Fact and Spin in the DaVinci Code

By Bruce Norquist Ph.D. – Ascension Day 2006 

Fact: there is an organization known as “The Priory of Scion”.   

There was once a medieval monastic order by this name.  It is now defunct.  The present day Priory of Scion referred to in Brown’s story is crackpot splinter group founded by Pierre Plantard in 1956.  Plantard apparently thought that he was a direct descendant of Jesus and heir to the French Throne.  He was either a liar, a lunatic, or exactly who he claimed to be – the scion of Christ and rightful King of France.  The documents in the French National Library supporting Plantard’s supposed ancestry and claim to the Plantagenet throne have recently been proven to be an elaborate hoax. Accordingly, Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo DaVinci were never among the fabled members of this Priory (as Brown claims). 

Fact: Opus Dei is an official subgroup of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Although it is not our intention to defend the Catholic Church at every point, it is only fair to point out that while the book makes Opus Dei out to be a fanatical sect staffed by murderous monks bent on assassinating members of rival groups, Opus Dei has no monks in its membership.  They are a highly committed Catholic lay organization that will hopefully benefit from the scrutiny they are presently under. 

Fact: There is a museum in Paris, France known as the Louvre and there are paintings in the Louvre by Leonardo (never called DaVinci in the literate art community). 

But whereas the book explicitly claims that ALL descriptions of Artwork and architecture are accurate, they are not.  For example, to ramp up images of the anti-Christ, the DVC claims that there are 666 windows in the Louvre’s controversial glass pyramid; there are in fact 673.  The DVC describes one of Leonardo’s ponderous six and a half foot wood panel paintings (weighing hundreds of pounds) as a five foot canvas that could be easily toted by a slender woman.  Brown says that the Mona Lisa was so named by Leonardo as a secret reference to the Egyptian gods, Amon and Isis.  Problem being the painting was never called The Mona Lisa in Leonardo’s lifetime.  The name was coined much later: Mona being short for Madonna (meaning simply ‘lady”) and Lisa is taken from the most likely subject of the painting: Lisa Gherardini.  The book says that the “Holy Grail” spoken of in the Bible was intentionally left out of Leonardo’s painting of the Last Supper.  The Bible, of course, never speaks of the Holy Grail.  Brown describes the chapel at Roslyn as having a footpath worn into the stone in the shape of the Star of David; it does not.  Suffice it to say, many (if not most) of the descriptions of artwork and architecture in the DVC are inaccurate (at best).  We must conclude that Brown wrote, either out of ignorance or, with the deliberate intention of deceiving a gullible public.  We do not know which. 

Fact: the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in Palestine in the 1946 (not in the 50’s as the Dan Brown says); together with the Nag Hamadi scrolls they shed valuable light on the social and religious life in the early centuries of this era. 

The book says that ALL descriptions of documents are completely accurate.  While the DVC maintains that Constantine tried to destroy the “gospels” found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, this cannot be accurate since there are no Gospels in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  (Nor would one expect to find a Christian text to emerge from a body of literature compiled by a Jewish sect.)  And while it is true that some of the (2^nd and 3^rd Century) Gnostic gospels found an audience among people who were under the sway of Greek philosophy, they were never accepted by the majority of the Church.  The DVC says that Constantine was bent on omitting the gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and that he did everything he could to include only those gospels that deified Jesus.  Isn’t it ironic then that the gospels included in the New Testament clearly speak of Christ’s humanity.  Not only that, but many of the Gospels the emperor supposedly eliminated from circulation (like the Gnostic gospels from the Nag Hammadi Library) speak over and over of the divinity of Christ.  In many cases they present an even more other-worldly Christ than the one depicted in the Bible.  For example, one Gnostic Gospel has Jesus even as child, doing things like fashioning birds from clay and then teaching them how to fly.   

Fact: As the DaVinci Code rightly points out: “The Bible did not arrive by FAX from heaven.” 

