The Journey: Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 2)

In this post, I'll continue to examine the credibility of Dan Brown's claim, put forward in his novel, The Da Vinci Code, that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and sired a royal bloodline that still exists today. But first, if you haven't already, I encourage you to read the previous two posts in this series:

Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Introduction)
Seek the Truth - Exposing the Da Vinci Hoax (Part 1)

Yesterday, we examined the first primary premise used by Brown, which is that the so-called alternative gospels (the Nag Hammada codices) are both more credible than the biblical Gospels and that they support the idea that Jesus was married to the Magdalene. As we saw, both parts of this premise are faulty and the so-called "alternative gospels" thus provide extremely poor evidence - evidence that would not survive a court of law, let alone proper scholarly examination.

Now let's look at the second premise for the "Jesus was married" idea: the symbology supposedly hidden in Leonardo da Vinci's artwork.

Leonardo da Vinci's beliefs are central to the book's plot, even to the point of giving the book/movie its title. Much of the arguments presented by the novel's characters emerge from the supposed codes and symbolism hidden in the artwork of da Vinci. So what did da Vinci really believe? Does his artwork really contain coded messages which reveal what the Church has been covering up for 2000 years?

In The Da Vinci Code, a critical point of "revelation" in the story -- the equivalent of a religious ephiphany -- happens when Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu speak with Leigh Teabing (a grail expert) in his home. Teabing shows Sophie pictures of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, in particular his mural, The Last Supper. Here is a quote from the book:

"Hold on," Sophie said. "You told me the Holy Grail is a woman. The Last Supper is a painting of thirteen men."

"Is it?" Teabing arched his eyebrows. "Take a closer look."

Uncertain, Sophie made her way closer to the painting, scanning the thirteen figures -- Jesus Christ in the middle, six disciples on His left, and six on His right. "They're all men," she confirmed.

"Oh?" Teabing said. "How about the one seated in the place of honour, at the right hand of the Lord?"

Sophie examined the figure to Jesus' immediate right, focusing in. As she studied the person's face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt...female.

"That's a woman!" Sophie exclaimed.

Teabing was laughing. "Surprise, surprise. Believe me, it's no mistake. Leonardo was skilled at painting the difference between the sexes."

Sophie could not take her eyes from the woman beside Christ. The Last Supper is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman? Although Sophie had seen the classic image many times, she had not once noticed this glaring discrepancy.

"Everyone misses it," Teabing said. "Our preconceived notions of this scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides our eyes."

"It's known as skitoma," Langdon added. "The brain does it sometimes with powerful symbols."

This is the part of the story that has impacted some Christians, shaking their faith and causing them to question all they had known about Jesus -- exactly as Dan Brown intended for it to do. It makes good fiction, but is it historically true? Does Leonardo's The Last Supper really depict Mary Magdalene sitting next to Jesus? And if it does, what does this really mean for Christianity?

First of all, let's take a look at the painting in question.

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper

It's a little blurred, so here's a close-up of the section of the painting in question:

Leonardo da Vinci's John in The Last Supper

Is this really the image of Mary Magdalene who, according to Dan Brown, is "the woman who singlehandedly could crumble the Church?" Well, according to art experts, this claim is simply laughable. One art historian, Elizabeth Lev, says:

"Along with trashing Christianity, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a veritable museum of errors where Renaissance art is concerned...The novelist's imaginative notions of iconography may make for best-selling fiction, but they are wildly at variance with what is known about the life and work of Leonardo."

She calls Dan Brown's theory (that the person on Jesus' right hand side is Mary Magdalene) "preposterous" and explains how Leonardo's soft-featured, long-haired and beardless depiction of John was typical of Renaissance art's depiction of young men. In fact, it was common in da Vinci's day to portray holy men in an effeminate or androgynous way. Even Jesus, though sporting some facial hair, is painted quite effeminately by Leonardo. You can read Elizabeth Lev's full essay debunking the Apostle-John-is-really-Mary-Magdalene Theory at http://www.jesusdecoded.com/leonardo1.php

Want some proof? Let's take a look at another painting by Leonardo...

Is this a painting of a woman? I'm sure you would answer, "Yes." The subject is, after all, unbearded, and very effeminate. But this painting is titled St John the Baptist! No one -- not even Dan Brown, I'm sure -- would claim that this painting of John the Baptist is really depicting a woman, yet it contains all the same effeminate style that Leonardo uses for his painting of John in The Last Supper. It is for this reason that the vast majority of art historians find Dan Brown's claims ludicrous, the mark of an amateur art critic. It is also why Dan Brown has Leigh Teabing himself admit, on page 236, that "most scholars either do not see or simply choose to ignore" this critical information underpinning Brown's theory. Why do these art scholars, who have devoted years to the study of paintings, "either do not see or simply choose to ignore" this hidden symbology? Because it is historically unfounded and culturally unjustified.

Let's now examine the issue from another angle. In order to determine the identities of the characters in Leonardo's The Last Supper, we need to go back to Leonardo's source material - which was not the gnostic gospels of Nag Hammadi (which had not been discovered at that point in history) but the four Gospels of the New Testament. Here's how Luke 22:14-23 describes the event that we call "The Last Supper":

"When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, 'I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.' After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, 'Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him.' They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this."

John 13:21-26 provides some more detail to this important scene in the story of Jesus:

"After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, 'I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.' His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, 'Ask him which one he means.' Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, 'Lord, who is it?' Jesus answered, 'It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.' Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon."

