christ’s blood as “God’s blood”, called Jesus “God
incarnate” and said that in Jesus, “God was revealing himself as a man.”
JUSTIN MARTY (c.
“…Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts.”
ATHENAGORAS THE
ATHENIAN (176-180)
Wrote of “God the Father”, “God the Son” and “the Holy Spirit”.
MELITO OF
Melito of Sardis wrote that Christ “rises from the dead as God, being by
nature both God and man”.
Wrote that Christ “was the true God existing before the ages” (A.D. 177)
TATIAN the ASSYRIAN (A.D. 170)
“we report that God was born in the form of a man.”
IRENAEUS OF
“Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King…”
wrote that Christ is himself in his own right God and Lord.””” TERTULLIAN
c.
This was the first writer to
use the term “trinitas” to refer to God. Tertullian wrote that Christ has both a human and
divine nature. Wrote that
Christ “is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with
God…..God of God… God and man united.”
Tertullian wrote “God alone is
without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also
God.”
CLEMENT OF
“…the Christ….has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and
man….”
Wrote that Jesus is “quite evidently true God..”
ORIGEN: (
“Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he
remained what he was: God.” The Fundamental Doctrines.
The evidence is clear. The
pre-Constantinian Christian church
did believe in the deity of Christ and it was not invented by the emperor
Constantine in
Even the pagans realized that Christians worshipped Christ. For example, Pliny the Younger served as a Roman governor in
Dan Brown tells us that pagans
were tolerant people in touch with their feminine side. Pliny manifested this by
persecuting Christians. He believed
that Christians had a “depraved, excessive superstition” and he tortured
Christians and executed them. Pliny
also gave them a chance to recant, if they would reject Christ they would be
spared. Some took him up on this offer.
In a letter to the emperor
Trajan, Pliny sent his version of Christianity that he received from
ex-Christians. Pliny reported that
they said they
that “they were accustomed to
meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a
god….” Of course Pliny didn’t
really understand Christianity and confused it with pagan ideas. But he did
understand that Christians worshipped Christ, which is something Dan Brown says
they didn’t do until two centuries later.
But here is Pliny, two centuries before Nicea, saying that Christians
worshipped Christ.
Also, an example of
anti-Christian graffiti from a second-century Roman army barracks mocks a Roman
soldier who was a Christian, and it reads “Alaxamenos worships his god”. Once again, this Roman soldier confused
Christian doctrine with pagan ideas, but he did understand that Christians
worshipped Christ.
PAGANISM AND THE
“DIVINE FEMININE”
Was paganism really more balanced and humane than Christianity? That’s what Brown would have us believe.
Until “Constantinian
Christianity ” came along in
“this concept of woman as life-bringer was the foundation of ancient
religion. Childbirth was mystical and powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to
embezzle the female’s creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man
the creator…”
The part
about “making man the creator” is totally false. Christian philosophy teaches God, not
man is the creator.
But what
of Brown’s views of paganism and “the divine feminine”?
Brown
extols “the divine feminine” and as
usual he’s rather vague about what
that really means. Brown says it was the fault of
So how about the ancient Assyrians, who would conquer other nations and
skin captives alive. Were they
followers of the “divine
feminine”? The ancient
Babylonians and Scythians ? Did
they follow “the divine feminine”?
It’s easy to romanticize ancient pagan societies. Certainly, pagan society had great accomplishments in art and
culture, and everything about these cultures was not bad. However, paganism also also included much
fear and abject cruelty.
In northern Europe
my Anglo-Saxon ancestors practiced human sacrifice as did the
Aztecs and other pre-Hispanic cultures of
Greco-Roman civilization, with all its great accomplishments, permitted
gladiator fights and other cruelties. Newborn baby girls, if their fathers
didn’t want to keep them, were left outside where they would either be picked up
by someone else or die. That
doesn’t sound very in tune with “the divine feminine”.
Sociologist Rodney Stark argues that early Christianity was very
good for
women:
“Christian women had tremendous advantages compared to the
woman next door, who was like them in every way except
that she was a pagan…..Most pagan girls were married off around
age 11, before puberty, and they had nothing to say about
it,
and they got married to some 35-year-old guy. Christian women
had
plenty of say in the matter and tended to marry around age 18.
Abortion was a huge killer of women in this period, but Christian
women were spared that. And
infanticide – pagans killed little girls
left and right. We’ve
unearthed sewers clogged with the bones of
newborn girls. But
Christians prohibited this.
Consequently, the
sex ratio changed and Christians didn’t have the enormous shortage
of women that plagued the rest of the empire”.
Dan Brown, in other
words, is pulling the wool over our eyes when he talks about paganism and “the
divine feminism”.
GNOSTICISM
In the DVC, Brown holds
up the ancient Gnostic Gospels as reflecting the truth of early
Christianity in contrast to that of the canonical gospels. Here’s what he
says
“There are photocopies of the Nag Hammadi
and
This a lot of bunk and
highlights Brown’s poor research.
