Replies

The Da Vinci Code, which is a bold attack upon the Christian faith, has taken the world by storm. The book, first published in March 2003, has sold more than 40 million copies, and the Sony Pictures movie starring Tom Hanks, scheduled for release on May 19, 2006, is expected to be a blockbuster. The book has received rave reviews in hundreds of newspapers and journals. It is so popular that Da Vinci Code tours are now conducted to the various sites that are mentioned in the book, such as the Louvre Museum and St. Sulpice Church in Paris and Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. I fly about 75,000 miles a year these days and on practically every flight I take, I see someone reading The Da Vinci Code.

Woven integrally into the storyline of this fast-paced novel is a wild-eyed theory that Jesus was a mere man who married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her; she was not only his wife but the chief apostle and the recipient of the “truth” about goddess religion and the “sacred feminine.” One of the main characters in the Da Vinci Code says: “Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene” (p. 248). After Jesus’ death Mary Magdalene and the child fled to Europe and married into a bloodline that still exists. Mary Magdalene and her bloodline are presented as the very “Holy Grail” of ancient folk lore (the quest for the Holy Grail first appeared in a 12th-century novel). Brown’s novel alleges that the Roman Catholic Church invented the doctrine of Jesus Christ’s deity in the fourth century, suppressed the “truth” about Mary Magdalene, and has covered up this truth throughout the centuries. The suppressed “truth” was maintained from generation to generation by a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that had some famous members, including Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci. These people passed along the “truth” by means of secret codes, the most famous of which is the alleged symbolism in Da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. According to Brown, the disciple sitting to the right of Jesus in this painting is not the apostle John but Mary Magdalene.

Though the Da Vinci Code is a novel, it purports to be based upon historical facts. In an introductory note Brown writes that “all descriptions of documents and secret rituals are accurate.” On an ABC News special Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci (Nov. 3, 2003), Brown said that he believes the book’s thesis. In an interview on Good Morning America that same day he said that if he were to write a nonfiction piece on these things he would change nothing about what he claimed in the novel (Darrell Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, p. 3).

Bible-believing Christians will not be deceived by The Da Vinci Code, but it has created confusion in the minds of many. A pastor’s wife told me recently that a relative enthusiastically exclaimed to her after reading the book, “Now I know for a fact that the Bible isn’t true.” A survey taken in Canada in 2005 found that 32% of those who had read the Da Vinci Code believed its story line (“Canadian Readers Believe Da Vinci Code,” The Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2005).

The Da Vinci Code is a unique opportunity to witness to people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A Zogby International poll that was taken in the first week of March 2006 found that after either reading or hearing about the Da Vinci Code, 44% of those surveyed said they were more likely to seek the truth by studying the Bible (“Most Americans Believe Bible over ‘Da Vinci’ Polls Shows,” Baptist Press, March 8, 2006).

It is a good opportunity to explain to Da Vinci Code readers that while the Roman Catholic Church has taught many false things, it did not invent the New Testament account of Jesus Christ, and to challenge them to study the New Testament for themselves and to consider the claims of the Gospel.

The following are some of the important questions that the Da Vinci Code raises:

WAS JESUS MARRIED TO MARY MAGDALENE AND DID THEY HAVE CHILDREN?

The idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children is not only contrary to the Bible but is contrary even to the testimony of the gnostic gospels of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. There is not the slightest evidence of such a thing.

First let’s consider what the Bible says about Mary Magdalene. She is mentioned in nine passages, most of which are in reference to Christ’s death and resurrection. She was healed of demon possession and was a part of the entourage of women that sometimes accompanied Jesus (Luke 8:1-3). She was present at the cross (Mat. 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; John 19:25). She was at the tomb when Jesus was placed in it (Mat. 27:61). She returned to the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection and was the first to see the resurrected Christ (Mat. 28:1; Mk. 16:1-10; Lk. 24:10; Jn. 20:1-18). In the Bible Mary Magdalene is never mentioned as having any special relationship to Jesus other than as a disciple.

