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The Da Vinci Code

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Title: The Da Vinci Code


1
(No Transcript)
2
Introduction
Matter of life death
  • Major publishing phenomenon

Raises important issues
Opportunity for witness
3
So Whats the Problem?
Claim 1 Jesus is not God
The Church did not recognize Jesus as divine
until the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.)
The Push to make Christ divine was a power play
by Constantine
4
So Whats the Problem?
Claim 2 Jesus was married and had a child
The church suppressed evidence of Jesus secret
marriage to Mary Magdalene and
The birth of their daughter, Sarah (Gospel of
Mary, Gospel of Philip)
5
So Whats the Problem?
Claim 3 The four Gospels Are not Reliable
The four Gospels were late in being accepted in
the canon
Matthew, mark, Luke, and John were accepted late
in the place of earlier and more reliable Gnostic
Gospels
6
So Whats the Problem?
Claim 4 Mary Magdalene sat at Jesus right hand
at the Lords Supper
Not John the Apostle
Leonardo Da Vinci depicts this in his painting,
the Last Supper
This proves that Jesus was married to Mary
Magdalene
7
Mary Magdalene?
8
So Why Does It Matter?
Popular Influence
Media Acclaim
God-given Opportunity
An Ignorant Generation
Still, Why Bother?
9
Heres Why
Symptom of a larger trend in American Culture
Belief that truth is subjective, relative, and
always provisional
Christians must proclaim the truth to a culture
that has abandoned absolute truth
10
Plot Summary
  • The curator of the famous French museum, the
    Louvre, is discovered dead, the apparent victim
    of a bizarre, ritualistic crime. Robert Langdon,
    a Harvard expert in religious and other symbols,
    is called to decipher the mysterious codes left
    at the scene.

11
Plot Summary
  • He teams up with the dead mans niece, Sophie
    Neveu, in order to help the authorities to solve
    the crime. After a series of breathtaking
    adventures, the duo discovers that the crime was
    commissioned by a Roman Catholic elite troupe,
    called Opus Dei.

12
Plot Summary
  • This group, which is extremely loyal and reports
    directly to the pope, was seeking to wrest a
    carefully guarded secret from another
    clandestine society, the Priory of Sion, which
    counts among its members famous people such as
    Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Victor Hugo.

13
Plot Summary
  • What is the secret at the heart of the plot of
    The Da Vinci Code? It is Jesus marriage to Mary
    Magdalene, and the couples production of an
    offspring, a daughter named Sarah, who was to
    continue Jesus legacy through his bloodline,
    issuing in the French dynasty of the Merovingian
    kings.

14
Plot Summary
  • Jesus was not divine (he was only declared to be
    such in the fourth century for political reasons)
    but thoroughly human. He was married, had a
    child, and his career was tragically cut short by
    death.

15
Plot Summary
  • Christianity is thus based on a lie, and Jesus
    turns out to be rather different from who he was
    believed to be throughout church history. There
    are many more twists and turns in the plot, but
    this, in essence, is the basic premise of the
    story.

16
Fact or Fiction?
More than a novel, a claim of historical accuracy
  • Page 1 All descriptions of artwork,
    Architecture, documents, and secret rituals in
    this novel are accurate.

17
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18
Fact or Fiction?
His research is impeccable.
New York Daily News, cited on Dan Browns own
website, www.danbrown.com,
Is it?
19
Fiction, not Fact
Even much of non-biblical information is
inaccurate
Encoding of Symbols in Leonardo Da Vincis
paintings
Priory of Sion
Council of Nicea and the canon
20
Browns View of History
Postmodern view of history
Blurs line between fact and fiction
Morris, Dutch A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
Doctorow, The march
21
Browns View of History
The book is fiction, but its based on
truth Owner of the Chateau de Villette
Brown claims that everything in his book is fact
and not fiction
22
Browns Sources
Little is Original
23
Anti-Christian Bias
24
Anti-Christian Bias
Almost everything our fathers taught us about
Christ is False.
Teabing, One of the main characters in The Da
Vinci Code
25
Pure Fiction
The plot inventions add up to a reckless joy
ride through pseudo-history. Those in possession
of the facts will present Brown with some hefty
speeding tickets. But Brown knows that the
revenues from the book sales will certainly pay
for them.
Amy Bernstein, Secrets of the Da Vinci Code,
15
26
An Analogy
27
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
  • My dear, Teabing declared, until that moment
    in history i.e. Constantine, Jesus was viewed
    by His followers as a mortal prophet . . . a
    great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A
    mortal.

