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

I recently conducted an evening seminar called "Cracking the Da Vinci Code: Separating Truth From Fiction." This seminar was a response to the challenge laid down by the novel The Da Vinci Code and by the movie of the same title. The teaser at the bottom of the movie posters reads "Seek the Truth," and so I took up that challenge at our Twilight service.

I read the book when it first came out (I've read all of Dan Brown's other novels too, including Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code). Furthermore, long before reading The Da Vinci Code itself, I'd already read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and other pseudo-historical books upon which The Da Vinci Code is based. The fact is, I quite enjoyed the novel The Da Vinci Code - it's a fast-paced, exciting thriller, and all around, it's a well-crafted novel. The main problem is that this is no ordinary novel. Most works of fiction have a disclaimer which says something in the order of "This is a work of fiction. All characters are fictious..." But Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is very, very different. Dan Brown did not write this book merely as a work of fiction, simply to entertain; he had another objective. He sought to argue an alternative view of Jesus Christ, and he clearly wanted to present this alternative view as both superior to that held by Christians and, in fact, demonstrably the true history of Jesus.

If this was just a work of fiction, so be it. After all, fiction depends, by nature, as a "temporary suspension of disbelief" for the purpose of enjoying a vicarious experience. We don't need to believe in a fictional work in order to gain value from it; we just need to suspend our disbelief long enough to enjoy it. As an example, millions flocked recently to another movie, showing at the same time as The Da Vinci Code. That movie was X Men III: The Last Stand. The producers of this film, however, had no intention of contending that the content of their film was, in fact, "true." They were not trying to tell the world that there are, right now, mutants running around who can control metals with their mind, read thoughts, control the weather, zap people with laser beams from their eyes, or run through solid walls. Why do people enjoy watching something like this? Because the film creates a version of reality which is self-consistent and in which, for a couple of hours, viewers can "suspend their disbelief" and thus enjoy the story.

The Da Vinci Code, however, is very different. The marketing strategy for both the book and the film present the story as a genuine quest for the truth behind Jesus Christ, blatantly declaring that the Church has hidden this truth. This is epitomised in the teaser found at the bottom of the marketing posters for the film: "Seek the Truth."

That line is what has angered me the most. And anger is an understandable emotion, because Dan Brown and his marketers are slandering the One that I love. And slander it is, because the so-called historical premises of the book and the film are based on very shoddy scholarship, if "scholarship" is even what you dare call it. Long before the novel was written, I had investigated the claims of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and other like books, and found what I knew would be the case - imaginative leaps underpinning specious conclusions.

Having said that, I think it is a mistake for the Church to react with a call to boycott the movie. While I hardly want to give Dan Brown money, I think the boycott strategy will backfire on us. Instead, we need to rise to the occasion with a credible voice in response to these slanderous claims. For those already convinced that Jesus is not who He says He is, of course, the book and the film will be merely more ammunition to use against the Gospel message. But for those who are on the borderline of faith (on either side of the border), the film can be devastating. I was approached, in fact, by one girl who felt her faith was being shaken by the movie. For this reason, I, as a believer in the Jesus Christ of the Bible, want to take some time to explore the "real" truth behind both the book and the movie. Over the next few days, I will take a 6-part series on The Da Vinci Code, looking particularly at four essential premises on which the book/movie is based.

At the start of his novel, Dan Brown asserts the following:

FACT: The Priory of Sion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliotheque 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.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion and a dangerous practice known as "corporal mortification." Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

Of the above statements, the only one that I maintain is in any way strictly true, or "fact", is the paragraph on Opus Dei. All the others can be shown to be incorrect. In fact, here is a summary of some of the more important errors found in The Da Vinci Code:

• Jesus life was not recorded by thousands of followers across the land (p.231).


• It is not true that eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament (p.231).


• It is not true that Jesus was not considered divine until the Council of Nicaea, before which he was merely a mortal prophet (p.233).


• Constantine did not commission a new Bible that omitted references to Jesus' human traits (p.234).


• The Dead Sea Scrolls were not found in the 1950s (p.234). It was 1947.


• The Dead Sea Scrolls were definitely not among the earliest Christian records (p.245). They do not even mention Jesus once.


• The Nag Hammadi documents do not tell the Grail story, nor do they emphasize Jesus human traits. Instead they actually overemphasize Jesus divinity!


• No one knows the lineage of Mary Magdalene but if she does indeed descend from the house of Benjamin (p.248), she would actually be disqualified from being of royal descent (because the royal line descended from the Tribe of Judah - and specifically the line of David - not the Tribe of Benjamin).


• The "Q" document (p.256) is not a surviving source hidden by the Vatican. It was created by scholars as a hypothetical source to account for the similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke. There is nothing secretive about it. In fact, most Roman Catholic scholars openly regard it as a viable tool in biblical scholarship.

Dan Brown's challenge is an important one that the Church must respond to, for the accusation maintained by The Da Vinci Code (and I make no qualms about regarding this as a "slanderous accusation") is that the Church is guilty of conspiring to cover up three so-called "facts":

1. That Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene
2. That Jesus, through Mary, fathered a child, and thus a royal bloodline
3. That this bloodline exists today and is, in fact, the "Holy Grail" of legend

In the seminar I conducted, we examined the four premises upon which this accusation of The Da Vinci Code is based:

1. The Authority of Alternative Gospels
2. The Beliefs of Leonardo Da Vinci
3. The Historicity of the Priory of Sion
4. The "Culturally Unacceptable" Marital Status of Jesus

In the next four posts I'm going to examine each of these four points, for if these do not hold ground, then the accusation against the Church, found in The Da Vinci Code, is invalidated.

The approach one must take when investigating these claims is to look at the evidence as if it were submitted to a court of law. Historical evidence works in a similar fashion to legal evidence. In order to justify a historic claim, the source of information must be deemed credible. In the academic world, as in a court of law, imaginative leaps linking coincidental information is simply not good enough. And as in a scientific investation, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

So let's take a look, over the next few days, at the claims of The Da Vinci Code and see whether the so-called "artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals" really do support a counter-claim to the historical Jesus found in the biblical Gospels.

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