Breaking The Da Vinci Code
So the divine Jesus and infallible Word emerged out of a fourth-century power-play? Get real.
By Collin Hansen | posted 11/07/2003


Related Bible Studies:

• Engaging the Da Vinci Code
• The Da Vinci Code and Other Heresies
• Debunking The Da Vinci Code


Related Audio Sermons:

• There's Something About Mary
• What About That Other Bible?

Perhaps you've heard of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. This fictional thriller has captured the coveted number one sales ranking at Amazon.com, camped out for 32 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, and inspired a one-hour ABC News special. Along the way, it has sparked debates about the legitimacy of Western and Christian history.

While the ABC News feature focused on Brown's fascination with an alleged marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, The Da Vinci Code contains many more (equally dubious) claims about Christianity's historic origins and theological development. The central claim Brown's novel makes about Christianity is that "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." Why? Because of a single meeting of bishops in 325, at the city of Nicea in modern-day Turkey. There, argues Brown, church leaders who wanted to consolidate their power base (he calls this, anachronistically, "the Vatican" or "the Roman Catholic church") created a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture—both of them novelties that had never before existed among Christians.

Watershed at Nicea
Brown is right about one thing (and not much more). In the course of Christian history, few events loom larger than the Council of Nicea in 325. When the newly converted Roman Emperor Constantine called bishops from around the world to present-day Turkey, the church had reached a theological crossroads.

Led by an Alexandrian theologian named Arius, one school of thought argued that Jesus had undoubtedly been a remarkable leader, but he was not God in flesh. Arius proved an expert logician and master of extracting biblical proof texts that seemingly illustrated differences between Jesus and God, such as John 14:28: "the Father is greater than I." In essence, Arius argued that Jesus of Nazareth could not possibly share God the Father's unique divinity.

In The Da Vinci Code, Brown apparently adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. Referring to the Council of Nicea, Brown claims that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless."

In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Savior and Lord. Before the church adopted comprehensive doctrinal creeds, early Christian leaders developed a set of instructional summaries of belief, termed the "Rule" or "Canon" of Faith, which affirmed this truth. To take one example, the canon of prominent second-century bishop Irenaeus took its cue from 1 Corinthians 8:6: "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ."

The term used here—Lord, Kyrios—deserves a bit more attention. Kyrios was used by the Greeks to denote divinity (though sometimes also, it is true, as a simple honorific). In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, pre-dating Christ), this term became the preferred substitution for "Jahweh," the holy name of God. The Romans also used it to denote the divinity of their emperor, and the first-century Jewish writer Josephus tells us that the Jews refused to use it of the emperor for precisely this reason: only God himself was kyrios.

The Christians took over this usage of kyrios and applied it to Jesus, from the earliest days of the church. They did so not only in Scripture itself (which Brown argues was doctored after Nicea), but in the earliest extra-canonical Christian book, the Didache, which scholars agree was written no later than the late 100s. In this book, the earliest Aramaic-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Lord.

In addition, pre-Nicene Christians acknowledged Jesus's divinity by petitioning God the Father in Christ's name. Church leaders, including Justin Martyr, a second-century luminary and the first great church apologist, baptized in the name of the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—thereby acknowledging the equality of the one Lord's three distinct persons.

The Council of Nicea did not entirely end the controversy over Arius's teachings, nor did the gathering impose a foreign doctrine of Christ's divinity on the church. The participating bishops merely affirmed the historic and standard Christian beliefs, erecting a united front against future efforts to dilute Christ's gift of salvation.

"Fax from Heaven"?
With the Bible playing a central role in Christianity, the question of Scripture's historic validity bears tremendous implications. Brown claims that Constantine commissioned and bankrolled a staff to manipulate existing texts and thereby divinize the human Christ.

Yet for a number of reasons, Brown's speculations fall flat. Brown correctly points out that "the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven." Indeed, the Bible's composition and consolidation may appear a bit too human for the comfort of some Christians. But Brown overlooks the fact that the human process of canonization had progressed for centuries before Nicea, resulting in a nearly complete canon of Scripture before Nicea or even Constantine's legalization of Christianity in 313.