The da Vinci Code, 233
28
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
  • Not the Son of God? Sophie Neveu
  • Right, Teabing said.Jesus establishment as
    the Son of God was officially proposed and
    voted on by the Council of Nicea.

The da Vinci Code, 233
29
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
  • A relatively close vote at that, Teabing
    added. Nonetheless, establishing Christs
    divinity was critical to the further unification
    of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power
    base.

The da Vinci Code, 233
30
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
  • ... By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of
    God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who
    existed beyond the scope of the human world, an
    entity whose power was unchallengeable.

The da Vinci Code, 233
31
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
  • This not only precluded further pagan challenges
    to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ
    were able to redeem themselves only via the
    established sacred channelthe Roman Catholic
    Church

The da Vinci Code, 233
32
ISSUE 1 Is Jesus God?
Was Jesus pronounced divine by Constantine merely
for political reasons?
Is it true that Jesus never claimed to be God and
that no one believed he was God prior to the 4th
century A.D.?
33
The Old Testament Prophesied that Jesus would be
God
  • Behold, the virgin shall be with child and
    shall bear a son, and they shall call his name
    Immanuel, which translated means, God with us.

Matthew 123
34
Jesus Claimed to be God
  • And the high priest said to Him, I adjure You
    by the living God, that You tell us whether You
    are the Christ, the Son of God.

35
Jesus Claimed to be God
  • Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself
    nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see
    the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of
    power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 2336-64
36
Jesus Claimed to be God
  • I tell you the truth, Jesus answered,
    before Abraham was born, I am! At this, they
    picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid
    himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

John 858
37
Jesus followers believed he was God
Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the
Son of the living God.
Matthew 1616
  • Theirs the Jews are the patriarchs, and from
    them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who
    is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Romans 95
38
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • We know that an idol is nothing at all in the
    world and that there is no God but one. For even
    if there are so-called gods, . . . 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, through whom all
    things came and through whom we live. But not
    everyone knows this.

1 Corinthians 84-6
39
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • Your attitude should be the same as that of
    Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did
    not consider equality with God something to be
    grasped . . .

Philippians 25-7
40
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • The grace of God . . . teaches us to say No
    to ungodliness . . . while we wait for the
    blessed hopethe glorious appearing of our great
    God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Titus 213
41
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • But about the Son he says, Your throne, O God,
    will last for ever and ever.

Hebrews 18
42
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus
    Christ, to those who through the righteousness of
    our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a
    faith as precious as ours.

2 Peter 11
43
Jesus followers believed he was God
  • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
    with God, and the Word was God. (cf. 114, 17)

John 11
44
The early church believed Jesus was God
  • We must think of Jesus Christ as we do of God.

Clement of Rome, A.D. 100
45
The early church believed Jesus was God
  • God himself came among us in human form.

Ignatius, c A.D. 100
46
Even Jesus opponents realized He claimed to be
God
  • For this reason the Jews tried all the harder
    to kill him not only was he breaking the
    Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own
    Father, making himself equal with God.

John 518
47
Even Jesus opponents realized He claimed to be
God
  • Christians were singing a hymn to Christ as a
    God.

Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan, A.D. 112
48
Conclusion
Jesus claimed to be God
His followers believed he was God
The early church believed he was God
Even Jesus opponents realized he claimed to be
God
49
Conclusion
Jesus deity is emphatically not a 4th-century
A.D. invention by Constantine
50
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • Brown claims Jesus marriage to Mary Magdalene
    is a matter of historical record.

Is it?
51
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • one particularly troubling earthly theme keeps
    recurring in the gospels, Mary Magdalene. He
    paused. More specifically, her marriage to Jesus
    Christ

Teabing, in The Da Vinci Code, 244
52
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • Langdon, too, says, Jesus as a married man
    makes infinitely more sense than our standard
    biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor.
  • Why? Sophie asked.

53
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • Because Jesus was a Jew, Langdon said. . . .
    According to Jewish custom, celibacy was
    condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father
    was to find a suitable wife for his son. . . .

