The Da Vinci Code
Rev. Angus Stewart
In just three years since its publication in 2003, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has become one of the most widely read books of all time. As of April 2006, it has been translated into 44 different languages, selling approximately 40 million copies and earning Dan Brown more than £200 million. On 19 May, 2006, The Da Vinci Code movie, produced by Sony Pictures, directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen, hit cinema screens all around the world.
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (book and film) is fiction. Its characters (Robert Langdon, Sophie Neveu, Sir Leigh Teabing, etc.) are fictional and its plot is fictional. A page giving its publishing history, ISBN, etc., includes the standard statement: "In this work of fiction, the characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictionally" (Great Britain: Corgi Books, 2004). Thus The Da Vinci Code is a novel, stocked in the fiction department of bookstores.
However, the last page before the Prologue begins with the word, "Fact," and amongst other assertions, its last sentence claims, "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate" (italics mine). Moreover Dan Brown speaks of his historical research in preparing the background for his book. He claims, "The Da Vinci Code describes history as I have come to see it through many years of travel, research, reading, interviews [and] exploration." He also states, "One of the many qualities that makes The Da Vinci Code unique is the factual nature of the story. All the history, artwork, ancient documents, and secret rituals in the novel are accurate—as are the hidden codes revealed in some of Da Vinci's most famous paintings."
Repeatedly in The Da Vinci Code, the characters, especially Sir Leigh Teabing, a British royal historian, and Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, assert that their various claims are supported by "historical evidence … [which] is substantial" (p. 340), so that they are "a matter of historical record" (p. 329) and "part of the historical record" (p. 330). They claim that their position is that of "modern historians" (p. 333), even "scores of historians … [in] several dozen books" (p. 339). Moreover there are many other appeals to "religious historians," "well-documented history," "art historians," "all academics," "well-documented evidence," and "many scholars." The Da Vinci Code presents itself as fiction based on facts.
In a pivotal scene, Sir Leigh Teabing, a professional historian, asserts, "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false" (p. 318; italics Brown’s). Moreover The Da Vinci Code portrays the doctrine, history and worship of Christ’s church as based on politically motivated lies. This blasphemous, anti-Christian propaganda is absolutely essential to the plot. Just imagine the furore and the political repercussions if Judaism or Islam and Mohammed were attacked in this fashion!
According The Da Vinci Code, Jesus Christ proclaimed the "sacred feminine" or "goddess worship." Yet witness the vehement opposition of the Old and New Testaments to all idols, including Ashtoreth, the queen of heaven, Diana of the Ephesians and the goddesses of Greece and Rome. Other gods or goddesses are an abomination to Jehovah (Deut. 12:31; 20:18) and He curses those who promote or worship them (Deut. 11:28; 28:15ff.). The first commandment declares, "Thou shalt have no other gods [or goddesses] before me" (Ex. 20:3). One wonders how Christ could have survived for over three years of public ministry—on hills, by the Sea of Tiberias, in synagogues, in the temple, etc. (John 18:20)—preaching a message of goddess worship in Galilee and Judea to the first century Jews. Certainly it would have been very easy at His trial before the Jewish religious leaders to prove Him guilty of a capital offence. Old Testament law required the death penalty for those who preached other gods or goddesses (Deut. 13:6-11). Strangely, The Da Vinci Code states that Jesus is "the prophesied Messiah" (p. 313), yet the anointed One promised in the Old Testament was God’s special Prophet, like Moses, who opposed all forms of idolatry (Deut. 18:9-22; Acts 3:22-23).
In The Da Vinci Code, Jesus married Mary Magdalene (a descendant of King Saul!) and fathered a daughter, Sarah, from whom sprang the Merovingians, a medieval French royal dynasty, and ultimately Sophie Neveu, the book’s heroine. Christ intended Mary Magdalene to be the head of His church after His crucifixion. The sacred feminine, Mary Magdalene—her bones and secret documents—is the Holy Grail!
In support of this world of virtual reality, The Da Vinci Code contains numerous, gross historical blunders concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls (p. 317), Nag Hammadi (p. 317), the New Testament canon, the early church, Constantine, the Council of Nicea, the Lord’s Day (pp. 314-315), the origin of the word "heretic" (p. 317), etc.
Instead of the four biblical gospel accounts, The Da Vinci Code would substitute the Gnostic gospels which are fragmentary, much later, largely disinterested in events in Christ’s life and often bizarre (e.g., "every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven;" Gospel of Thomas 114). The Gnostics were dualists, believing the spirit to be good and matter to be evil. The world was created by the demiurge, a derivative and evil god. For most Gnostics, Jesus only seemed to be human (docetism). The heavenly Christ did not suffer on the cross; His earthly substitute was crucified. Salvation lies in secret knowledge (gnosis) providing the elite with passwords enabling them to ascend past the planets.
Frederica Mathewes-Green summarizes four differences between Gnosticism and Christianity, differences which are very easily understood:
[1] Gnosticism rejected the body and saw it as a prison for the soul; Christianity insisted that God [is omnipresent filling] all creation and that even the human body [of the believer is] a vessel of holiness, a "temple of the Holy Spirit."
[2] Gnosticism rejected the Hebrew Scriptures and portrayed the God of the Jews as an evil spirit; Christianity looked on [Old Testament] Judaism as a mother.
[3] Gnosticism was elitist; Christianity was egalitarian, preferring "neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free" [cf. Gal. 3:28].
[4] Finally, Gnosticism was just too complicated. Christianity maintained the simple invitation of the One who said, "Let the little children come unto me." Full-blown science-fiction Gnosticism died under its own weight (quoted in Darrell L. Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code [USA: Thomas Nelson, 2004], pp. 92-93).
No wonder, Sir Ian McKellen, who acts Sir Leigh Teabing, the expert historian, in The Da Vinci Code movie, admitted Dan Brown’s book was "codswallop." Tom Hanks (Harvard professor Robert Langdon in the film) agrees: "… the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and … nonsense." Similarly, Tim Robey, after watching the two and a half hours of The Da Vinci Code movie, stated, "the plot's sheer volume of mulish nonsense does generate the odd giggle" ("What's the Latin for balderdash?" The Daily Telegraph [16 May, 2006]).
Don’t be deceived into thinking that The Da Vinci Code is "fiction based on fact." Scripture warns against departing from the truth and being "turned unto fables" (II Tim. 4:4). Anti-Christian conspiracy theories, and the religious controversies they spawn, sell books and fill cinemas but The Da Vinci Code ought not prejudice one against the truth of the incarnate, crucified, risen and reigning Christ of the Bible.
NB. An article on Wikipedia entitled "Criticisms of the Da Vinci Code," though strongly Roman Catholic, makes some useful points.