Ironically, the process of collecting and consolidating Scripture was launched when a rival sect produced its own quasi-biblical canon. Around 140 a Gnostic leader named Marcion began spreading a theory that the New and Old Testaments didn't share the same God. Marcion argued that the Old Testament's God represented law and wrath while the New Testament's God, represented by Christ, exemplified love. As a result Marcion rejected the Old Testament and the most overtly Jewish New Testament writings, including Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews. He manipulated other books to downplay their Jewish tendencies. Though in 144 the church in Rome declared his views heretical, Marcion's teaching sparked a new cult. Challenged by Marcion's threat, church leaders began to consider earnestly their own views on a definitive list of Scriptural books including both the Old and New Testaments.

Another rival theology nudged the church toward consolidating the New Testament. During the mid- to late-second century, a man from Asia Minor named Montanus boasted of receiving a revelation from God about an impending apocalypse. The four Gospels and Paul's epistles achieved wide circulation and largely unquestioned authority within the early church but hadn't yet been collected in a single authoritative book. Montanus saw in this fact an opportunity to spread his message, by claiming authoritative status for his new revelation. Church leaders met the challenge around 190 and circulated a definitive list of apostolic writings that is today called the Muratorian Canon, after its modern discoverer. The Muratorian Canon bears striking resemblance to today's New Testament but includes two books, Revelation of Peter and Wisdom of Solomon, which were later excluded from the canon.

By the time of Nicea, church leaders debated the legitimacy of only a few books that we accept today, chief among them Hebrews and Revelation, because their authorship remained in doubt. In fact, authorship was the most important consideration for those who worked to solidify the canon. Early church leaders considered letters and eyewitness accounts authoritative and binding only if they were written by an apostle or close disciple of an apostle. This way they could be assured of the documents' reliability. As pastors and preachers, they also observed which books did in fact build up the church—a good sign, they felt, that such books were inspired Scripture. The results speak for themselves: the books of today's Bible have allowed Christianity to spread, flourish, and endure worldwide.

Though unoriginal in its allegations, The Da Vinci Code proves that some misguided theories never entirely fade away. They just reappear periodically in a different disguise. Brown's claims resemble those of Arius and his numerous heirs throughout history, who have contradicted the united testimony of the apostles and the early church they built. Those witnesses have always attested that Jesus Christ was and remains God himself. It didn't take an ancient council to make this true. And the pseudohistorical claims of a modern novel can't make it false.

I do appreciate The DaVinci Code for opening up a thousands cans of worms and exposing the rotten underbelly of the dead fish we call Christianity.

It isn't just the Council of Nicea. We could cite, for example, the Second Council of Constantinople, which arbitrarily banned the concept of reincarnation and instituted the concept of Original Sin primarily because it was easier to control people if they were in fear of an eternal "hell" after just one lifetime.

But we can step back even a bit further and simply examine the influence of ecumenical councils in contrast to the principles of a Hellenized society. I suggest going back and reading through these asinine documents, and you can find them online. Over and over again, you'll find a statement, "if any man teaches [fill in the blank], let him be anathema." This is repeated ad nauseum.

This is in sharp contrast to anything previously in the Greco-Roman world. With every "let him be anathema," the aperature of the Western Mind closed a little narrower. Every added "let him be anathema" was a further shackling and restriction of free thought. With every "let him be anathema" a darker cloud was placed over Europe, until all light, all sanity, all natural joy of living was squeezed out into a vat of endless guilt and shame.

That which we call "Christianity" is the greatest cause of mental insanity ever devised in human history. It is the greatest limiter of free-thinking ever. We need to banish it from the human mind if we are ever to live in true freedom from superstition. This religion must pay for its crimes against humanity, starting with the murdering of the Western mind and the creation of billions of dullards, automatons completely lacking in imagination or critical thinking capacity.

---R

As soon as anyone makes statements like that they lose all credibility to anyone other than those who already believe as they do.
And that is a shame because the statements on reincarnation and original sin are ones they more than likely would have looked into and should be reopened as mainstream topics.

Not actual docs, but a good rundown of the councils:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_councils

Some info on reincarnation and Christianity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_and_Christianity

There are people still discussing the Da Vinci code?

I'm sorry, it is all bulls***. All bulls***, from the first to the last page. Well except from the note where it says «Some of the happenings on this book are fictional work». Sorry for the wasted five bucks on bad literature.

Perhaps you can be so kind as to explain which section of the book are bullpuky in your book.

It is well-known in some circles that Pierre Plantard started the so-called Prieure de Sion as a hoax in 1956. That being said, he used "real" Rosicrucian literature as the background material for his fake documents placed in France's national library. So, you have the oddity of having truth mixed in with fiction. Many people get lost during the process of trying to sort it out.

