I’ve Got A Question…
I’ve Got Questions About The DaVinci Code
I Timothy 4:1-2 & 6:3-10
1 Timothy 1:3 (NIV), “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer.”
1 Timothy 4:1-2, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”
Those of you who know me know that I love to read. I enjoy history in particular, especially biographies, and accounts of important historical events and personalities. I also enjoy fictional books of intrigue and suspense. Tom Clancy is one of my favorite authors. His books are so deeply researched and so factual in their presentation, that when his first novel, The Hunt For Red October, hit the shelves, the Pentagon was actually considering charges against him for revealing national security secrets until President Ronald Regan mentioned that it was his favorite book. When recruiting for the Navy went up after the book and film became popular, the Pentagon actually began to work with Clancy, and gave him access to tactics, capabilities and details about covert operations, political tensions and high tech breakthroughs. Of course, by working with him, they were able to give out only what they wanted to be released, and keep hidden the stuff that was still classified.
That level of detail is what makes Tom Clancy’s books so believable. Having enough facts to make the fiction seem real is the mark of any good novel. Whether it’s Jack Ryan saving the world from international terrorists in modern times, or Luke and Laura making there way across the American Prairie in the 19th Century in a Christian novel from our church library – if an author hopes to hold the attention of their reader, the fictional story has to be interwoven with some measure of reality.
At the beginning of the film version of The Hunt for Red October, there is a statement that reads, in part, “Both the United States and the Soviet Union claim that what you are about to see never happened…” Well, of course that’s what they say! Because it’s fiction! The events of that book never did happen! On the other hand, in the opening pages of The DaVinci Code,in a page entitled “FACTS,” author Dan Brown makes the following claim: “All descriptions of art work, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in the novel are accurate.” That’s where the deception of the book begins, but it by no means ends there.
Because of the controversy surrounding it, I read the book. I’ve read a couple of Dan Brown’s other books, too. They are OK, generally speaking, but he takes some pretty wild leaps with his premises and characters. It’s interesting to hear the opinions of about this book – those who know history, for example, generally say, “Well, he’s got the history all messed up, but the theology sure seems to be presented well.” Theologians tend to say, “You know, the theology is really flawed, but he presents the artistic evidence seems intriguing.” While art critics and historians will tell you that his information about art is absurd, “but he sure gives a compelling historical account.” And because the average American knows zip about art, history or theology, the book is accepted as encyclopedic instead of as a novel – a work of fiction.
Originally, I had planned on spending two weeks discussing The DaVinci Code – but next week we have a great opportunity to hear from an Irish pastor who is on his way to Africa, so I have compressed it into one message – but over the last couple of weeks I can see that God had a hand in that – because I don’t think we need to give more than a day’s attention to this stuff - it’s so ridiculously wrong that it hardly deserves our attention at all – except that so many have believed it as fact. What I want to do, then, is give you just a taste of just how wrong a few of his claims are – we could spend weeks listing the lies – one person I read said that Brown averages one lie or error per page after the half way point of the book. We’re just going to look at a couple so that we can see how blatantly he ignored the facts in writing his novel. We are also going to give each of you a book that you can take home to read that will give you more detailed information that you can read on your own.
I was originally going to call these headings “errors,” but there is not error in them – they are deliberate attempts to deceive. They are lies. There are so many historical lies that we could literally spend the rest of the morning talking about them. Let me just give you a few:
The lies start before a single word of the story itself. In a short preface, Brown lists a series of supposed "facts" underlying the fiction of the novel. He declares that "the Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci." In fact documents were found in 1975 that started this whole discussion of Jesus and Mary Magedline giving birth to a royal line that was intended to rule Europe – but the documents were planted by a guy named Pierre Plantard, who later admitted the documents were forged, and planted in the Biblioteque Nationale de France in Paris, to show that HE was the rightful king of France! Dan Brown conveniently leaves that part out, but even more telling, he later writes in the novel itself that, “the Dossiers Secrets had been authenticated by many specialists and incontrovertibly confirmed.” Plantard actually went to prison for his lies – Dan Brown has made millions with his.
