Critique of The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) by Dan Brown is an exciting novel. It does not claim to be a history, but it does begin with a page entitled "FACT" that concludes with the following statement: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." (p. 1.) Unfortunately, there are inaccurate statements in the novel about both the Bible and early Christian writings not included in the Bible. In addition, there are misleading statements about historical figures involved in the Jesus movement and the early church. The following clarifications are offered to help readers of The Da Vinci Code distinguish fact from fiction.

Inaccurate statements about early Christian documents include the following:

1. "The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan emperor Constantine the Great." (p. 231) 

The impression is that Constantine by himself in the fourth century decided the contents of the Bible. In fact, church leaders had been arguing this question for more than two hundred years. By the middle of the second century the four gospels in the New Testament were well established as the favored gospels in the churches and even being circulated together in the new printed form of a codex, the first bound book.

2. "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike." (p. 234) 

This is far too simple and conspiratorial. The debate about gospels and other church writings began early in the second century. In The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (1995) Lee M. McDonald, an Evangelical Protestant scholar, provides an excellent summary of this history, but it is readily available Oxford and Catholic Annotated Bibles and elsewhere. In the first and second centuries there were many different points of view, not merely two. Much of the material excluded from the New Testament canon was Gnostic, which did not emphasize the humanity of Jesus, but instead read the gospel message as a spiritual allegory. Also, infancy gospels portraying Jesus as a God-child were excluded from the New Testament.

3. "Some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert." (p. 234) 

Qumran was an Essene community of Jews. No Christian "gospels" or church writings were found there. The Qumran materials, which were discovered in 1947 and not "in the 1950s," include writings that are included in the Christian Bible, in its Old Testament, but these are Jewish scriptures and were being read by Jews, not Christians. Qumran was destroyed by the Romans near the end of the Jewish revolt, after the Roman legions captured Jerusalem in 70 CE.

4. "The Coptic Scrolls [discovered] in 1945 at Nag Hammadi…speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms." (p. 234) 

Many of these documents, such as the gospel of Thomas, are largely Gnostic, and thus better read as spiritual allegories than as historical accounts. To characterize these gospels as more concerned with a human understanding of Jesus is misleading.

5. "The [Coptic] scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda—to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234) 

Certainly, there are glaring discrepancies among the early Christian accounts of Jesus and the beginnings of the church. Some of these, however, are included in the New Testament gospels. For example, Jesus throws the moneychangers out of the temple at the beginning of his ministry in the gospel of John, but at the end of his ministry in the other three gospels. And Jesus is crucified on the Passover in the gospel of John, but after the Passover in the other three gospels. So, it is not surprising that there are also inconsistencies in other first and second century Christian writings. And, yes, we should realize that those who created the Bible had a political and religious agenda, as did those who wrote the gospels and materials that were excluded from the New Testament, and also as does the author of this novel.

6. "Any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus' life had to be omitted from the Bible." (p. 244) 

All the New Testament gospels describe the death of Jesus, which is certainly an "earthly" aspect of his life. Moreover, all of these gospels refer to his mother and family members. Jesus eats, drinks, spits, weeps, bleeds, and does many other "earthly" things in the New Testament gospels. Only in the gospel of John is Jesus clearly divine from the beginning of the story. The other New Testament gospels vary in how they treat his relationship to God.

7. Teabing, a character in the novel who is presented as an expert, refers to the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls as "the earliest Christian records." (p. 245) 

The Nag Hammadi scrolls are Christian and date back to the third century. It is true that none of the New Testament materials manuscripts are as early as the third century. It must be remembered, however, that Paul's letters can be dated to the middle of the first century and are the earliest writings included in the New Testament. The Dead Sea scrolls come from a Jewish community, and there is no evidence that early Jewish Christians were part of this community. Therefore, it is misleading to refer to them as "Christian records." The Dead Sea Scrolls include copies of Jewish scriptures, which are included in the Old Testament of the Bible. But these are more accurately identified as Jewish records. The Dead Sea Scrolls also include Jewish Gnostic writings. The Gnostic view of life is present in materials written by Jews, pagans and Christians during the first few centuries of the church.

8. The novel includes the following quote from the Gospel of Philip: "And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, 'Why do you love her more than all of us?'" In the novel Teabing claims "any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse." The novel reports that "Langdon concurred with a nod." (p. 246) 

The quote from the gospel of Philip is accurate, but the comments are misleading in several respects. First, the view that the English word "companion" conceals the obvious meaning of an Aramaic word for marriage only makes sense, if the gospel of Philip was originally written in Aramaic. But the gospel of Philip found at Nag Hammadi is in Coptic, and the only other fragments of it known are in Greek. This gospel may have been originally written in Aramaic, but there is no evidence that it was. So, it is misleading to assert that the word "companion" in the English translation of the Coptic version of the gospel of Philip obviously means married, because this is what the original Aramaic word meant.

