Posted on 06/09/2004 6:55:50 AM PDT by bigsky
Here is a cultural mystery to solve: It has sold over 7.5-million copies in just over a year. The author has claimed on national TV interviews and on his web page that this piece of fiction contains fact when it comes to theories about art and the Christian faith. It has spawned more than a dozen response books.
What is it? Of course, it is the best-selling mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
This novel is a good read. The mystery, which I will not give away, is tied to the idea that the church suppressed the reality of Jesus' being married to Mary Magdalene, that he had children, that such truths are located in secret, but newly discovered gospels, that Jesus' divinity is an idea voted upon for approval in the 4th Century, and that Leonardo da Vinci knew of the secret and painted a clue in the Last Supper, where a feminine figure alleged to be Mary sits at the right side of Jesus on the other side of a "V" space, a sign of femininity. Thus, we have the title The Da Vinci Code.
This book has touched a nerve. It is a page-turner mystery that claims to reveal several facts about the church's early history. In effect the story accuses the church of lying to people for centuries. Told under the guise of fiction, it weaves its way through a less well-known period of history and leaves the reader wondering if some or all of its facts are true.
Underscoring this impression to be more than a novel, the author claims his work is thoroughly researched and has characters of high credibility pour forth the novel's ideas. In fact, Dan Brown has said on his web site that he wanted these issues discussed because the theories he sets forth have been espoused for some time.
Many writers have obliged him on the matter of discussion and have challenged his claims. These include my Breaking the Da Vinci Code as well as books by Amy Wellborn (De-Coding Da Vinci), Richard Abanes (The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code), James Garlow with Peter Jones (Cracking Da Vinci's Code), and Carl Olson with Sandra Miesel (The Da Vinci Hoax).
The first question all of us have been asked is why critique the history of a novel? The question is a good one, had this been just a novel, but the author's claims and the questions this story has raised about the early Christian history meant that the record needed to be set straight. Other books are essentially A-to-Z guides of issues The Da Vinci Code raises. Two of the best here are by Daniel Burstein (Secrets of the Code) and Simon Cox (Cracking the Da Vinci Code).
Let's deal first with da Vinci's art. Art historians that I interact with tell me that there is no way the figure next to Jesus is Mary. Not only do we have a sketch of the fresco that identifies the figure as John, but had Mary been there she would be a 14th figure in the painting placed at Jesus' feet, not one to replace John. This takes place in two other frescos of the period.
What about the church history? Here is a list of the problems:
First, there is not a single ancient text that says Jesus was married, and we have hundreds of pages of text, both orthodox and unorthodox, from the first five centuries. The closest we get to such a claim is the idea in two extra-biblical gospels that Jesus loved Mary more than anyone else.
Second, had Jesus been married, there would have been no need to cover it up to "protect" Jesus' divinity as the novel claims. Had Jesus been married, it would have affirmed his humanity, something the church also affirmed about Jesus. (With this, the key rationale for the plot goes.)
Third, the church did not choose the four biblical gospels from over 80 such texts as the novel claims. We have about 16 such gospel texts, and the four gospels of the Bible had established themselves as the key texts of information about Jesus by the end of the 2nd Century, a full 150 years before the novel claims.
Fourth, the church did not have a close vote on Jesus' divinity in the early 4th Century. The earliest church documents we have from the mid-1st Century affirm Jesus' divinity. We also have a letter from the Roman ruler, Pliny the Younger, describing Christians singing hymns to Jesus as a god, and he has no theological axe to grind. What Nicea affirmed was a particular form of deity tied to Jesus. There were only two dissenting votes at that council out of at least 218 bishops attending.
Fifth, the so-called "secret" gospels that allegedly have a "human" Jesus were not so secret. We have known of their contents since the 2nd Century. Not only that, but many of these works do not have a human Jesus. In some of these early texts, Jesus did not die on the cross, because in this theology, Jesus as a god could not take on real humanity. In some of these texts Jesus laughs at those who think they are crucifying him. Thus the novel is riddled with error portrayed as fact.
Why does this make a difference? It is because Dan Brown has sloppily appealed to edges of scholarship that are seeking to "revise" or "redefine" Christianity, by taking the unique, divine claims about Jesus out of the faith's early history. What remains is a human, religious figure, Jesus, not the unique one sent from God.
This relativizing of the Christian faith leaves us with Jesusanity, not Christianity. It distorts the history of one of the key monotheistic faiths and reduces God's sent Messiah and Son to a mere prophetic figure. For a movement as crucial to the formation of our culture as Christianity, such distortions leave us out of touch with our own roots. It also leaves millions of readers who do not know this history with the impression that there is little unique about the Christian faith. The Da Vinci Code may be a good read, but the history is as bad as the story is good.
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Against my objections, my wife and teen-aged daugher each read the book. They saw it as frivolous fiction which wouldn't influence their Christian beliefs one way or another. My approach was that the things we do, such as toying with literature which profanes Jesus, can actually grieve God. Why would I want to do that after He's done so much for me?
I'm sure the movie, reportedly to be directed by Ron Howard, will be a huge hit. I won't see it.
Well, since you raised the issue, did the reading of the book "influence their Christian beliefs one way or another"?
I'll wager that it did not.
Da Vinci Code = Muslim doctrine
bump.
I lump the critics in with the Harry Potter alarmists. I haven't read the books, don't care to. But I do know that watching Bewitched as a child didn't do me or the nation any harm.
I would think that the same could be said about all religious books. I don't think anything can be proven when speaking about religions or theories. People believe what they want.
I object to this, not because of the subject matter, a story that has been around for ages, nor, because it takes glory away from the Christ, which it doesn't. I object because, contrary to the article's author's opinion, it was a lousy read. If I hadn't checked it out from the library, I would have asked for my money back. I figured out the whole thing halfway through the book. Please let this book die a horrible death in the depths of other bad books.
Good, brief read.
I agree. I could not get through the book because the story just was not interesting. When there was some action, the author would bring things to a crawl with one of his lectures. There was even a plug for Scorensens' film that bombed. Character development was poor.
Will someone please give it away. It would help dampen books sales of this tripe.
An entirely different thing, this Da Vinci Code, since Harry Potter novels do not go out of their way to explicitly reject the central tenets of the Christian faith. With the author making TV appearances, documentaries in support of the ideas, and the book itself, there is a broad span of people who have read the book and believe. Less than two weeks ago, after I told my aunt that I was born again, her response was "Don't tell me that!" or words to that effect. She then went on the spout the same line of argument about the Council of Nicea making things up, etc.
In short, this only serves to give ammunition to the Enemy.
LTS
by accepting the premise that Jesus is not the Savior, then there can be no Judgement Day ... that is what people want to avoid
Indeed! People with lazy minds will hear a line often enough and then subscribe to it.
There are arguments which crop up every so often to nibble at the edges of the historical facts related to the Christian faith. For example, some folks assert that Jesus never existed at all. That is, he was a total myth from beginning to end. That position is objectively false, but it has to be addressed every few generations.
The book probably wouldn't have been published 50 years ago, but even if it had, there would not have been the controversy. Why? Because the average joe, especially the average liberal joe, is decreasingly capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality.
Not that I agree with this but: the Jesus was married crowd believes his marriage was covered up by the church for political reasons ie that the church was against the Desponsyni or Jesus relatives in the struggle for legitimacy and that European history has been a struggle by these "legitimate" rulers against the illegitimate church.
Grain of salt recommended.
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