FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate. (italics mine)

With these words Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, launches the reader off through a fascinating story of murder, conspiracy, suspense, and inquiry. Within the first couple of pages it becomes immediately apparent that this book is an interesting, fast-paced, and easy read. However, despite Brown’s obvious knack for suspense and story-telling, his ability as a historian is severely lacking.

I want to offer an opportunity to discuss some of the main premises of The Da Vinci Code over the next three weeks here at Truth Dialogue. In determining the order in which we will deal with the issues I have decided to follow the logic of the book. On page 244, one of the characters asserts:

“As I mentioned, the early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described the earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted from the Bible. Unfortunately for the early editors, one particularly troubling theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary Magdalene. More specifically, her marriage to Jesus.”

By following the order of logic in this paragraph (along with the general content of the book) we observe that Brown is arguing the following:

1. It is at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD where Constantine and others present created the idea that Christ was divine to cover up his humanity.
2. To achieve this goal, those present at Nicea, led by Constantine, selected only four gospels -- the ones that emphasized Christ’s divinity -- from a voluminous list of texts for inclusion in the Bible.
3. This whole effort was meant to cover up the “fact” that Jesus was not only a mere mortal, but he was married to Mary Magdalene, had a child, and together established a powerful royal bloodline.

From here we will conclude with two others topics: 4. Brown’s portrayal of the Church, and 5. Miscellaneous Errors.

One of the novel’s characters makes the following statement when he begins to unveil the “secret” truth that the Holy Grail is really Mary Magdelene: “To fully understand the Grail we must first understand the Bible.” (pg. 230) As you can already probably imagine, Brown does not understand the Bible, nor does he make use of it to prove any of his claims.

I suppose that if Brown had never started off his novel with the statement at the top of this page then no one would have given his claims a second thought. But The Da Vinci code speaks all about controversial documents that threaten to expose the church and its “lies.” This best-selling novel will be a Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Hanks next summer. The church must have a response. Besides, as I have said before, “I really believe that this book will ultimately serve a good purpose for the church. Its challenges and claims will force the church to delve back into its history and reexamine Biblical texts.”

Starting Monday I will post two separate topics a week until all main topics have been discussed.