Unlocking the Da Vinci Code

Why you should see the movie? Sunday, May 14, 2006

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This morning we want to ask and answer one question:

Should followers of Jesus go see the movie ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and if so why? Already an international publishing sensation, Dan Browns’ The Da Vinci Code comes out as a feature film this coming Friday. It is directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks. This compelling story blurs the line between fact and fiction. So as millions of people go to see the movie this weekend they, like the millions of people who have read the book, will by questioning the origins and truthfulness of Biblical Christianity. ABC NEWS held a one-hour special program called, "Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci," which aired last November 3. It explored controversial historical questions considered in Brown’s novel, such as whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a family together. Concerning that issue, Dan Brown said he doubts scholars will ever reach consensus over whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene married. "There is simply too much contradictory documentation in existence... much of which seems to spring from reputable sources.” To which I say…Oh really! What documentation? So should believers see a movie that questions the truthfulness of Biblical Christianity? 1. ‘Condemn and Ignore’—The ‘Stick your head in the sand’ Approach: If Christians just condemn and ignore the move because it so far from the truth it will encourage “Christians-to-be” to ignore the book/movie also. Example: Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ portrayed Jesus as a tormented, fearful young man confused by sex and uncertain of his path. *Problem with this strategy for this book is that people are NOT IGNORING IT! 2. ‘Be Informed and Engage’ or ‘Be salt & light’: Christians must learn what the issues are that this book/movie is raising in people’s minds and be equipped to engage people in gracious dialogue about the facts/fiction of the book/movie. So should Christians see the movie or read the book The Da Vinci Code? *Not my purpose to encourage movie-going But to engage people in spiritual conversat. Facts are: people have read the book & are asking questions! Many will see the movie. What is our response: stick our head in the sand or be informed and Engage (Salt/Light) 1

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AN OVERVIEW OF THE MOVIE/BOOK It is a novel about a curator at the Louvre whose murder leads investigators to a

startling discovery. It turns out the dead man has been part of an ancient secret society called the Priory of Sion that has concealed a scandalous secret for ages. It is a novel that supposedly reveals a great secret. What's the secret? Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and she was with child when Jesus died. Jesus' descendents, through Mary, are called the Merovingians (Mer-o-vin-gians) & they carried on a tradition of celebrating something called ‘the sacred feminine.’ It is novel that insists that Jesus Christ is not God. It proposes that Jesus’ supposed divinity (Godhead) was made up by the Constantine as a political maneuver at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. It says the real story was kept by a secret society called "The Priory of Sion," to which many famous Europeans, such as Leonardo da Vinci. It is a novel taken directly from the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a fantasydisguised-as historical book. It is also influenced by many Gnostic conspiracy theories that have been proposed through the centuries that seek to destroy Biblical Christianity. It is a novel that claims much of the backdrop of the story is based on truth, which has caused most of the stir. Brown claims "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." Brown believes that in 325, in the city of Nicea, church bishops met to consolidate their power base by creating a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture, both novelties, something Christians prior to that time supposedly did not believe. #3

FIVE KEY QUESTIONS THAT THE DA VINCI CODE RAISES

1. Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? No. Mary Magdalene was close to Jesus. She wept at Jesus' tomb (John 20). Jesus even entrusted her to return and tell the disciples about his resurrection. But we have no reason to believe they were married. Brown says that Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper reveals the secret. He writes that the figure to Jesus' right, traditionally known as the apostle John, is actually Mary. Not true. Artists often gave characters feminine features to portray youth. John was the youngest of the disciples. Brown correctly observes that few Jewish men of Jesus' day did not marry. But why, then, did the apostle Paul, himself celibate, not mention Jesus and Mary when he argued apostles could marry (1 Cor. 9:5)? 2

2. What about these alternative gospels that aren't in the New Testament? It's true that the Bible did not arrive as a "fax from heaven," as Brown writes. The New Testament canon in its current form was first formally attested in 367. Nevertheless, church leaders applied important standards when compiling the Bible, which we will see. But what about the so-called Gnostic gospels—are they authentic Gospels? NO. Many were discovered just last century and do not meet the criteria for being Scripture. Many appeared much later and were dubiously attributed to major Christian leaders. Their teachings also contradict the writings of the Apostle Paul. For example, many Gnostic writings argued that Jesus did not appear in the flesh, because flesh is evil. 3. Was there debate on Jesus’ being fully God? Yes and no. It is true that there were some disputes about the identity and nature of Jesus Christ. But by the time of the 3rd Century, Christians across the board believed the Bible taught and that Jesus claimed to be fully God. Constantine, the first Roman emperor wanted to make Christianity legal not create a divine Christ. To do this, he called a meeting in 325 in Nicea, which we will look more closely at in a moment. 4. What is Opus Dei? Opus Dei is conservative religious group within the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Dei urges priests and laypeople to strenuously pursue sanctification through everyday discipline. The group has taken criticism for its conservative views, zeal, and secretive practices. There is no evidence that Opus Dei has resorted to murder; nor has the Vatican entrusted Opus Dei to violently guard the church's deepest secrets, as Dan Brown claims. 5. Does the Priory of Sion really exist? Yes, but not as described by Brown. Researchers suspect that members of the reallife Priory of Sion, founded in 1956, forged documents that placed major historical figures—such as Isaac Newton and Leonard da Vinci—in an ancient secret society. There is no evidence for this group beyond dubious documents. Any story relating this group to a dynasty begun by Jesus and Mary Magdalene is merely a fanciful work of fiction. #4