Even theological modernists today admit that the four Gospels were written during the lifetime of the apostles. Paul was a former enemy of the Christian faith and after his conversion he wrote epistles to the young churches only two and three decades after the events described in the Gospels, when many of the eyewitnesses of the resurrection were still alive, and he supported their testimony with his own. For example, he wrote the following in the first epistle to Corinth:

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:1-8).

Paul’s epistle to Corinth was written in the middle of the first century, almost 300 years before Constantine and the Nicene Council.

History tells us that the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were accepted as authentic right away by the churches. We have a partial list of New Testament books that were accepted as authoritative that dates to the second century and its lists the traditional four Gospels. From the second century we also have quotations from Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Tatian, proving that the four Gospels were in existence and that most Christians accepted them as authoritative. Irenaeus wrote against the false teachers of that day and in his work Refutation of all Heresies he lists all four Gospels and warned that heretics were trying to pervert the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

This is irrefutable historical evidence of the historicity of the four Gospels. The Da Vinci Code claims that it was not until the fourth century that Jesus was depicted as the divine, virgin born, resurrected Christ, but this is pure nonsense. This testimony dates to the very beginning of the churches in the first half of the first century.

The historicity and authority of the four Gospels is also evidenced by the Old Testament, which was completed 400 years before Jesus was born. The Old Testament writers delivered amazing prophesies that described every aspect of Jesus’ life long before He came into the world. His birthplace was named in Micah 5:2. His virgin birth was described in Isaiah 7:14. His sinless life, in Isaiah 53:9; His miracles, in Isaiah 35:5; is

His His wonderful speech, in Isaiah 50:4; His rejection by the Jewish nation, in Isaiah 53:2; His crucifixion, in Psalm 22:16; His burial in a rich man’s tomb, in Isaiah 53:9; and His resurrection on the third day, in Psalm 16.

The historicity of the New Testament is unimpeachable. Its writers suffered and died for their eyewitness testimony that Jesus was the only Lord and Saviour and that He had risen from the dead, which would have been a ridiculous thing to do had it been a fable.

Not only do the New Testament Gospels and Epistles refute the idea that Jesus was married, so do the gnostic gospels that Dan Brown refers to in his novel. These alleged gospels were written in the second to the fourth centuries and present a different gospel and a different Christ than the New Testament writings, but even these gnostic gospels do not depict Mary as the wife of Jesus. The very best evidence of such a thing is found in the Gospel of Philip, which dates to the third century, but it is flimsy to say the last. It says Jesus “loved her [Mary] more than the disciples [and used to] kiss her on her [the rest of this passage has not survived].” Even if we were to accept the authority of this gnostic gospel (and we do not) it says nothing about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene and bearing children by her. Authorities on gnostic gospels believe the passage is referring to a spiritual relationship and not a physical one. Even the liberal Harvard Professor Karen King does not believe it refers to a physical relationship. Another gnostic gospel, the Gospel of Mary Magdala, which dates to the second century, presents Mary Magdalene as the recipient of divine revelation but it says nothing about her being the wife of Jesus.

There simply is no trace of evidence from the early centuries for this wild-eyed theory. It is a figment of someone’s overactive, demon-inspired imagination.

WAS JESUS FIRST DECLARED DIVINITY IN THE 4TH CENTURY IN THE DAYS OF CONSTANTINE?

According to the Da Vinci Code, Jesus was not proclaimed as Deity until the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., three hundred years after He lived, but this theory is as ridiculous and non-historic as the one that says Jesus was married.

The Council of Nicea was called by the Emperor Constantine to settle a doctrinal controversy that was raging. A church leader named Arius from Alexandria, Egypt, was teaching that Jesus was not God, and this doctrine had spread to many churches. Egypt was a hotbed of theological heresies and the home of most of the gnostic gospels. The Council voted to reject Arius’ doctrine. The important point to understand about this Council for our purposes is that it did not invent doctrine; it merely affirmed the doctrine that had been held as orthodox by most churches since Pentecost. Constantine, by the way, was not a regenerate Christian; he worshipped the sun and was only a Christian nominally.