The Bible was a collaborative effort between God and man – not a facsimile from heaven - not inspired in the vein of “automatic writing” but created in a long process of as many as 40 authors “being moved upon by God” over a period of over 1500 years.  Looking at this fact, Brown has his “history scholar” Leigh Teabing, say that there has never been a definitive version of the Bible; when he says this it looks like he is unaware of the fact that the Bible has both an Old and New Testament and that the 39 books of Old Testament Scriptures were definitively established centuries before Christ.  Furthermore, there was a definite process in place whereby what we have come to know as the 27 books of the New Testament found their way into what we call the “canon” (or standard list) of Scripture.  The books were evaluated by three tests that the Gnostic Gospels all failed to pass.  To be included in the canon of scripture a book was required to have: 1.) obvious and early ties with the early apostolic community, 2.) standard orthodoxy (or conformity with the rest of Scripture) and 3.) Catholicity (or universal acceptance).  This process was invoked as early as 70 AD and culminated in Athanasius’ list of the 27 books of our present New Testament in 367 AD.  Athanasius however, did not determine the canon but served as one who compiled a list of those books Christians had ALREADY universally accepted as being both apostolic and orthodox.  Athanasius’ learned opinion was officially ratified in 393 AD at the Synod of Hippo. 

Fact: The Bible has undergone changes in being translated into our modern languages. 

When a Greek text, for example, is translated into English it undergoes a change from one language to another.  The DVC says, however, that the Bible has evolved through countless revisions and translations.  (“countless” is one of Brown’s favorite words.) He appears ignorant of the fact that most of our modern English Bibles have been translated directly from the original Hebrew and Greek into form we presently find them in.  Our translations are only one step removed from the most ancient and reliable manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments we have in our possession today.  And, by the way, the Bible has a far more reliable history of document transmission and authenticity than ANY other classical book of antiquity - bar none.  

Fact: Constantine did commission 50 Bibles to be produced during his reign. 

The DVC claims, however, that Constantine decided which books would be included and which books would be excluded in his version of the Bible.  Constantine had nothing to do with the selection of books to be included in our Bible - nor did the Council of Nicea ever make it their business to rule on the “canon” (or official list) of books to be included in the Bible.  Brown asserts that Constantine removed those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits.  If this is so, how is it that the gospels we do have speak so clearly of Christ’s humanity?  And IF it were true, as Brown’s character suggests, that “until that moment in history” (i.e. until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD) Jesus was only ever viewed by his followers as a mere mortal, where did Constantine get all the other gospels (e.g. the four we have in the NT) that say he is divine?

Fact: The Emperor Constantine called for a council of leading bishops to come up with an agreed upon statement concerning the nature of Christ’s divinity. (E.g., had he existed as God for all eternity with the Father or had he come into being at some later time as the Son?) In other words, the bishops were called together to debate the precise meaning of what had already been written in scripture and upheld by the early Church for centuries. 

The book says that until the time of the Council of Nicea, Christ was never thought of as divine and that a vote to falsely establish Jesus as God passed by only a narrow margin.  Such a claim does not so much bring shame on Jesus but on anyone who would try to pass off such a ridiculous statement as historical fact.  Both Jesus and his earliest followers in the first, second and third centuries held that He was fully God.  It is a matter of record that the Council reaffirmed the early church’s belief in full Deity of Christ and his “co-eternality” with the Father - by a margin of 300 to 2.

Fact: The pagan Emperor, Constantine, actually did become sympathetic to Christianity. 

The book claims that Constantine established Christianity as the official State Religion of the Roman Empire over against Sun Worship.  First of all, Constantine’s “Edict of Milan” in 313 AD did not decree that Christianity was the Official State Religion of Rome but that Christian worship would, henceforth, be tolerated.  Furthermore, Sun Worship was never the official state religion of Rome; nor did Constantine and the early Christians usurp sun worship by changing their Sabbath day from Saturday to SUNday - as the DVC says.  Sunday was chosen as the day of Christian worship nearly 300 years before Constantine on account of the fact that it was Jesus’ Resurrection day.   

Fact: There are certain similarities between Christianity and pagan religions. 

But is Christianity just a copy-cat religion? Brown contends in one place that the myth of Jesus was patterned after the pagan God, Mithras.   Brown says that that Mithras was called the Son of God, the Light of World, and that his followers thought that he was buried in a stone tomb and raised from the dead.  This is simply not so.  On the other hand, some of the similarities that do exist between say, for example, Mithraism and Christianity may be explained by the fact that ancient pagans often aped popular Biblical traditions. Mithraism did not gain a foothold in the Roman Empire until about a century AFTER Christ. 

Fact: The role of women has been debated in the Church. 