Leonardo's painting of The Last Supper is meant to capture this one moment in time. It is like a snapshot, taken at the precise moment when Jesus has revealed that "one of you is going to betray me." Each figure in The Last Supper is responding, in his own unique way, to that declaration, asking one another "which of them it might be who would do this." According to John 13:23, "the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him." Dan Brown's Teabing would say, of course, that this "disciple that Jesus loved" was, in fact, Mary Magdalene. The only problem is that the gender used for all the pronouns is male, not female. An example of later editing, you might say? Well, why is it that, all along, early church tradition has held that "the disciple that Jesus loved" was the apostle John? And we get into real trouble with Dan Brown's theory, just six chapters later, when John 19:26 records the words of Jesus upon the cross:

"When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on, this disciple took her into his home."

Not only is the male pronoun used here, there is simply no way that Jesus' declaration to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," referring to "the disciple whom he loved", could mean anything other than what it literally implied, that "the disciple whom he loved" would, from that time, look after his mother as if he was her own son, in replacement of Jesus. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene is specifically referred to in the previous verse (see John 19:25), showing a clear indication that she cannot be the "disciple whom [Jesus] loved." And earliest church tradition states that the apostle John did, in fact, take Mary, the mother of Jesus, to live with him from that point on, in obedience to Jesus' request. So, no matter how you look at it, there is simply no way that "the disciple whom he loved" could in any way be referring to Mary Magdalene!

Now, having established the identity of "the disciple whom [Jesus] loved", let's return to the story of the Last Supper. According to John 13:24, "Simon Peter motioned to this disciple [whom Jesus loved] and said, 'Ask him which one he means.'" This is the moment in time captured by Leonardo in The Last Supper. Peter is leaning over to John, who is at Jesus' side, telling him, "Ask him which one he means." The hand motion that Peter is using is not, as some claim, a slicing motion (symbolising Peter's conspiracy to assassinate Mary Magdalene), but rather a finger pointing to Jesus. It takes a vivid and very liberal imagination to read anything into Leonardo's depiction of this scene other than what he originally intended to portray - the emotional response of twelve men to the startling revelation given by Jesus of his impending betrayal by a member of their inner circle.

Dan Brown's Teabing would probably respond to this rebuttal by saying, "Ah, but the Church deleted all references to Mary Magdalene being at the Last Supper because her marriage to Jesus was too inflamatory and threatening to the Church's power." Teabing, in fact, has this to say on page 244:

"The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret."

How did the Church defame Mary, according to Teabing? By calling her a prostitute. In this, Teabing is partially correct. Nowhere in the Gospel record is Mary called a prostitute. It was not until much later in church history - the 6th century, the time of Pope Gregory the Great - that Mary was accorded this dubious distinction. But think about it for a moment. If this is a later change to Mary's legacy, how could this have any impact on the content of the documents we call the New Testament, for which scholars have reliable extant manuscripts dating from the second century? There was no "smear campaign", as Teabing calls it, at the time when the New Testament was compiled - if there was any "smear campaign" at all, this came much later. And even then, this "smear campaign" hardly was damaging to Mary Magdalene. Even today, in the Catholic Church, she is a canonised saint - "the patron saint of harlots" - with her own feast day, July 22. Although there is no evidence that Mary Magdalene can be identified with the "sinful woman" of Luke 7:36-50, as Pope Gregory the Great assumed, it can be argued that if she was indeed a former prostitute, this in fact merely demonstrates the magnitude of God's love and the depth of the redemptive power of Jesus' message! So much for the "smear campaign" theory!

In fact, as you read the New Testament, you will be amazed at the high regard that is accorded to Mary Magdalene. She is recorded as the first to speak with the resurrected Christ (John 20:1-18). Indeed, the very fact that Mary Magdalene is recorded as being an eye-witness at all (in those days, a woman was not allowed as a credible witness in a Jewish court of law) was, if anything, detrimental to the Gospel's message, due to the culture of the day. How easy it would have been for scribes to edit out all references to Mary Magdalene as a witness of the resurrection. If she was indeed such a threat to the Church heirarchy, then why leave her in at all? And why doesn't the New Testament call her, outright, a prostitute, as later generations of the Church did? In fact, the New Testament records Mary Magdelene showing greater faith in the Lord's word than his innermost disciples - a scandal for the early Church leadership, if ever there was one. But this is not edited out, giving the recorded testimony of the New Testament a very credible ring - what J B Phillips called "the ring of truth." No, whichever way you look at it, you cannot find evidence of any "smear campaign" by the writers of the New Testament. Quite the opposite, in fact. They honoured Mary Magdalene, along with other female followers of Jesus, but in so doing, they did not infer that she had any special relationship with Jesus whatsoever.

Did Leonardo intend his painting of The Last Supper to portray Mary Magdalene at the right hand of Jesus? It is extremely unlikely. But for just one moment, let's allow Dan Brown this dubious leap of imagination. Let's allow him this one claim: that the disciple at Jesus' right hand, depicted in The Last Supper, is not really John but Mary Magdalene. Here, then, is the important question. How exactly does this prove that Jesus was indeed married to Mary Magdalene? All it proves, at best, is that one man believed this to be true. Remember, we are not looking at a photograph of the actual Last Supper. Leonardo is almost fifteen centuries removed from the actual historic event! At the very best, if Dan Brown is correct about the symbolism hidden in Leonardo's painting, this would make Leonardo's beliefs heretical, not true. Just because Leonardo painted religious subjects doesn't make him an expert in theology or an uncontested historian -- neither would it make his particular depiction of The Last Supper historically verified.

The Da Vinci Code's use of Leonardo's The Last Supper as "proof" is simply a plot device -- an interesting one, granted -- but fictional all the same. Leonardo's beliefs do not prove, one way or the other, the marital status of Jesus. It makes a great title for a book, but the so-called Da Vinci codes are very much the product of a novel writer's fertile imagination.

So far we've looked at two of the primary premises of The Da Vinci Code: