The Truth about The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code theory (both the book and a subsequent movie of the same name), has generated significant publicity over the past several years. Of course the crackpot journalists, TV talk-show hosts, and liberal theologians are vigorously promoting these productions as the “truth” about Christianity. Even some naive folks, who ostensibly are associated with “Christendom,” are encouraging their friends and associates to read the book and see the movie, and to use the information as a “tool” for evangelism.

As a “tool,” these productions have the value of a one-handle pair of pliers! Most nominal “Christians” do not have two-cents worth of discernment in being able to separate biblical truth from error.

The author of The Da Vinci Code book is Dan Brown, a former schoolteacher, songwriter, and mediocre novelist. His Da Vinci book, which finds its place on the fiction shelves of Barnes & Noble, etc., made Brown a millionaire. It is reported that by 2006 Brown’s book had sold over 60.5 million copies and had produced more than $200 million in revenue.

The volume is a combination of a fractional element of truth, a galaxy of heretical error, and a money-driven ambitious scheme to capitalize commercially off of the New Testament gospel. This latter ploy is so vile as to defy appropriate characterization.

In an excellent article titled, “The Da Vinci Code vs. The Facts,” Dr. Steve Morrison has catalogued some of the egregious errors that characterize this literary monstrosity (n.d., 4.2). I have surveyed these points and added my own observations.

(1) It is alleged that up until the Council of Nice (A.D. 325), Christ was viewed merely as a human prophet and not “the Son of God” (Brown 2004, 233). Anyone who has even a nodding acquaintance of the New Testament knows this is an outrageous lie. God acknowledged Christ as his Son (Matthew 3:17; 17:5), as did the Lord’s disciples (Matthew 16:16). Even those involved in the crucifixion were forced to concede that “truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54), as did that vicious persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, who was so overwhelmed with the evidence of Jesus’ divine nature (Acts 9:20), that he traveled some twelve thousand miles proclaiming the facts about Christ, and died as a martyr on behalf of his Savior.

(2) It is contended that there are many “Gospels” beyond Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—more than eighty is claimed. And these must be granted credibility equivalent to that of the New Testament documents (Ibid., 231). It is true that there were documents circulating in the second century and onward that were called “gospels,” e.g., the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, etc., but these fanciful works were rejected as spurious by contemporary scholars. The article on “Gospels,” in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, demonstrates the vast difference between the real and the bogus records.

(3) Supposedly, the books of the New Testament were not collected into one volume until the time of Constantine, in the fourth century (Ibid., 231). It does not really matter when the New Testament books were finally gathered together. The important point is this: the documents were widely circulated from the second century onward. Every passage of the entire New Testament (with the exception of about a dozen verses) can be found in the writings of the early “church fathers”—long before the days of Constantine.

(4) According to the theory, the “original” Christianity had a feminine “goddess” (Ibid., 237-239). The New Testament writings are the testimony of the “original” Christianity, and there is nothing remotely resembling a Christian goddess in these narratives. There were many “goddesses” in the Graeco-Roman world, and eventually some quasi-Christian cults did attempt to elevate Mary to the status of a virtual goddess, the “Queen of heaven”—a myth that continues to be perpetuated even today by Roman Catholicism. The theory is false.

The Da Vinci Code is but another of those crass efforts to cash in on the world-wide influence of Jesus Christ, without the appropriate honor that acknowledges his true identity, and yields in submission to him as Lord. The Da Vinci Code" is a cheap and disgusting manifestation of greed.