THREE MAIN ISSUES

1. The Make-up & Authority of the Bible With the Bible playing a central role in Christianity, the question of Scripture's 3

historic validity bears tremendous implications. The Da Vinci Code raises questions about the truthfulness of the Bible. But in these attacks, Brown overlooks the fact that the human process of canonization (process by which our existing Bible was deemed Scripture, inspired by God) had progressed for centuries before Nicea, resulting in a nearly complete canon before Nicea or Constantine's legalization of Christianity in 313. Ironically, the process of collecting and consolidating Scripture was launched when a rival sect produced its own quasi-biblical canon. Around 140 a Gnostic leader named Marcion began spreading a theory that the New and Old Testaments didn't share the same God. Marcion argued that the Old Testament's God represented law and wrath while the New Testament's God, represented by Christ, exemplified love. As a result Marcion rejected the Old Testament and the most overtly Jewish New Testament writings, including Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews. He manipulated other books to downplay their Jewish tendencies. In 144 the church declared Marcion’s views heretical. But Marcion's teaching sparked a new cult. Challenged by Marcion's threat, church leaders began to consider earnestly their own views on a definitive list of Scriptural books including both the Old and New Testaments. Another rival theology nudged the church toward consolidating the New Testament. During the mid- to late-second century, a man from Asia Minor named Montanus boasted of receiving a revelation from God about an impending apocalypse. Church leaders met this challenge around 190 and circulated a definitive list of apostolic writings that is today called the Muratorian Canon, after its modern discoverer. The Muratorian Canon bears striking resemblance to today's New Testament but included two extra books, Revelation of Peter and Wisdom of Solomon, which were later excluded. So by the time of Nicea, church leaders debated the legitimacy of only a few books, specifically Hebrews and Revelation because their authorship remained in doubt. In fact, authorship was the most important consideration for those who worked to solidify the canon. Early church leaders considered letters and eyewitness accounts authoritative and binding only if they were written by an apostle or a close disciple of an apostle. This way they could be assured of the documents' reliability. As pastors and preachers, they also observed which books did in fact build up the church—a sign of inspired Scripture. 4

2. The Deity of Jesus Christ: Is Jesus really God? When Constantine called the council of Nicea the church had reached a theological crossroads. Arius, an Alexandrian theologian argued that Jesus had undoubtedly been a remarkable leader, but that he was not God in flesh. In essence, Arius argued that Jesus of Nazareth could not possibly share God the Father's unique divinity. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown wrongly adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. Referring to the Council of Nicea, Brown claims that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless." That statement simply is not true. In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Savior and Lord. Before the church adopted comprehensive doctrinal creeds, early Christian leaders developed a set of instructional summaries of belief, termed the "Rule" or "Canon" of Faith, which affirmed this truth. Irenaeus, a prominent second-century bishop believed that 1 Corinthians 8:6 clearly teaches that Jesus is fully God by calling Him Lord. It says, "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ." The term “Lord” is the Greek word Kyrios. Kyrios was used by the Greeks to denote divinity. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, pre-dating Christ), this term became the preferred substitution for "Jahweh," the holy name of God. The Romans also used it to denote the divinity of their emperor, and the first-century Jewish writer Josephus tells us that the Jews refused to use it of the emperor for precisely this reason: only God himself was kyrios. The Christians took over this usage of kyrios and applied it to Jesus, from the earliest days of the church. They did so not only in Scripture itself but in the earliest extra-canonical Christian book, the Didache, which scholars agree was written no later than the late 100s. In this book, the earliest Aramaicspeaking Christians refer to Jesus as Lord, indicating their firm belief that He is God. In addition, pre-Nicene Christians acknowledged Jesus's divinity by petitioning God the Father in Christ's name. Church leaders, including Justin Martyr, a secondcentury church apologist, baptized people in the name of the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—thereby acknowledging the equality of three persons in one Being. 5

3. Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene and have physical children through her? NO. This is what Teabing, one of the characters in the book, the so-called historian says, “Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage, and the vine from which the sacred fruit sprang forth.” The Da Vinci Code claims that there are countless references by modern historians that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. That simply is not true. There are only a couple of references to the possible union, the most famous in a 1983 book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which is regard by scholars and historians as “pulp fiction.” The Da Vinci Code claims that Mary Magdalene bore Christ’s royal bloodline and was of the House of Benjamin and of royal descent and that proof of this is contained in the Sangreal documents. That is all fiction. There is no genealogy of Mary Magdalene in any documents anywhere, especially in the fraudulent Sangreal documents. So should Christians see this movie or read the The Da Vinci Code?

Maybe BUT…

1. You have nothing to fear—God will use this for His glory—if we trust Him ! Philippians 1:12-14 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. 2. God has given us a great opportunity to engage people in spiritual conversations. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. 3. We are commanded to always be ready—Thursday 7 pm and next 3 weeks 1 Peter 3:15-16 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 6