The book claims that women in general and the idea of the Divine Feminine in particular have been consciously suppressed by the Church.  Brown sets forth the idea that the ancient Hebrews worshipped both a male and female deity – both God and his female counterpart - “Shekinah”.  Brown says that the ancient Hebrew name of God, Jehovah, is actually a marriage of the male “Jah” and the “pre-Hebraic” name for Eve, “Hvah”.  The fact of the matter is that there is no “pre-Hebraic” name for Eve; Hvah is the Biblical Hebrew for Eve. The name Jehovah did not come from two words for male and female; it is the Latinized form of Yahweh which came about by adding the vowels from the Hebrew, Adonai (Lord) to the ancient “tetragrammaton” (the four consonants YHWH which represented the “I AM”). Brown’s claim that the Shekinah was a representation of the sacred feminine is pure make-believe.  While the Hebrew people did have times when they succumbed to the temptation of worshiping local goddesses and giving way to pagan ritual of consorting with temple prostitutes etc, it was clearly against their tradition and a distinct violation of Mosaic law.  While the Bible celebrates legitimate human sexuality, Brown ignores this fact and attempts to justify sordid sexual rituals as an avenue of spiritual enlightenment. If the Bible were so much against women why does it include accounts of Deborah’s leadership, Jael’s courage, Ruth’s loyalty, Abigail’s wisdom, Esther’s heroism, Phoebe’s service, Phillip’s daughters prophesying, Priscilla’s teaching, and Junia’s apostleship.  Why were women listed among Christ’s followers, invested by him with the truth, sent out as evangelists and present on the Day of Pentecost?  Why is it that Paul teaches that, in Christ, there is no basis for discrimination between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female?  Whenever the church has, regrettably, failed to honor women as it ought to have, it is because it has failed to follow Christ’s example in the Bible. 

Fact: Once s/he understands the ancient documents, any honest person has to wonder if any of Jesus’ blood relatives remain on planet earth today. 

The book claims that there are “countless” references by historians to attest to the fact that the relatives of Jesus on earth today are his descendents from his union with Mary Magdalene.  No reputable historian has ever set forth proof that Jesus was married or that he had children.  Brown claims that Jesus marriage to Mary Magdalene is proven in the Aramaic version of the Gospel of Phillip. Slight problem - the Gospel of Phillip was not written in Aramaic.  Moreover, scholars agree it was not compiled until some time in the third century - much later than the earlier eyewitness accounts we have in our Gospels.  The “tens of thousands of pages” containing the so-called “sangreal” documents “stored in four large trunks” have NEVER been produced.  The notion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene has never been substantiated by even one reliable historical document. Scholars do agree, however, that there are thousands of Jesus’ blood relatives still on the earth today; perhaps you are acquainted with some of them; they are known as the Jewish people. The Bible makes it clear, however, that it is not one’s human ancestry that matters; what counts is a person’s spiritual heredity.  The grail of medieval literature is a myth concerning the cup of Christ.  It was employed as a literary device to speak of humanity’s quest for the transcendent.  But even if something like Christ’s chalice were to be found today, it would make no substantive difference to any real believer.  Even if, for the sake of argument, we were to admit that Jesus was married, it has been speculated by reputable theologians that that fact alone would not diminish his claim to deity; similarly, if he bore offspring, it would not necessarily elevate any of his supposed descendents to a higher status, spiritually, than the simplest born again Christian – like Thomas who fell at Jesus’ feet and proclaimed: ‘My Lord and My God! (John 20:28) Again, the Bible plainly says that it is not a person’s DNA that counts for anything; what really matters is one’s spiritual roots.  This being so, one should not be surprised that Jesus plainly taught, “You must be born again.” (John 3:7) 

Fact: In a public interview Brown said that, while his characters are all fictional, the background is all true. 

Ironically, just the opposite is true.  There have been many people throughout history very much like Brown’s character, Sir Leigh Teabing; their arrogant disdain for Christ and His Church serves only as a backdrop for the lies they seemingly want to believe about Jesus – lies which they then in turn pass on - as if they were the truth.  Deceived they become deceivers. 

Fact: Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic or exactly who he claimed to be – the Son of God come in the flesh – fully God and fully human.  

The Priory of Scion Founder we mentioned earlier, Pierre Plantard, was obviously either a fraud or a nut case - for he most certainly was neither a great-great…grandson of Jesus nor was he the King of France.  There is no contemporary account of Jesus that would lead anyone to believe that he was either a liar or a loon.  Could it be, as the Council of Nicea and early Church affirmed - that Jesus was: “God of Gods, Light of Lights, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…”  Could it be that he is the one whom humanity has been looking for all these years in their quest for the elusive Grail?  Don’t stop now, “Seek and ye shall find” (Jesus)