Before You Watch The Da Vince Code

20 Big Lies in the Da Vinci Code
By James A. Beverley

Source: http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=12860

Don't be fooled. Here are just a few ways Dan Brown's

best-selling
book twists and distorts the truth of the gospel.

In a little more than three years The Da Vinci Code has become

the
best-selling adult novel of all time. It has also become the

subject
of intense debate among Christians because of its radical claims

that
undermine basic Christianity.

Why all the fuss over a work of fiction? The answer lies on Page

1,
where author Dan Brown asserts that "all descriptions of artwork,
architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are
accurate."

In reality, the novel is a model of inaccuracy in almost every
subject it addresses. Critics have noted its mistakes in

mathematics,
French geography and even the layout of the Louvre. More

important,
Brown's jarring claims about Jesus, the Bible, secret societies

and
ritual sex are based on shallow research, sloppy investigation and
careless thought. However, given the novel's popularity and the
staggering bravado in its tone, it is necessary for Christians to
provide a critique of its central blunders.

Here are 20 of them.

1.The Bible was invented by Roman Emperor Constantine in the

fourth
century.
The Da Vinci Code reports that "Constantine commissioned and

financed
a new Bible," one that left out the Gnostic texts and included

the
four traditional Gospels. In fact, Constantine had nothing to do

with
the making of the Christian canon. He is not even mentioned in

the
standard Cambridge History of the Bible. The traditional Gospels

were
recognized by virtually all Christians 150 years before

Constantine.

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels are the "earliest
Christian records."
Not so. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 and date

from
250 B.C. to A.D. 100. However, these documents have virtually

nothing
to do with Christianity but with various Jewish groups, rituals

and
ideas before and during the time of Christ.

The Gnostic Gospels offer a twisted and heretical version of the
Christian faith, but they didn't come into existence until about a
century or more after the death of Christ.

The earliest Christian records are the writings of the New

Testament.

3. The Gnostic Gospels present a positive view of the feminine.
The Gnostic texts are said to picture a human, sexualized Jesus

who
embraced the sacred feminine. Actually, the Jesus presented in the
Gnostic material is often simply weird, and the underlying

ideology
tends to be radically anti-feminine. Consider this bizarre

passage
from the Gospel of Thomas: "Simon Peter said to them, 'Make Mary
leave us, for females don't deserve life.' Jesus said, 'Look, I

will
guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living
spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself

male
will enter the kingdom of Heaven.'"

4. Early Christians did not believe Jesus was God's Son.
This is a bizarre claim, rooted in either willful ignorance or
blindness to the obvious. After 2,000 years, people continue to
debate whether Jesus is the Son of God. But what has never been
subject to doubt is that early Christians confessed that Jesus is
God's Son, as the following Scriptures indicate: "Simon Peter
answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living

God'"
(Matt. 16:16); "But when the fullness of the time had come, God

sent
forth His Son" (Gal. 4:4).

5. The Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) invented the divinity of

Jesus.
Contrary to Brown's claim, the famous church council met to

clarify
the divinity of Jesus, not create it. There are thousands of
references to the divinity of Jesus in Christian literature and
archaeology before the Council at Nicea. This includes the

hundreds
of claims in the New Testament and the witness of early church
leaders through the second and third centuries.

6. Jesus was really a pagan or a witch.
No standard reference works on witchcraft ever include Jesus as
witch or pagan. The novel attempts to argue that Jesus was a

copycat
figure of ancient pagan deities. This view depends on totally
ignoring the Jewish context of the life and teaching of Jesus. If
Jesus had been a pagan or a witch, this would have been noticed

by
the Jewish leaders who opposed Him.

7. Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
The novel claims that there are "countless references" to their

union
in ancient history and that the topic "has been explored ad

nauseam
by modern historians." First, there is nothing in the New

Testament
or other first century material about such a marriage. Second,

there
is no explicit mention of the alleged marriage in the Gnostic
material of the second and third centuries. All we have in the
Gnostic material is one reference to Mary as the "companion" of
Jesus. That word, however, does not usually mean "spouse" or

"wife."

8. Jesus and Mary had a child named Sarah.
The novel claims Mary was pregnant at the time of the death of

Jesus.
Joseph of Arimathea, her uncle, helped her move to France. There

she
gave birth to a girl she named Sarah. Mary and Sarah found refuge

in
the Jewish community in France. We are told that "countless

scholars
of that era chronicled Mary Magdalene's days in France." This is
nothing but historical junk first made popular by the 1982

potboiler
Holy Blood, Holy Grail. There are no ancient documents supporting

any
of these claims, and no scholars of that era chronicled these

alleged
events.

9. There was a smear campaign against Mary Magdalene in Catholic
tradition.
To the contrary, Mary Magdalene receives positive attention in

the
Bible and in Catholic tradition. In fact, she is regarded as a

saint,
and her Feast Day is July 22. As a close disciple of Jesus, she

was
one of the first witnesses of His resurrection. The mistaken view
that she was a prostitute did not arise until A.D. 591 when Pope
Gregory I confused her with a prostitute mentioned in Luke

7:36-50.

10. A secret society named the Priory of Sion started in 1099 and

has
protected the bones of Mary Magdalene and documents about the
bloodline of Jesus Christ.
This is one of the most significant blunders of The Da Vinci

Code.
The Priory of Sion was actually started in France on May 7, 1956,

by
a con artist named Pierre Plantard (1920-2000). The Priory was

first
a civic organization. In the 1960s Plantard created the mythology

of
a secret society led by figures such as Isaac Newton and Leonardo

da
Vinci.