In the first place, the Dead Sea Scrolls have nothing to do with
Gnosticism, they are Old Testament and Jewish documents. So why does Brown bring them up? Either
he is confused himself, or supposes that the general public is ignorant enough
to be easily confused by this reference.
The Nag Hammadi documents are Gnostic documents. But the Gnostic
documents do not pre-date the canonical Gospels.The gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John were written in the first century A.D. while the “ Gnostic Gospels”
were written in the second century and later.
Gnosticism was an ancient complex of beliefs that predated the Christian
era.
It was radically different
from the Judeo-Christian worldview. Gnosticism taught the that matter was evil
and spirit was good , and that the original divinity was
unknowable.
According to Gnosticism the
universe was populated by a succession of divine beings (“emanations”) and that
the Gnostics themselves obtained
secret knowledge.
Gnosticism was a competitor of
Christianity and whenever it
infiltrated the church it was
rightly considered a
heresy.
In Brown’s worldview, the Gnostics viewed Jesus as human and later,
Constantine and collaborators invented the divinity of
Christ.
But in reality , orthodox Christianity viewed
– and still views - Christ as both
human and divine. In contrast,
Gnostics who tried to gnosticise
Christianity did not view Jesus
Christ as the Savior, Son of God and Son of Man. Instead they viewed Christ as
another Gnostic emanation and a revealer of secret knowledge. Some taught that Jesus was a spirit who
only appeared to have a material body, while others made a distinction between
Jesus the Man and Christ the divine spirit . But, even the Gnostics didn’t view
Christ as just a man.
So Brown is wrong about when the Gnostic gospels were written, and he’s
wrong about their point of view.
Also, the Gnostics weren’t
believers of Brown’s beloved “divine feminine”. For example, in a Gnostic
document called “The Gospel According
the Mary Magdalene”, chapter 5, verse 3, Mary Magdalene tells the other
Disciples:
“ But rather, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and
made us into Men.”
“Made us into men?” What
about the “divine feminine”?
THE MARY MAGDALENE QUESTION
According
to Dan Brown, Mary Magdalene was of the royal line of the tribe of Benjamin
and married Jesus. Their daughter
Sarah was born in
This
is all bunk. In the first place,
the Bible never says Mary Magdalene was of the royal house of Benjamin. The only royal house of Benjamin was the
family of Saul, replaced by the family of David (tribe of
There is absolutely no
evidence that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus. The ancient Gnostic texts
didn’t say that, nor did the ancient and medieval Mary Magdalene legends.
Brown tells us that “the
The Bible does report that
Mary Magdalene was the first person to see Jesus after His resurrection. If they were really trying to hide the
truth about Mary Magdalane, seems like they would have taken that out, wouldn’t
they?
THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA
According to
Brown, “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was
officially proposed and voted on by
the Council of Nicaea (
According to Dan Brown, at the council of Nicaea, Constantine and his
fellow conspirators voted on Christ’s deity (with the deity faction barely
outvoting the humanity faction) and of choosing the books of the New Testament.
But that’s
not what happened.
The
Council of Nicaea, in
The Council of
Nicaea discussed the Arian
controversy. Arianism was a 4th-century heresy promulgated by a
certain Arius, who taught that Jesus was not fully divine but a created being,
somewhat similar to the belief of
the contemporary sect known as the
“Jehovah’s Witnesses”. Arianism was condemned by the
Council of Nicaea.
But even the Arian heretics did not believe that Jesus was “only a man” as Brown says pre-Constantinian Christians
did. The Arians taught that Jesus was
the first created being with a
derived divinity, but not equal to God. The orthodox church believed in both
Jesus’ humanity and deity.
VATICAN ANACHRONISMS AND
OTHER FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY
Brown says of his Mary Magdalene claim that “ this was a secret the
But in the fourth century, the
Nevertheless, Brown constantly talks about conspiracies of the
The papacy was a historical development of the authority of the bishop of
But Brown talks about the “
Brown constantly talks about the conspiracies of “The Vatican”.
Dan Brown is so obsessed with
Catholicism the
“
What about the
Protestants? The Anglican church is only mentioned once.
What about the Eastern Orthodox church? What about the ancient
Belief in the
deity of Christ is not limited to Roman Catholics, but to all Christians. You’d never know that from
The Da Vinci Code
.
THE PRIORY OF SION
According to DVC, the Priory of Sion is an organization that was
founded in the Middle Ages and still exists. Its members have included Leonardo
Da Vinci, Mozart, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Walt
Disney.
The
Priory, according to Brown, guarded the secret of Mary Magdalene.
Once again,
The DVC is wrong.
In
Also,
unlike what the book said, there is no known connection between the Priory of
Sion and the Knights Templar.
THE LAST SUPPER IN ART
Religious art is not identical with religious faith. An artist might paint a religious subject
for religious reasons, commercial or artistic reasons, or a combination of
factors .