The fact is that Jesus was worshipped as God by Christians from the very beginning. The four Gospels, which were written in the first century, present Him as God. The Gospel of John, for example, presents Him as the eternal Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Pauline Epistles, written in the middle of the first century, also present Jesus as God. For example, in Philippians 2:6 Paul writes of Jesus, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SO-CALLED GOSPELS?

According to the Da Vinci Code, the Gospels in our Bibles were only four among 80 competing ones that circulated among the Christians and that were considered for inclusion in the New Testament and they were not proclaimed divinely inspired and canonized until the fourth century in the days of Constantine (Da Vinci Code, p. 231).

In fact, as we have already seen, the four Gospels were considered authentic and apostolic from the very beginning of the churches. We have second century quotations from church leaders who defended the four Gospels against heretical writings. Irenaeus wrote, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are” (Against Heresies, 3:11.8). He defended the four Gospels because they were written either by the apostles (Matthew and John) or by men directly associated with the apostles (Mark and Luke).

As for the other “gospels,” there were not many of them and they were never given serious consideration for inclusion in the canon of the New Testament Scripture. The Nag Hammadi Library, consisting of 45 early gnostic writings discovered in the Egyptian desert in 1945 and published in English in 1977, contains only five works known as gospels: the gospel of Truth, the gospel of Thomas, the gospel according to Philip, the gospel of the Egyptians, and the gospel of Mary Magdalene. We also know about the gospel of Nicodemus, the gospel of Peter, and the gospel of Judas, which was recently translated and published.

The reason that these alleged gospels were rejected by the early Christians was that they were not associated with the Lord’s apostles and they taught doctrine that was contrary to the teaching of the apostles and that was even downright weird. The Gospel of Thomas contains an account of alleged miracles performed by Jesus when he was a child and depicts him as petulant and disobedient, so much so that Mary and Joseph’s neighbors beg them to take him away. According to one gnostic gospel the child Jesus even kills a playmate and then raises him from the dead to avoid punishment. The Gospel of Judas presents Judas as the head disciple who received special revelation and who betrayed Jesus only because Jesus asked him to do so. According to Irenaeus, the Gospel of Judas was produced by the Egyptian Cainite Gnostics who claimed that Cain, Esau, the Sodomites, Korah, Judas, and other villains of biblical history were actually the enlightened heroes who valiantly kept the truth in a dark world. According to this cult, a god named Hystera created the world and another deity called “Sophia” allegedly assisted the aforementioned people (Refutation of All Heresies, book I, chapter 31, http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-58.htm#P6155_1380364).

The Gnostics denied the God of the Old Testament, replacing Him in some cases with two gods: the Pleroma, who is an eternal, spiritual god and has no connection with the material world, and the Demiurge, who is an evil god that created the physical universe. According to the Gnostics, the objective of salvation was to understand the mystery about the universe and to be freed from the prison of materiality. This required coming to the secret gnosis or knowledge, and only some special members of the human race could ever expect to arrive at this knowledge.

The Gnostic gospels denied the Jesus’ of the New Testament in a variety of ways. Some divided the eternal Christ from the man Jesus. When the man Jesus died on the cross the Christ spirit was separated from him and was “glad and laughing above the cross” (Apocalypse of Peter, 81:4-24; Second Treatise of Great Seth, 56:6-19). He was allegedly laughing at the world’s ignorance. Other Gnostics said Jesus was a phantom or apparition. The Acts of John, for example, claimed that Jesus did not leave footprints.

It was not any sort of conspiracy that caused the Gnostic gospels to be rejected by the vast majority of Christians for the past 2,000 years. It was the simple fact that when we leave the four Gospels and enter the world of Gnosticism, we enter a world of make believe and nonsense. The Gnostic gospels were mostly created in Egypt, where no apostles ministered and where no part of the New Testament was written. (For more about the Gnostic writings and the canonization of Scripture see our book Faith vs. the Modern Versions, available from Way of Life Literature.)