Everyone agrees that Jesus must have spoken Aramaic, as this was the common language used by Jews living in Galilee and in the region around Jerusalem. But the New Testament gospels, which were written in Greek, only attribute to Jesus a few Aramaic words, and usually when Jesus refers to Jewish scripture the references are to the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures, the Septuagint, and not to the Aramaic translations, the Targums. In the New Testament the word Abba, an Aramaic word for father that might be translated as "Dad," is used at times by Jesus and Paul for God, and Mark 15:34 presents Jesus on the cross speaking the first line of Psalm 22 in Aramaic.

Second, scholars date the gospel of Philip to the latter part of the second century or even as late as the second half of the third century CE, which is a long way from time of the historical Jesus. Moreover, the gospel is filled with allegory and wisdom teachings, and is anything but an historical narrative. Immediately before the quote included in the novel, we read in this gospel: "As for the Wisdom who is called 'the barren,' she is the mother of the angels." Immediately after the question by the disciples, we read in the gospel of Philip: "The savior answered and said to them, 'Why do I not love you like her?' When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness." This response hardly suggests that Jesus and Mary Magdalene are married. In fact, the question asked by the disciples makes no sense, if they are married. In that case, the disciples would have known why he kissed her on her mouth and why he loved her more than them. The entire exchange in the gospel of Philip is best understood as allegory representing a spiritual relationship.

9. The novel states, "Sophie had not known a gospel existed in Magdalene's words." (p. 247) 

This refers to the gospel of Mary Magdalene. There is certainly no scholarly consensus that this document contains words actually spoken by the historical Mary of Magdala, just as most scholars do not understand the gospels in the New Testament as the written words of the apostles Matthew and John, and the early church workers Mark and Luke. The impression in the novel is that an historical record of Mary's teachings exists and was suppressed by Christian orthodoxy. The church has suppressed teachings attributed to Mary Magdalene and to other followers of Jesus, such as the apostle Thomas, but there is no way to know that the words in this gospel or in any gospel about Jesus were actually spoken by the person to whom the gospel is attributed. All gospels are anonymous and have been attributed to persons by those writing about these gospels.

The following statements in the novel are not explicitly about "documents," and so the novelist has claimed that they are accurate. But as these statements are mixed in with other statements about Christian documents, which the novelist claims are accurate, the reader may think that the following claims about the church and the Bible are also either facts or at least supported by scholarly research.

1. In the novel the character Teabing, who speaks as an expert, claims "that almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." (p. 235) 

This may be, but from at least the time Albert Schweitzer wrote The Quest for the Historical Jesus many Christian scholars have admitted that we can't know the true facts concerning the life of the historical Jesus. Twentieth century scholarship has generally admitted that the Jesus of history is largely hidden from us by the faith of the Christians who wrote both the New Testament materials and the early church documents not included in the Bible. There is no path back through these written words of these documents to the spoken words and life of Jesus. All views of Jesus are interpretations. It is misleading, therefore, to suggest there has been a simple cover up of the truth, as though the historical facts about Jesus were clearly known in the first few centuries of the church. Certainly, the selection of the documents to be included in the New Testament was made to support a particular point of view about Jesus. Nonetheless, the diversity of the materials included in the New Testament implies that documents were also included because they were either thought to be directly related to the apostles and/or to be central to the faith of practicing Christians. The debate about Jesus Christ in the church has always included varied claims and perspectives, and this debate continues today.

2. The novel claims there is factual evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. "It's a matter of historical record," Teabing says. (p. 244) 

They may have been married, and certainly the New Testament gospels represent them as being very close. Mary's role in all the New Testament gospels is surprisingly prominent, and in the gospel of John she is the first witness to the resurrected Jesus. Moreover, in that gospel account she reaches out to embrace him, which suggests intimacy between them. But there is no documentary evidence that qualifies as an "historical record" of the marriage of Jesus and Mary of Magdala.

3. "Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor," Teabing says. And Langdon, the main character in the novel, adds: "Because Jesus was a Jew, and the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried. According to Jewish custom, celibacy was condemned…If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible's gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood." (p. 245) 

Being married was the norm among first century Jews, but antipathy to the unmarried life among Jews developed out of the conflict with Christianity and its monastic orders in the later centuries. In the first century CE there were many single Jewish men living in the Qumran community, as archeological evidence reveals very few women among its inhabitants. It is possible that these men were married and simply living apart from their wives, but that surely means that the "bachelor" lifestyle was not seen as "unnatural" by all Jews. Two prominent Jews mentioned in the New Testament, John the Baptist and Paul, are presented as unmarried. It seems likely that some Jews in the first century CE felt called to live religious lives involving celibacy, whether this was understood as a life commitment or as a spiritual discipline for a period of time.

4. The plan of Jesus was to have Mary Magdalene carry on the work of the church. "He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene." (p. 248) 

There is no way to know who Jesus wanted to have continue his work after his death. It is fair to say, however, from the information in the New Testament gospels and other early church materials, that Mary Magdalene would have known as much about the intentions of Jesus as his disciples. So, the gospel attributed to Mary Magdalene is an important early church document even though it is not included in the New Testament. Of course, we cannot know that the words in this gospel attributed to Mary Magdalene were actually spoken by her.

