Posted on 05/27/2004 11:28:58 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Dan Brown’s historical thriller The Da Vinci Code has now reached its sixtieth week on the bestseller list with more than five million copies sold in the United States alone. Plans are being made to turn the book into a movie. It would seem that the influence of Brown’s novel—which is based on the premise that Jesus was only human, not divine—has never been greater.
Yet a number of Christian voices are now speaking out about the flaws and fabrications of The Da Vinci Code. The New York Times reports that in the past couple of months, at least ten books refuting Brown’s argument have been released. One such book is Dr. Darrell Bock’s Breaking The Da Vinci Code.
A lot of people don’t understand why Christians are making so much fuss about a mere adventure novel. But in his book, Bock asserts that The Da Vinci Code is much more than a novel. The book is an attempt to promote a worldview, one that’s deeply antithetical to the Christian worldview.
Through his characters, Brown argues that the divinity of Jesus and the authority of the four Gospels were not decided until the Council of Nicea in the fourth century. He also claims that the church unjustly suppressed the view of the Gnostics.
By examining church history, however, Bock proves Brown wrong on all counts. The Gnostic gospels of which Brown writes were written well after the Gospels in our New Testament, and the church never considered them authoritative. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were always considered the “preeminent” sources of authority on Jesus’ life.
Bock also points out what any serious reader of the Bible would realize: The original Gospels proclaimed Jesus the Son of God, and they were accepted centuries before the Council of Nicea. Gnosticism was rejected, in fact, because it differed from this long accepted and practiced belief.
What’s really surprising is that Brown doesn’t even get his facts about Gnosticism straight. According to the Gnostic gospels, Jesus is a spiritual being who didn’t die on the cross; a human “substitute” was crucified by the people while the real Jesus was “laughing at their ignorance.” And Gnosticism teaches that salvation comes not through God’s grace, but through secret knowledge that is given only to those intelligent and self-aware enough to receive it—nice if you’re one of the chosen ones, but not so nice for the rest of us.
But we get none of this in Brown’s account. To the contrary, Brown misstates Gnosticism by asserting Jesus was human. The book is yet another example of what Frederica Mathewes-Green calls “our culture’s penchant for pick-and-choose religion.” She goes on to say that, “every pick-and-choose religion has this limitation: The follower can never grow any larger than his own preconceptions. He has established himself a priori as the ultimate authority, and his thoughts will never be larger than his hat size.”
By contrast, Christian truth is rooted in the authority of the Scriptures—tested, reflected upon, and debated over two millennia—and is rooted in the Church and creed, not in personal preferences.
Critiquing The Da Vinci Code is a matter of defending truth, and you need to learn to do this from Bock’s book or from another. Set your neighbors straight; with five million copies out there we’ve got a big job.
Through his characters, Brown argues that the divinity of Jesus and the authority of the four Gospels were not decided until the Council of Nicea in the fourth century.
This is also the opinion of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They claim that the Council had decided that Jesus was not God, but that Emperor Constantine told them that they would adopt the doctrine oif the Trinity whether they liked it or not. Of course, that's not how it happened, but if the Watchtower let facts bother them they would have folded before the 19th Century was out.
He has established himself a priori as the ultimate authority, and his thoughts will never be larger than his hat size.”
Love it, love it love it! I'm going to steal that!
If anyone wants on or off my BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
"I'm going to steal that!"
LOL, I was going to steal it but you were first so it's yours.
6 3/4 hat size bump!
It's a novel, not a religious manuscript.
Anybody who gets their religious information from "The DaVinci Code" probably gets their political information from Oprah.
I actually read the Da Vinci Code and thought it was a pretty good NOVEL...however, I don't let it tell me what to believe in and what not to believe in.
Still, I'd like to read that Breaking the Da Vinci Code book...sounds interesting, too :)
Aww, let's both steal it. I can't wait to see our local "Christian" (actually New Age manure) newspaper columnist at a peacenik freep and drop that one on him. It describes his worldview perfectly!
Mein Kampf was an autobiographical manifesto, but a whole lot of people got "religious" ideas from it.
Anybody who gets their religious information from "The DaVinci Code" probably gets their political information from Oprah.
If even only 10% of the people who read it have their worldview affected by it, that's 500,000 people who have been influenced by a lie straight from the pit of Hell. I see no reason we shouldn't have an answer for it. The Crucifixion and Resurrection are the central events in world history, if someone portrays them as a sham, that has consequences.
Gaudere's law states that the first person to mention Hitler has officially lost the debate.
Thanks for playing.
I know someone who believed the DaVinci code as the horrid truth about Catholics. That person also gets their political opinions from NPR.
Whatever they believed about Catholics after they read it was probably pretty much the same as what they believed before they read it.
"The Crucifixion and Resurrection are the central events in world history, if someone portrays them as a sham, that has consequences."
Such as?
you->Gaudere's law states that the first person to mention Hitler has officially lost the debate.
Thanks for playing
Mr S never mentioned hitler. You did. I guess that means that you lose?
He mentioned Mein Kampf.
Did Mein Kampf write itself?
"A lot of people don’t understand why Christians are making so much fuss about a mere adventure novel."
Foolish. Many people, probably most people, get their information in the form of entertainment. Instead of reading about an event in a dry history book, they'll see the 'based on true story' movie or read the fiction novel; then assume it's the unvarnished truth. It's less educational, but much more entertaining.
Whatever they believed about Catholics after they read it was probably pretty much the same as what they believed before they read it.
Too true. And sadly, many of these same people consider themselves practicing Catholics and are teachers and EEM's and parents and are spreading the word and 'enlightening' (as a friend of mine calls it) others. As I have mentioned before, many Catholics I personally know love the book, buy it as gifts and believe it's 'truths'. Barf. I remind them it's fiction and heresy. To the response of cold stares and comments.
Hence: "The Nazis limited freedoms and the Patriot Act limits freedoms. Bush is a Nazi."
Godwins Law is a critique of the hyperbolic comparisons which seem to infest online discussion. It's not THE SUBJECT MATTER alone; it is how it used in an argument.
That's a really insighful statement. Encapsulates one of the biggest spiritual flaws in the modern age in a single sound-bite.
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