54
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • If Jesus were not married, at least one of the
    Bibles gospels would have mentioned it and
    offered some explanation for His unnatural state
    of bachelorhood

The Da Vinci Code, 245
55
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
What does the New Testament say about Mary
Magdalene?
Mary (called Magdalene) had 7 demons exorcised by
Jesus
  • one of a group of women who helped support Jesus
    out of their own means

Luke 82-3
56
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
Not the same woman as the sinful woman who
anoints Jesus in Luke 7
Stood at the foot of the cross with a group of
women when Jesus died (John 1925)
Watched until body was taken down and wrapped in
linen and placed in a tomb (Matthew
2761)
57
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
  • One of the women who went to anoint Jesus on the
    third day

Mark 161
Encounters the risen Lord, who tells her not to
cling to Him
John 2013-17
58
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
At this point Attempt to shift burden of proof
Argument from silence
If Jesus had NOT been married, The Gospels would
have mentioned it
True?
59
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
Celibacy was valued highly at Qumran and in
Judaism for people dedicated to God
60
ISSUE 2 Was Jesus Married?
The argument from silence is inconclusive
To the contrary, if Jesus HAD been married,
scripture would have certainly mentioned it
The fact is, it does not
61
What evidence is there?
  • There were three who always walked with the
    lord Mary his mother and her sister and
    Magdalene, the one who was called his companion.
    His sister and his mother and his companion were
    each a Mary

Gospel of Philip 59910
62
What evidence is there?
  • The Greek word companion (koinonos) means
    friend or associate, not wife (which would
    be gyne)

contradicts Browns claim, As any Aramaic
scholar will tell you, the word companion, in
those days, literally meant spouse (p.
246)
63
What evidence is there?
  • The author of the Gospel of Philip distinguishes
    Mary Magdalene (companion) from Jesus mother
    (also called Mary) and her (or his?) sister

The word koinonos appears 10 times in the New
Testament and not once implies a marital or
sexual relationship
64
What evidence is there?
  • And the companion of the
  • . . . Mary Magdalene. . . . loved her more
    than all the disciples and used to kiss her
    often on her . . ..

Gospel of Philip 6334645
Probably refers to a kiss of fellowship
65
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66
Conclusion
  • No New Testament evidence that Jesus was
    married, or married to Mary Magdalene

No evidence from Gnostic Gospels, rightly
interpreted
Unimaginable that this would not be mentioned in
Scripture
67
Conclusion
God, being sinless, would not marry a sinful woman
  • Jesus is spiritually engaged to be married to
    the Church in heaven

68
Conclusion
  • Why is she identified in the Bible as Mary
    Magdalene rather than as Jesus wife?

Why mention Jesus mother, father, brothers and
sisters, disciples, wives of apostles, but never
mention Jesus wife?
69
Conclusion
  • Not a shred of evidence from the Bible, or later
    sources, that Jesus was married, or married to
    Mary Magdalene

in none of our early Christian sources is there
any reference to Jesus marriage or to his wife
Bart Ehrman, UNC Chapel Hill, p. 153
70
ISSUE 3 Is the Bible true?
  • The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of
    God. The Bible did not fall magically from the
    clouds (p. 231)

Teabing, in The Da Vinci Code, 231
71
ISSUE 3 Is the Bible true?
  • Did Constantine commission a new bible which
    omitted those gospels that spoke of Christs
    human traits?

The Da Vinci Code, 234
72
ISSUE 3 Is the Bible true?
Evidence only as good as reliability of sources
Primary sources, secondary sources
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John vs. Gnostic Gospels
73
How Was the Canon Formed?
Pauls letters already considered Scripture by
Peter (A.D. 60s 2 Pet. 316)
  • First impetus for canon heretic Marcion (A.D.
    140)

4 canonical Gospels recognized by Tatian (2d
century A.D.)
74
Canon Formation
Irenaeus (c. A.D. 180) argued for 4-Gospel canon,
comparing it to the 4 winds
  • Muratorian Canon (A.D. 190) includes only 4
    Gospels

75
Conclusion
4 Gospels foundational from the start
Based on church usage, apostolic origin
  • Formed basis for evaluating and rejecting later
    Gospels

76
The Canon Council of Nicea
Brown says Gnostic Gospels Removed from the canon
and 4 Gospels added
  • no discussion of canon at Council of Nicea

Council discussed deity of Christ in relation to
God the Father
77
Nicene Creed
  • We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
    maker of all things visible and invisible and in
    one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only
    begotten of his Father,

78
Nicene Creed
  • of the substance of the Father, God of God,
    Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten,
    not made, being of one substance (homoousios)
    with the Father . . .