Here’s another one. Brown claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls give new evidence of the true nature of Jesus and the beliefs of the early church. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956, and are a total of 800 fragments. They contain portions of or entire copies of every OT book of the Bible except the book of Esther. And NONE of them refer to Jesus at all! NONE – Browne fabricated his claim out of thin air – it is completely false! And that is just one example.
Another historical error that is crucial to Brown’s story line are the statements he makes about the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. Brown claims that a Pagan Roman Emperor (Constantine) put together our current version of the Bible at the Council of Nicea with the purpose of advancing his personal political agenda. In the book, Brown claims that the determination of which books are included in the Bible was made by a vote, “and” he says, “it was a very close vote at that.”
He makes this claim despite the facts. First, Constantine was Christian, not a pagan. Secondly, the council did not even consider the content of the Bible. The Nicean Council was called because a priest in Alexandria named Arius, had put out a claim that while Jesus was the Son of God, he was not eternal – that God the Father had “created” God the Son at some time before the earth’s creation. The claim caused a huge controversy in the church, and Constantine called church leaders together to debate the issue and come up with a determination of the truth. The leaders searched the Scriptures, including the NT writings, which had already been determined to be holy, and stated, in what came to be called the Nicean Creed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, “one in being with the Father.”
THAT is the historical fact – and it is not even close to what Dan Brown presents in his book! The council had nothing to do with determining the canon of Scripture – there was indeed a vote – about the issue that was being debated – but it was not even close. Over 300 bishops attended the council, only 3 refused to sign the Nicean Creed. There are other historical errors in the book – and sometimes the line between the historical and the theological gets blurred, so let’s move into a few of the theological lies that Brown tells.
Where the historical and theological blur most in The DaVinci Code is in the discussion of the alternative gospels – generally known as the Gnostic Gospels. Brown claims that the Gnostics contain “the most reliable and more accurate biographies of Jesus.” He claims that there were “over 80 possible biographies of Jesus to choose from, but only the 4 that met the political agenda of the early church were chosen.”
In fact, there is a collection of alternative gospels of Jesus – The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Mary, etc - but they are less than 20 in number. The earliest of the Gnostic Gospels were written in 150 AD and some were written as late as AD250 – 100 to 200 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Even the most liberal scholars agree that they were written decades later, and that they were not written by the disciples whose name they bear. In contrast, the four Biblical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written between AD45 and AD85 within the lifetime of eyewitnesses to the events – by either the disciple himself in the case of Matthew and John – or a first hand companion of an apostle – Mark was a ministry partner of Peter, and Luke was with the apostle Paul.
John writes in the 21st chapter of his biography of Jesus about a conversation between Jesus, Peter and the “disciple Jesus loved.” He then says, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.” In I John chapter 1, verse 1 he writes, “that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at an dour hands have touched this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life.” In the opening words of his biography, Luke says, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word…” And yet even though a vast majority of scholars agree with the authenticity of the four biblical gospels, Brown, and some radical others, want to claim that the Gnostics are more reliable. That is like saying that a biography of Abraham Lincoln written today – 140 years after his death – would be more reliable and accurate than a biography written about Lincoln by one of his White House assistants who worked with him every day! It’s an absurd claim – and yet many swallow the lie as truth.
Another theological lie that Brown propagates is that the early church, and the disciples, did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. He claims that Jesus Himself never claimed to be divine, and the most accurate biographies did not claim that he was God, and that the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was a teacher and prophet, but not divine and that he did not raise from the dead. He claims that the council of Nicea invented that notion in 325. We’ve already talked about what the real issue was at Nicea – it was not a discussion about the divinity of Christ – that was already agreed to be true – the question at Nicea was regarding the eternal nature of God the Son. The issue of the divinity of Jesus was never debated at Nicea.