So then, what parts did you have a problem with?

The WHOLE book.
From the Nicean Coucil to the Opus Dei, the Priori of Sion, as you said is a hoax, the apocriphical documents that say that Mary was married with Jesus, all! Tell me one thing that is reliable there.

Actually the Gnostic gospels are as equally valid as the gospels in the Bible. To say that the Gnostic gospels have no validity is about the same as saying the four gospels in the Bible have no validity ... which may be true ... but ... the gnostic manuscripts are actually older texts than those in the Bible. Can you really say they are less worthy than the drivel currently revered as the "Word of God"?

For some reason they were not accepted as part of the gospels. They make no sense, there is actually one of those gnostic gospels that tells the story of how Jesus atemorized his mates whit his super powers when he was young, is that to be taken seriously?

The counsil is true. Ive read stuff about that before the book.

I know it is true, the problem is that they make such a big deal about it but there's no difference between the council of Nicea and Vatican II.

Well, apparently its not a bad peice of literature because it is one of the most popular books being released right now. I have read it and I enjoyed it but i don't really take it seriously. I think it wasn't really meant to expose Jesus and Mary Magdeline or anything, just an interesting peice of fiction...something to say, you know, 'what if?'

good read, bad history. it does have some interesting points to it, but it also has alot of facts wrong.

rosencruz, you say that the gnostic texts are older then the gospels in the bible. that isn't entirely true. some of the books are, some are not. (then again, anything not in the bible has kind of been lumped together as gnostic, even though the gnostics were just one group.)

i would recommend the gospel of thomas to all of you though. it seems to be a source material for the gospels, and many say it predates them.

ok one yeah all that stuff that happen on the book may not have happened but the places are real, and that book is the sh**, so is the Angels and Demons, well duh Dan Brown is the sh**

the book is a "FICTION"people!

not to mention that many of the called "facts" are wrong.

el_burdokai: "Sorry for the wasted five bucks on bad literature."

- I wouldn't even describe it as literature.

it obviously is literature lol

isnt the very definition of literature a published written work written in a particular style on a particular subject?

I apologize for my poor semantics. I meant literature in its academic definition. Dan Brown wrote a book; not a literary text.

^^^

lol, sorry to be a smat@$$..lol

..er , just because it's fiction doesn't mean the whole novel is fake.. If i were to write about my experience walking with dinosaurs but set the novel in the grand canyon, it would be fiction.. but it does not exclude the fact that the grand canyon exists. and it real

anyways, i thought the da vinci code was a entertaining novel but should be taken lightly for its history. I would also recommened angels and demons, because its a carbon copy of davincicode set in a different location and deals with the illuminati

Some of the history of Christianity is right, SOME, but not all.

The ancients realized that myth was a better vessel to carry truth in than history. And that is why the Essenes and other groups used allegory so extensively.

---Rosencruez

Alright, how about we see this book as what it is: Historical Fiction written at an 8th grade level.
Authenticity aside, I read it and I even liked it, but come on... Xanth novels are more engaging. If it wasn't for the inflammatory material this book would never have been published. Its a neat story that would have been a great deal better if the man had done his research better. You want really great conspiratorial fiction read Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, that is a book worthy of attention.

wahahahaha

what? you don't like chapters that are 2 pages long?

its all bullcrap devised by those who would attack the church because of their own personal dislike for any organized religion.

what you all really should do is stop promoting your religion of hate and bias towards christianity: it seems you would be anti-christian effetivly becoming antichrists. yep the very thing it warns us about in the bible. not that it is all 100%accurate.

so go on, organize, get together, and get it over with instead of being armchair popes. form your new religion of antichrist and oppress others with your hatefull and egotist views. get together and rent out a place where you can get together and trade your "new" testament. then that way we could all accuse you of being the very hipocrits that you love to hate.

I love it. Whenever I see a topic on this book in any forum, people just have to come in and tell us all how they thought the writing was so beneath them.

How weak are your egos?

Probably as weak as the intelligence of those perceiving the book events as actual facts.

Nice deflection.

It just bugs me, those people who insist that a book written in clear prose can't be thought-provoking or interesting in any way.

so its could be true just think about the facts of the book, they are even making a movie about it.