79
Nicene Creed
  • . . . By whom all things were made, both which
    be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for
    our salvation came down from heaven and was
    incarnate and was made man.

80
Nicene Creed
  • He suffered and the third day he rose again, and
    ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to
    judge both the quick and the dead. And we
    believe in the Holy Ghost. . .

81
Nicene Creed
  • . . . And whosoever shall say that there was a
    time when the Son of God was not Arius, or that
    before he was begotten he was not, or that he was
    made of things that were not,

82
Nicene Creed
  • or that he is of a different substance or
    essence from the Father or that he is a
    creature, or subject to change or conversionall
    that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church
    anathematizes them.

83
Council of Nicea
Primary subject Ariuss view that Jesus was a
lesser god than God the Father
Homoiousios Controversy
  • condemned Arius as a heretic

84
Council of Nicea
Not just about the divinity of Jesus
  • how do we account for Jesus humanity in light
    of his deity?

How could God be God and Jesus be God at the same
time?
85
Council of Nicea
  • Wrong to make Arius (who was condemned as a
    heretic) the representative for all pre-Nicene
    Christianity

86
Conclusion (Issue 3)
Issue of Canon settled much earlier
Vote (not on canon) passed by very wide margin
(3182)
  • not a close vote at that as Brown claims

87
Conclusion (Issue 3)
  • Only 2 of 318 bishops failed to vote for
    denunciation of Arius

Both were exiled and branded as heretics
88
Conclusion (Issue 3)
There was never a time when the 4 Gospels were
not included in the canon
Nor was there ever a time when the Gnostic
Gospels were included in the canon
89
ISSUE 4 The Da Vinci Code
  • Claim that the person on Jesus right in Da
    Vincis painting The Last Supper is Mary
    Magdalene (not John)

One of many codes
90
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91
ISSUE 4 The Da Vinci Code
  • Person on Jesus right not Mary Magdalene, but
    actually the apostle John

John often depicted as effeminate in paintings of
that period
92
John the Apostle
93
Is There a Da Vinci Code?
Big Problem
  • If the person on Jesus right is Mary Magdalene,
    where is the twelfth disciple?

94
Is There a Da Vinci Code?
Da Vinci clearly dependent on John 1323-24
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.
95
Peter motions to John (not Mary) to find out who
would betray Jesus
Peter
John
96
Conclusion (Issue 4)
  • The person on Jesus right in The Last Supper is
    not Mary Magdalene but apostle John

Therefore there is no Da Vinci code
No conspiracy to cover up supposed evidence of
Jesus marriage to Mary Magdalene
97
Conclusion (Issue 4)
  • Claim at heart of novel is patently false

98
ISSUE 5 The Sacred Feminine
  • Was Christianity invented to suppress women?

99
ISSUE 5 The Sacred Feminine
According to Brown
  • Roman Catholic Church usurped the Place of Mary
    Magdalene by establishing male hierarchy that
    suppressed the sacred feminine

100
Jesus the Original Feminist?
According to Brown
  • Sophie Youre saying the Christian Church was
    to be carried on by a woman?

That was the plan. Jesus was the original
feminist. He intended for the future of His
Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.
The Da Vinci Code, 248
101
Peter Anti-Women?
According to Brown
  • And Peter had a problem with that, Langdon
    said, pointing to The Last Supper. Thats Peter
    there. You can see that Da Vinci was well aware
    of how Peter felt about Mary Magdalene

The Da Vinci Code, 248
102
Mary Magdalene the Holy Grail?
Browns Contention
  • The Holy Grail not just the chalice from the
    Last Supper that held the blood of Christ

it is the womb of the woman who bore Christs
daughter
The Da Vinci Code, 238
103
Margaret Starbird-Holy Blood, Holy Grail
104
What Does Scripture Say about Peter?
  • Matthew 1618 Peter the rock upon whom Christ
    will build his church

John 21 Peter reinstated by risen Christ after
Jesus encounter with Mary Magdalene
105
What Does Scripture Say about Peter?
Acts 2 Peter preaches message at Pentecost
Acts 8 Peter called to authenticate Holy Spirit
coming on Samaritans
  • Acts 10 Peter sent to Cornelius house (Acts 10)

106
What about Mary?
Was Mary given keys to the kingdom?
Did Mary preach the Pentecost sermon?
Was she called to authenticate coming of the Holy
Spirit to the Samaritans?
  • Was she sent to Cornelius?