Again, the facts completely blow Brown’s claims out of the water – including an archaeological discover just in the last 5 months. We’ll get to that in a moment – let’s look at the written testimony first. As we stated just a moment ago, the four gospels we have were written with in 30 years of the death of Christ. In them, there are numerous references to times when Jesus upset the Jewish Leaders by claiming to be God. In John 10, for example, the Pharisees took up stones to kill Jesus, and when He asked them why they were going to kill Him, they responded, “for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” In fact, the reason they had Jesus killed by the Romans was because he was claiming to be God! In addition to that, and other Gospel accounts, we have Paul’s creed in I Corinthians chapter 15. Now I Corinthians is believed to be the earliest piece of New Testament literature – written even before any of the gospels – it was written about 50 AD – only 15 years after the crucifixion – and it chapter 15 of that letter, Paul quotes what virtually every theologian agrees is the first Creed of the church. Listen to it: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” This creed was already a part of the church within 15 years of the crucifixion of Jesus – and Paul mentions in verse 6 of that chapter that many eyewitnesses to the risen Christ were still alive at the time he wrote this! Followers of Jesus believed that He was indeed God, that He died for our sins, and was resurrected from the dead from the very beginning of the church – and they were willing to die for that belief!
I mentioned a recent archaeological discovery that again shows that Brown is a liar. This past November, the Israeli government was building an addition to their prison at Megiddo, and in digging the foundation, the discovered the remains of a church – the floor was covered in a mosaic that contained early Christian symbols – it is believed to be the earliest Christian church ever discovered in Israel – and an inscription on the floor stated that the structure had been dedicated to "The God Jesus Christ as a memorial." Once again, the facts uncover Brown’s lies. Jesus has been considered divine since Peter exclaimed in Cesarea Philippi, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”
Of course, rising above them all is the notion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that they had a child. There is absolutely no mention of any kind in any source – even the bogus sources Brown sites – of this being true. It is an absolute fabrication of Brown’s, based on a fabrication first dreamed up by Petrand as I mentioned earlier. Brown claims that the early church leaders, Peter, John, and the rest, suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene, but in fact, if you just read the gospel accounts you will see that she is given a very prominent position – she was, in fact one of if not the first person to see the risen Lord! There was not attempt to smear her – she was in fact shown to be a devoted follower of Christ. She loved the Lord with a pure and deep love out of gratitude to the Son of God who had set her free from the power of sin and given her eternal life.
And there is the root of the problem – Brown does not know Jesus as God, nor as his Savior, and so he cannot understand such love and gratitude. Instead, blinded by ambition and greed, he has found a willing public that seems to live by the motto, “the more outlandish the claim, the more deeply I will believe it.” If you haven’t experienced the love, acceptance and life that is found through faith in Jesus Christ, then you may be unable to understand that love. But His love for you is real – it compelled Him to give His own life as a ransom for yours, so that you can be freed from sin and death. And the most compelling evidence of that truth is in the seats around you – in the testimonies of those you heard this morning tell of God’s amazing love and grace.
The church should not be surprised by such a popular response to such outrageous lies – the Bible warns us that this very thing will happen. Listen to Paul’s words from I Timothy, and see if they do not describe what we are seeing in recent days:
1 Tim. 6:3-10, “If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain… People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
Paul follows that description of our current day with instruction that is applicable to us all:
But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life…O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoid the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. (I Timothy 6:11-12&20)
We are to pursue godliness in a world of lies…Peter commands us to “Always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks us to give an account for the hope that is in us, yet with gentleness and reverence.” (I Peter 3:15) We need not be intimidated by the attacks on the faith – they are not worrisome to the God of the universe, they are part of the “good fight of faith,” but we are not to sit idly by and concede the battle to the enemy – be confident as you proclaim your faith! Arm yourself with the Sword of the Spirit – the Word of God, and with the weapon of prayer, and guard what has been committed to you.
Prayer