Very true. Even fictional assumtions should provoke our inquisitive nature and search for more clearly defined answers. Like you correctly pointed out, this has little to do with who is more sophisticated but merely with who can fill the gaps of the knowledge we already possess. A theory is just as good until something more substantial can dismiss or verify it.

there making a movie because they know it will make tons of money...its wat makes the world go round. I have yet to meet sosmeone that takes this book as serious facts, and i love people making other books about it like "Beyond the Da Vinci Code" (or something like that) I cant see how people can be so serious about a book like this. I mean, its just a book to be enjoyed.

im just wondering something.. i read this book and thought it was very good, but why is it getting all the bad rep? does it say ANYWHERE in the book that this book is based on fact? i never saw anything saying as such so why is everyone ranting about how this book is so untruthful? who cares its just a story!

I never said it wasn't thought provoking... it's interesting if you can get past the thin two thousand year old church conspiracy and the homicidal ultra-religious albino...

Bottom line: This book is tailor made to piss off the religious right and even non-fundamentalist Christians.
Of course they are going to be up in arms to defend what they believe. This is true of most religions or belief structures. People get angry when their beliefs are not respected or vilified. We have seen what mockery of a faith can do even in these modern times. This book is the equivalent of putting a caricature of the Prophet Mohamed in a political cartoon. Faith can be dangerous if the faithful will not suffer other's opinions. If you are certain in your faith and you really wish to make a difference, hope that others will come around, even spread the word if the mood swings you, but for goodness' sake lead by example. With all the trouble this guy has caused I would have much preferred a bibliography of where he got his information.

... and through all of this Dan Brown is laughing all the way to the bank. The more people freak out, the more books are sold and the more movies made.

it says on the very first page.

my copy is packed up in a box at the moment, so i can't tell you word for word what it says. but it is something to the effect of "all locations are real, the opus dei stuff is real, the historical stuff is real blah blah blah." and it's not.

well, opus dei IS real and all the locations and paintings ARE real, as for the facts... well...that is to be debated if you need proof of opus dei: http://www.mond.at/opus.dei/

I would respectfully disagree. Historical fiction is a genre where history can be blended in with fiction and the plot twists and turns from what the given *facts* are. I don't believe that Dan Brown hates Christianity or Catholics. Have you read Angels & Demons? In it, the main characters try to save Vatican City from an anti-matter bomb. The church, other than a few corrupt leaders, is portrayed in a positive light. Keep in mind as well that Brown is now working on a project concerning the freemasons. This man is just taking some off the wall conspiracy theories and is making some interesting stories out of them. Dan Brown doesn't hate christians and I'm rather miffed at anyone who believes that he is backing the Gnostics over the mainline Christians. Where is this the case? From his website? I doubt it.

I did not mean to say that Dan Brown hates Christians. I realize that my post made it seem that way, but that was not my intention. What I meant was that this book seems to try to contradict what Christians hold dear. Think about what would happen if they found Jesus' bones somewhere and they actually linked it (the DNA) to a bloodline like the Merovingiennes. Oops two thousand years of your church is BS, oops millions of people died because your ancestors were deceived. oops the book you try to live by is just that: a book. It would be both infuriating and humiliating. I wasn't trying to make him seem like a man that had it out for the church, just a man that wrote a story that upset some people.

I have read Angels and Demons and I fail to see its import here. I meant that whether he realized it or not this book would push all the right buttons to tick off the Christian faith.
sorry I was unclear before.

Naaaaahhhh, this crap surely was somehow or at least based on something and they really have a lot of effort to come up with that tons of critcism. We can't really tell if it's the truth (Although, I don't believe in it too) or it is a fictional thing (or maybe at least there can be a truth within it somehow). But what I really don't like about this crap is thatit can brainwash those who are easily amazed by it's story or fiction thing. It's story is a make-believe one and can easily capture the people's attention. I HATE THE BOOK FOR THAT!

i know opus dei is real, but not really accurately portrayed. neither are many of the locations in the book. the louve for example, does not have 666 glase pains in the pyramid. that is an urban legend.

I got a few chapters in and stopped reading. I couldn't get 'into' the book. I gave it to my mum to read, and another one is now addicted to the book. Am I the only one that couldn't finish it?

I think it, and anything else along with the same premise of bringing fiction into reality and passing it off as a possible truth is enough to give it a bad rap. It's not the writing itself, but the fact so many people automatically believe in it, as opposed to researching first and then coming to conclusions.

i feel kind of bad for brown, the authors of "holy blood, holy grail" are trying to sue him for stealing their ideas.