COULD THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPRESS THE TRUTH FOR 2,000 YEARS?

According to the Da Vinci Code, the Roman Catholic Church invented the doctrine that Jesus is God and has foisted this doctrine upon the world throughout church history. Is this possible?

The Roman Catholic Church was most assuredly a powerful institution during much of church history, and it did try to control people’s thinking and foist its dogmas upon all men; but there were always large numbers of churches and individuals that did not bow to its authority. We could mention the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Lollards, and the Anabaptists, for example. These were groups of Christians living in Europe throughout the Dark Ages who opposed the Roman Catholic Church and its doctrine. Multitudes of these Christians were put to death by Rome; entire towns were destroyed in an attempt to destroy them; but Rome was never able to silence them entirely. It is ridiculous to believe that these churches, which called Rome the Harlot of Revelation 17 and the Pope the Antichrist, would accept any of Rome’s lies even if it were true that Rome were trying to hide the truth about Christ. In contrast to the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templars of the Da Vinci Code, who kept their alleged secrets alive through secret codes, the separatist Christians published and distributed their writings and New Testament translations, plainly stating their doctrine in the language of the common man.

In the 16th century the Protestant Reformation broke out in all of its fury and Rome lost even more of its ability to control the people’s thinking. By the 17th century, Rome had lost much of its former empire. Entire nations had thrown off the yoke, including Germany and England, and America was on its way to becoming a bastion of free thinking and complete religious liberty.

Rome was never able to entirely dominate the world’s thinking, but none of the separatist Christians (and non-Christians) who resisted Rome from the 4th to the 17th centuries held anything like the views promoted in the Da Vinci Code. (For more about the separatist Christians and the battle for truth during the Dark Ages see the Advanced Bible Studies Series A History of the Churches from a Baptist Perspective, available from Way of Life Literature.)

WHAT ABOUT DA VINCI’S PAINTING?

According to the Da Vinci Code, Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper contains a secret code promoting the supremacy of Mary Magdalene. The novel gives two “evidences” for this view: First, there is a V shape between Jesus and the figure to His right, and this, we are told, is not merely because Da Vinci depicted Jesus and the figure to His right leaning away from each other and thus creating a natural and innocuous V shape but is a symbol for the feminine. Second, the figure to Jesus’ right has a feminine appearance and must therefore be Mary and not John.

In fact, no reputable art historian believes that these are secret symbols or that Mary Magdalene is depicted in this painting.

Da Vinci and other homosexual artists of that day, including Michelangelo, often painted feminine men. Da Vinci’s painting of John the Baptist, for example, depicts a very feminine man with curly hair befitting a woman and a strange sensual expression. It is commonly believed that Da Vinci was a homosexual. He lived with a younger male artist and surrounded himself with handsome young male models. His biographer, Michael White, wrote: “He was a homosexual vegetarian born out of wedlock who received very little formal education and was excluded by birthright from almost all professions. ... It is possible that up to this time [the time of his arrest] he had felt no real guilt about his homosexuality, that it had either been natural to him, or else he accepted it as part of his self-image; after all, there were certainly plenty of role models [in other Florentine painters] for him” (The First Scientist, 2000, pp. 7, 72).

In fact, the Jesus depicted in Da Vinci’s Last Supper is also feminine looking.

WHAT ABOUT THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR?

According to the Da Vinci Code, the Knights Templar of the Dark Ages was an organization that attempted to maintain the secret of Mary Magdalene, but there is not a hint of evidence to support this. The Knights Templar was a monastic order founded in 12th century to protect Roman Catholic pilgrims on crusades to the Holy Land. The Order was accused of heresy and dissolved in 1311, but the charges were dropped in 1314 after no evidence of heresy was found. There is not a shred of evidence to connect the Knights Templar to the Holy Grail. Their wealth came from rich people they helped. They “invented international banking,” establishing an ingenious system whereby someone could deposit money in one place and receive it another. King Philip destroyed the Knights Templar for the simple reason that he wanted their wealth.