The gospel of Mary Magdalene depicts a conflict between Mary and Peter, but also between Peter and Matthew, for Matthew takes Mary's side. The four New Testament gospels reveal different feelings about who is to have control over the church. The oldest version of the gospel of Mark omits any resurrection appearance to the disciples, who are said throughout the gospel to lack faith. This may be a subtle way of pointing past the disciples to the leadership of Paul, who becomes an apostle after experiencing the resurrected Jesus. Only the gospel of Matthew has Jesus name Peter as head of the church. The Acts of the Apostles reveals that James, the brother of Jesus, who is not presented in the New Testament gospels as a disciple of Jesus, is the first bishop of the Jerusalem church and has more authority than the other apostles. The gospel of John clearly affirms the ministry of John, as well as the work of Peter, in the life of the church.

It is important to note that women were leaders in the early church, and were pushed out of leadership roles by orthodox bishops, at least as early as the beginning of the second century. But the fight over control of the church was not only between those who supported Mary and everyone else, for the men seeking control of the church were divided for many reasons.

It is interesting that the novel says nothing about the gospel of Thomas, which was also excluded from the church's canon and may have been written as early as the New Testament gospels. This gospel contains many of the sayings found in the gospels attributed to Mark, Matthew and Luke, but the gospel of Thomas also includes Gnostic material. In addition, it does not tell the story of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, but merely collects the teachings of Jesus. This gospel ends with Peter saying, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Instead of defending Mary, as his wife or the one who will lead the church, the gospel has Jesus respond: "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 domain of Heaven." Whatever we make of this statement attributed to Jesus in this very early gospel, this view of the historical Jesus does not support the inference in the novel about the reasons why the church excluded early documents about Jesus from the New Testament.

The contention in the novel that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child cannot be substantiated, although the novel gives the impression that this is an accepted fact among Jewish historians. The New Testament identifies four brothers of Jesus, and clearly at least two of these are active in the early church. James becomes the first bishop of the church in Jerusalem, and Judas is said to be the author of the letter attributed to Jude. These family members provide leadership for the church when it is predominately Jewish during the first generation after the death of Jesus.

The letters of Paul reveal a struggle in the church between those who would allow Gentile converts, but require them to keep at least some of the commandments in the Torah, and those who agreed with Paul that the requirements of Jewish law should not be imposed on Gentile Christians. We see evidence of this dispute in Galatians 2-3 and also in Acts 15 and Acts 21-23. It may be that one faction of the church looked to blood relations of Jesus for leadership at the beginning of the church, but there is no evidence in any ancient document that a child of Jesus was available to "inherit" this leadership role.

After the church became primarily a Gentile movement in the second century, it played down its Jewish beginnings for at least two reasons. First, this was a way of making its message more acceptable to other Gentiles in the Roman Empire. And second, as the Jews had revolted against Roman rule in 66-70 CE, the church wanted to emphasize despite the crucifixion of Jesus as a Jewish rebel, Christians did not share the rebellious sentiments of the Jews in the Roman Empire.

5. Until the Council of Nicea in 325, "Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal." (p. 233) 

The Council of Nicea does create a doctrine, expressed in The Nicene Creed, that affirms the divinity as well as the humanity of Jesus, but the claim to the divinity of Jesus arises much earlier in the life of the church. It is inaccurate to say that Jesus was simply viewed as a mortal and a prophet up until the time of Constantine. Paul, who wrote in the 50s and whose letters are the earliest materials in the New Testament, views Jesus as the Son of God, is converted by a vision of the risen Christ, and says almost nothing about the human ministry of Jesus. The gospel of John was written no later than the beginning of the second century, but takes the view that Jesus was divine from birth. It begins with the well known words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Jn. 1:1) This Word, which is clearly divine, then "became flesh and lived among us," as Jesus. (Jn. 1:14) By the middle of the second century the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were bound together in a codex and being circulated among the churches. The belief that Jesus was both human and divine goes back to the beginnings of the church.

7. "Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power." (p. 233) 

Yes, many scholars do make this claim. But most of those who do claim this "theft" of the historical Jesus argue that it begins with Paul, who ignores the historical ministry and teachings of Jesus in letters that are the earliest documents in the New Testament. Paul is writing in the 50s, whereas the earliest New Testament gospel is written no later than the end of the 60s and the other three gospels are written later. If there is a theft, it begins in the first generation of the church.

Paul is converted by the risen Lord, and Paul's gospel is about the resurrected Christ. Paul is not a disciple of Jesus, so perhaps he should not be included as being among the "original followers" of Jesus. But Paul is a contemporary of these original followers, and his ministry is both affirmed and resisted at times by them, as we see in Galatians 2-3 and in Acts 15 and 21-23. Moreover, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul explains that trusting in the resurrection is essential for Christian faith, and he reports he has received testimony of the resurrection of Jesus directly from the disciples of Jesus. The "original followers" of Jesus proclaimed his resurrection, which is the basis for claims made later in the church that Jesus was divine as well as human.

Therefore, it is misleading to claim that the "human message" of Jesus to his "original followers," presumably during his ministry, was simply replaced by claims about his divinity, unless it is also acknowledged that this shift in emphasis began with the disciples themselves and with Paul, their contemporary and the leading apostle to the Gentiles.

Robert Traer, 1 December 2003

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