11. Ancient documents about the Priory were discovered in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris in 1975.
The Da Vinci Code refers to these alleged parchments as Les

Dossiers
Secrets. These documents are not ancient but are actually

forgeries
done by Philippe de ChZ?risey (1925-1985), a co-conspirator with
Plantard. They were not discovered by the French library in 1975

but
were placed there by Plantard in 1967.

Both de ChZ?risey and Plantard admitted the hoax before their

deaths.
In fact, Plantard was forced to admit his fraud before Judge

Thierry
Jean-Pierre in a French court case in September 1993.

12. There are historical lists of the Grand Masters of the Priory

of
Sion.
Actually, when Plantard invented the Priory of Sion he copied most

of
his list of Grand Masters from lists of alleged leaders of other
groups, such as the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, a

secret
society founded in America in 1915. Plantard also changed his list

of
Grand Masters as he adopted different conspiracy theories about

his
Priory of Sion.

13. The Holy Grail is not the cup used at the Last Supper but the
bones of Mary Magdalene.
The novel states that "the quest for the Holy Grail is literally

the
quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to

pray
at the feet of the outcast one, the lost sacred feminine."

The Holy Grail legends started about A.D. 1180 and continued

through
the 19th century. They never involved claims about the bones of

Mary
Magdalene. Isn't it amazing that no Priory of Sion member has

ever
given in to the temptation to reveal the location of the bones of
Mary Magdalene?

14. The Knights Templar guarded the bones of Mary Magdalene and

four
huge chests of ancient documents about the bloodline of Jesus

Christ
and the French kings who descended from Him.
The Knights Templar is a religious military order founded in the
early 12th century. Hugues de Payens, a French Knight, led eight
comrades in the campaign to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land.

It has never been argued in the historical material about the
Templars that they protected either Mary Magdalene or documents

about
French kings. These claims are the inventions of Pierre Plantard,

who
declared at one point that he was the descendant of Jesus and the
proper heir to the French throne.

15. Leonardo da Vinci was once the Grand Master of the Priory of
Sion.
The Priory started 437 years after the death of the great artist.

Not
one Leonardo da Vinci specialist in the entire world has supported
the view that he once headed a pagan sex cult. James Beck of

Columbia
University calls this "total nonsense." Leonard da Vinci scholars
have convened special conferences in order to debunk the novel's
false claims about the famous artist.

16. Leonardo da Vinci placed Mary Magdalene next to Jesus in his
famous painting The Last Supper.
In da Vinci's time everyone believed that this person was John,

the
beloved disciple. Renaissance art specialists have always noted

that
John was painted in a rather effeminate manner. The painting was

not
meant to reveal the identity of a woman but the tension created

among
the apostles after Jesus says to them, "'One of you will betray

Me'"
(Matt. 26:21). Of course, even if da Vinci put a woman next to

Jesus
in his painting, this would not tell us anything about the real

Last
Supper more than 14 centuries earlier.

17. The Catholic Church killed 5 million women during the

Witchcraft
Inquisition.
The women targeted as witches were freethinkers, scholars,
priestesses, gypsies, nature lovers, mystics and midwives.

The novel radically misinterprets the nature and scope of the
Inquisition. First, both men and women were targeted as witches.
Second, the female victims were generally older and were not from

any
specific class or profession. Third, the deaths totaled no more

than
100,000, counting both males and females. Most important, the
Inquisition was rooted in the real belief that certain men and

women
actually worshiped Satan and performed diabolical acts of evil.

18. French President
Francois Mitterand ordered 666 panes of glass in the pyramid at

the
front entrance to the Louvre.

The novel adopts a false rumor that circulated in French society

two
decades ago. Mitterand did not order 666 panes of glass to be in

the
pyramid. In fact, the public relations office at the Louvre

informed
me that the pyramid actually has 673 panes of glass.

19. Early Jewish as well as Christian tradition involved sex
ritualism in worship.
There is not a single hint in the entire Old Testament or in

Jewish
history that sex rites were part of temple worship. Jewish males

did
not engage in sex with priestesses in the temple. The word
"priestess" is not even used in the Old Testament.

In the novel Jesus and Mary Magdalene are pictured as the ideal
participants in an early Christian sex ritual. This wild claim has

no
basis in history, either in terms of early Christian tradition or
even in reference to Gnostic documents.

20 True worship involves sex ritualism.
The Da Vinci Code states that "historically, intercourse was the

act
through which male and female experienced God" and that "by

communing
with woman S? man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind

went
totally blank and he could see God."

The Da Vinci Code will bring great harm to every innocent

religious
seeker who follows its endorsement of sex ritual as the path to

God.
Brown is surely bluffing in his rhetoric about sex in worship. It

is
impossible to imagine that he really believes his own novel's
ideology.

Would he be willing to participate in the ancient ritual that The

Da
Vinci Code defends? Would he really recommend this ancient ritual

to
his wife, family and friends?

In both book and movie form The Da Vinci Code represents a threat

as
well as an opportunity for Christians. Its danger lies in its
strident assertions of falsehoods that undermine basic teachings

of
the gospel.

Uninformed readers and moviegoers must be made aware of the
historical blunders in Dan Brown's claims. At the same time, the
novel and movie create an unprecedented opportunity for believers

to
witness about the reliability of the Bible and its central

redemptive
message-that the Son of God became flesh, died on the cross and

rose
again.


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James A. Beverley is associate director of the Institute for the
Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara and professor of
Christian Thought and Ethics at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto. He

is
also the author of 10 books, including Counterfeit Code and

Religions
A to Z. For information on his writings, visit

www.jamesbeverley.com.

The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!
--
"If someone does not smile at you, be generous and offer your own
smile.
Nobody needs a smile more than the one that cannot smile to

others."

"A smile is the lighting system of the face, the cooling system
of the head and the heating system of the heart."