Renaissance religious artwork is great artwork, but not always
historically accurate. The
Bible characters and surroundings often resemble Italians in Renaissance Italy more than Hebrews in the ancient
Leonardo’s “The Last Supper”
portrays Christ, His disciples, the table and the room more as they would have
appeared in Renaissance Italy than in 1st-century
But The Da Vinci Code , Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last
Supper “ is presented as a clue to the truth of Mary Magdalene and
the rest of the theory.
Brown says that the individual next to Christ is not John the apostle, as
commonly believed, but Mary Magdalene. http://fits.depauw.edu/aharris/Courses/ArtH132/galleries/images/fullsize/fs_da_Vinci_Last_Supper_cleaned.jpg
However, Leonardo was not the only artist to paint a rendition of the last supper. And,
it was a custom in art, for centuries, to
portray the apostle John as a young, beardless man.
Here are some examples the reader can
view for himself.
“The Last Supper” by Dieric Bouts the elder,
http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bouts/bouts3.html
”The Last Supper” by Andrea del
Castagno ,
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/castagno/castagno6.html
“The Last Supper” by Duccio di Buoninsegna -
Maestá Siena
http://www.abcgallery.com/D/duccio/duccio62.html
“The Last Supper” by Domenico
Ghirlandaio,
http://www.abcgallery.com/G/ghirlandao/ghirlandaio9.html
“The Last Supper” Pietro Lorenzetti ,
http://www.abcgallery.com/L/lorenzetti/plorenzetti8.html
Each of these paintings
portrays the apostle John as a young, beardless man seated next to Christ. Were all these artists part of a
conspiracy?
Even Dan Brown himself, in the special illustrated edition of the The Da Vinci Code (page 258, chapter 58)
includes three other Last Supper renditions, each of which portrays a young,
beardless man, which Brown mistakenly calls a woman.
Every person must ask himself the question “What do I believe about Jesus
Christ?”
Here is Dan Brown’s answer in The Da Vinci Code:
“Jesus
Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most
enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied
Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies.
As a descendant of the lines of King Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a
rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews.” DVC Chapter 55
Dan Brown doesn’t want to believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, that he
was the Son of God who came to save us. But Brown still wants to believe Christ
was a good person.
So Brown’s version of Christ in the DVC novel is that Jesus wasn’t
God in the flesh and never claimed to be, and was just a great mortal
prophet. Brown, doesn’t present concrete ideas about Christ, except that
he was a great man, a teacher and the “Messiah”, although Brown never explains
what the term “Messiah” signifies.
And Brown can never explain why Jesus’ followers in ancient times were
willing to die for Him.
In other words,
if they didn’t believe in the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, or
salvation through Christ, what did they believe? Oh yes, the “divine feminine”, Brown
tells us. That’s what they
faced death in the coliseum for!
Despite what Brown
would have us believe, Jesus of Nazareth did claim deity and in various ways. He
claimed to be the Savior, He claimed He could forgive sins, that He would die
for the sins of the world and rise again.
Jesus demanded that his disciples deny themselves and follow Him (Luke
9:23) and that if they loved Him they would obey Him (John 14:15). He said that
whoever believes in Him would have eternal life(John 6:47) and that “I am the
Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through Me” (John
14:6). Christ affirmed his
deity when He stated that “Before Abraham was, I Am” (John 8:58) a clear
affirmation of deity.
No other great religious leader made the claims that Christ did – not
Moses, not Confucius, not Buddha, not Paul, not Mohammed. Besides Jesus Christ, the only religious
leaders who have claimed deity have been conmen or madmen. Therefore, one must
seriously consider Christ’s claims.
If Jesus was a madman or a false teacher, he would deserve no honor. But
if he is the Son of God, He deserves worship. There is no middle ground, as
Brown would have us believe.
As C.S. Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity you can’t say Jesus
was a good teacher and deny His deity. Because a good teacher who was just a man
would not claim to be God.
Jesus claimed deity, and one
must either deny this claim or accept it. Dan Brown wants to have it both ways,
and you can’t.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, is a novel that attempts to be
more than a novel. The novel form
is only a vehicle to promulgate a point of view. That point of view, that
paganism was superior to Christianity, that the early Christians didn’t believe
in the deity of Christ, and that Christ married Mary Magdalene and they had
descendants who are alive today.
These assertions are historically groundless and easy to disprove. They
are only taken seriously because so many people want to believe them.
Brown also (accidently or intentionally) confuses the early Christians,
the Gnostics and the Arians. He
ignores the overwhelming evidence that the New Testament was written in the
first century and that the
pre-Constantinian church believed in both the humanity and deity of Christ .
These
assertions are historically groundless and easy to disprove. They are only taken
seriously because so many people want to believe them.
Sadly, the church has largely failed to instruct Christians in
their faith and how to defend it.
Yet the controversy unleashed by The Da Vinci Code can provide an opportunity for
those who wish to take it.
Seekers can investigate further and move beyond the distortions of The Da Vinci Code .
Informed Christians can use the controversy to show others the real Jesus
Christ.
That’s how to deal with
The Da Vinci Code
.