MANY OTHER MYTHS IN THE DA VINCI CODE

The Discovery Channel special “The Real Da Vinci Code,” August 13, 2005, exposed the error of all of the alleged facts upon which the novel’s theories are based. Tony Robinson, who hosted the special, concludes: “The Da Vinci Code casts a spell that causes people to fail to discern between fact and fiction.”

Following are some of the facts brought out in this documentary:

The idea that the Holy Grail is a secret that Jesus was married and left a bloodline first appeared in Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh (1982).

Holy Blood and Holy Grail claims that the Priory of Sion was an organization that was founded in 1099 and that created the Knights Templar to maintain the secret Mary doctrine. Historians, though, have proven that this is a hoax and that the documents upon which it was based, such as a list of Grand Masters that includes the name of Leonardo Da Vinci, are forgeries. The Priory of Sion was actually a minor political organization set up in France in 1956 by a man named Plantard, who, in turn, denounced Holy Blood and Holy Grail’s claim that he was a descendant of Jesus.

The Institute of Theological Research at King’s College is not an institute as such but a sort of theological “think tank” and a member of the institute said, “We don’t have a database of any kind whatsoever.”

There is no evidence from the history of the Cathars that they held any sort of Da Vinci Code doctrine.

The Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland appears in the Da Vinci Code as a place where the Knights Templar hid their secrets. Built by William Sinclair in 1440, there is no evidence that it has ever been associated with the Da Vinci Code myth. Historian Robert Cooper testified, “As far as I am aware there is no connection between the Knights Templar and Rosslyn Chapel.” The embroidery there that supposedly depicts Solomon’s Temple actually depicts the Tabernacle in the wilderness, as any Bible student will recognize, and since it is based on the coat of arms depicted on the same embroidery it cannot be older than the 17th century and thus does not date from the time that the chapel was built and the time when the alleged secrets were hidden in it.

The Da Vinci Code’s theory that Mary Magdalene went to France with her child that was fathered by Jesus has no historic basis whatsoever. Margaret Starbird, who authored The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail, points to a legend in southern France that is re-enacted each year of a boat arriving with women and a girl. Starbird claims that the boat contained Mary Magdalene and her daughter by Jesus named Sarah, but in fact the locals claim that Sarah was the Egyptian servant of three Marys, Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacobi, and not Mary’s child.

One of the authors of Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was asked by on the Discovery Channel documentary if he and his fellow authors had found any evidence that Jesus had a child. He replied, “None whatsoever. It was purely a hypothesis on our part.”

The things described in the Da Vinci Code in relation to St. Sulpice Church in Paris are so grossly inaccurate that the church distributes a paper listing them. For example, the candlesticks mentioned in the novel weigh about 200 pounds each and could not have been used as a weapon for one man to kill another.

The same is true for the things mentioned in the Da Vinci Code in reference to Westminster Abbey in London. The abbey, one of London’s top tourist attractions, has issued tour guides with information sheets to correct the factual errors that are stated in the novel.

WHAT IF THE DA VINCI CODE IS TRUE?

If the premise of this novel is true the Bible is a lie and the four Gospels are a myth; Jesus was not the virgin-born Son of God; He did not rise from the dead and did not ascend back to heaven.

If the premise of this novel is true there is no Gospel and no hope. It would mean that Jesus Christ did not die and shed his blood on the cross for man’s sin and did not rise again for the justification of those who believe.

The reader has a clear choice between the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is found in the New Testament and the teaching of the Da Vinci Code. If the Da Vinci Code is true, there is no gospel and no need of a gospel and it really doesn’t matter what one believes because there is no lost condition and no Saviour. The Jesus of the Da Vinci Code was a mere man who taught a message of peace and unity and feminism and then died.

On the other hand, if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, those who die without faith in Christ spend eternity in Hell. This was the testimony of the apostle John who sat at Jesus’ right hand at the Last Supper:

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:11-13).

I thank God that The Da Vinci Code is fiction and that I can testify with the apostle Paul:

“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/davincicode-myth.html