I believe in the Bloodline of Jesus Conspiracy. but there are much better books out there about this conspiracy than Da Vinci Code, allthough it is a good book.

the only thing it suggests is that Jesus was married and had children. thats it.

And so is most of the Bible! There is probably more truth in the DaVinci code than there is in the bible. It's a collection of moral tales that was passed down orally before being written hundreds of years later. Then translated several times. And do you actually think that during each translation someone didn't tweak it or misinterpret it to fit their own beliefs or needs. Maybe why certain gospels were left out b/c they contradicted each other or some were so unbelievable or defeated the movement to make Christianity the new religion...it had to be believable to convert people. So they only included the ones to make him divine and fit the jewish prophecy which so many prayed for after being oppressed and ruled over by so many different countries...like the romans. How else are you going to get people to abondon their faiths for a new one and risk prosecution or blasphemy?? How...you create stories and miralces that fit the prophecy of the messiah.

Christianity is ALL borrowed from other religions. Jesus a virgin birth...wow sounds familiar to the Egyptian tales of Isis and Horus and even Allah...they were a virgin births also. Noah's flood....wow Gilgamesh had that tale too and the Jews heard the stories when they were slaves under Gilgamesh's rule. AND you know what is common in both instances is that they are way older than Christianity.

It's amazing how many people still swallow the bible stories as the truth when logic and common sense says they are bedtime stories and morality tales for children to do the right thing. So many people still believe in it passionately b/c they believe they will go to heaven. Funny thing.....NOBODY knows!! The only thing we have to go on is stories told to us by uneducated people who couldn't read or write, believed the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth and we were the center of the universe, and that natural disasters like earthquakes, tornadoes, lightening, floods and hurricanes were the results of an angry god. Do you still want to believe EVERYTHING those people said???

Why is it so hard for people to question their own faith for finding some truth or reality. Would it really matter that Jesus was not from a Virgin Birth or married and had children but was excluded from the bible or other writings?? Not in my opinion b/c he was a man beyond his time and his teaching touched so many people and changed the way civilization evovled.

The DaVinci code is thought provoking and has got many people interested in religion and history and art.

I'm guessing then that you hate the bible for the same reason?

Come on people it's a book that has made a lot of people take a look at something in a way that perhaps they never would have before...Fact/fiction/a mixture....who really cares? Its something that can be read and if you go wow i should look into that and you start researching something new for yourself then that is wonderful....

As well that I say that I find it funny that no matter what a person rights down about the past there is no real way of knowing how true it is...is there? for all we know it could be almost pure fact right? or complete fiction? we can't know but to just say it's fiction that perhaps Jesus loved and had a family? i find that more believable then the idea that he lived alone all of those years....and sorry but boys just don't count

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN? IS IT A TRUE STORY? I don’t want to listen to anymore of your stories; they have no logic. They scramble me up. You lie with stories. You won’t tell me a story and then say, “This is a true story.” I can’t tell the difference. I don’t even know what your real names are. I can’t tell what’s real and what you made up. What truth? Which truth? the questions unavoidably arise. The story has been defined as a “free narration, not necessarily factual but truthful in character. It gives us human nature in bold outlines; history, in its individual details. Truth. Not one but two: truth and fact. Aristotle said there is more truth in poetry than history. Storytelling as literature must then be truer than history. If we rely on history to tell us what happened at a specific time and place, we can rely on the story to tell us not only what might have happened, but also what IS happening at an unspecified time and place. But why Truth at all? Why this battle for Truth on behalf of Truth. We knew we could make each other laugh, cry, or fear by storytelling, but we never thought of saying to each other, “This is just a story.” A story is a story. There was no need for clarification. A story is just a story.”

Like this one written by Aimee Mann: "It’s not what you thought when you first began it. You got what you want now you can hardly stand it, though.
By now you know it’s not going to stop. It’s not going to stop, ‘til you wise up. You’re sure there’s a cure, and you’ve finally found it.
You think just one drink will shrink you ‘til you’re underground, and living down. But it’s not going to stop. It’s not going to stop, ‘til you wise up.
Prepare a list of what you need before you sign away the deed, ‘cause it’s not going to stop, not going to stop, ‘til you wise up ... so just give up."


*****

your point being??????

your point being??????