107
Peter-Mary Magdalene Rivalry?
Peter was something of a sexist
The Da Vinci Code, 248
  • all the way back to the first pope!

No biblical evidence for Peter-Mary rivalry
108
Browns Sources
  • Peter in answer spoke with reference to things
    of this kind, and asked them the disciples
    about the Savior

The Gospel of Mary
109
Browns Sources
  • Did he then speak privily with a woman rather
    than with us, and not openly? Shall we turn about
    and all hearken unto her? Has he preferred her
    over against us?

The Gospel of Mary
110
Browns Sources
  • Then Mary wept and said to Peter My brother
    Peter, what do you then believe? Do you believe
    that I imagined this myself in my heart, or that
    I would lie about the Savior?

The Gospel of Mary
111
Browns Sources
  • Levi answered (and) said to Peter Peter, you
    have ever been of a hasty temper. Now I see how
    you exercise yourself against the woman like the
    adversaries.

The Gospel of Mary
112
Browns Sources
  • But if the Savior has made her worthy, who then
    are you that you reject her? Certainly the Savior
    knows her surely enough.

The Gospel of Mary
113
Browns Sources
  • Therefore did he love her more than us by
    making her the first witness of the resurrection
    and recipient of divine revelation.

The Gospel of Mary
114
Conclusion (Issue 5)
Jesus was not the original feminist
He appointed 12 men as apostles
  • He made Peter (not Mary Magdalene) the churchs
    foundation

115
Conclusion (Issue 5)
Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the
resurrection
  • No biblical evidence that Peter resented Mary

No evidence that early church sought to suppress
the sacred feminine
116
Conclusion (Issue 5)
Mary Magdalene was not Jesus wife, and did not
have a child with him
  • there is no evidence of this that needed to be
    suppressed

117
ISSUE 6 The Priory of Sion
  • Dan Brown
  • The Priory of Siona European secret society
    founded in 1099is a real organization. In 1975,
    Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered
    parchments

118
ISSUE 6 The Priory of Sion
  • known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying
    numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including
    Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and
    Leonardo da Vinci.

119
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120
ISSUE 6 The Priory of Sion
The parchments are not a reliable, accurate source
Priory of Sion not a medieval organization
  • Priory of Sion a recent right-wing political
    organization established in 1956

121
ISSUE 6 The Priory of Sion
  • Cannot be guardian of secret that Jesus and Mary
    Magdalene married and had child if only
    established in 1956

122
Summary
1 Is Jesus God?
Jesus claimed to be God,
His first followers believed he was God
The early church believed he was God
Even his opponents realized he claimed to be God
123
Summary
2 Was Jesus Married?
No New Testament evidence that Jesus was married
Not even the Gnostic Gospels say Jesus was married
Jesus was not married, to Mary Magdalene or
anyone else
124
Summary
3 Is the Bible True?
The canon always included Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, and never the Gnostic Gospels
The Gospels are reliable
The real Jesus is the Jesus of the 4 Gospels, not
the Gnostic Gospels
125
Summary
4 The Da Vinci Code
The apostle to Jesus right not Mary Magdalene,
but John
Young men often painted with feminine features
during the Renaissance
There is no Da Vinci Code
126
Summary
5 The Sacred Feminine
No New Testament Evidence for sacred feminine
  • Gnostic Gospels tend to have anti-feminine
    teachings

Christianity was not established to suppress the
sacred feminine
127
Summary
6 Priory of Sion
  • The Priory of Sion is not a medieval organization

Priory established in 1956 as a political
organization
Da Vinci could not be part of organization that
did not exist
128
Conclusion
The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, not facts.
  • Dan Brown says that virtually everything we used
    to believe about Christianity is false.

129
Conclusion
Virtually everything Dan Brown says about
Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible is False.
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