DaVinciCode1

Unlocking The DaVinci Code (1)

Text: 1 John 2:18-23

Thesis: To show that the portrayal of Jesus in “The DaVinci Code” is based on many errors.

Introduction:

  1. In Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code”, Professor Teabing is a fictional character who has

        studied ancient religions perhaps more closely than anyone else alive.  On page 234, he

        explains to Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu the earliest origins of Christianity: “The vast

        majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith.  Jesus was indeed a great

        and powerful man.  ...  Because [Roman Emperor] Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status                         almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chroni-

        cling His life as a mortal man.  To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would

        need a bold stroke. ... 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.  The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”

  2. That excerpt should grab the attention of anyone who has learned Christianity from the

        Bible.  If Professor Teabing is right, the Jesus we know never existed.  The real Jesus was

        a very different person.

  3. “The DaVinci Code” has been a monumental success as a novel.  Published in 2003, it has

        sold more than 43,000,000 copies worldwide, perhaps the record for copies of a fictional

        work.  Just this past Friday the movie based on the book was released.  It was directed by

        Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks.  Names like those are enough to get most movie-goers’

        attention.  And when the movie is based on such a best-selling novel, it’s sure to get a lot

        of attention.

  4. In this lesson, we propose to focus on one of the essential errors of the book: The idea that

        Jesus was not who we think He was.

Discussion:

I.       Should This Book Be Taken Seriously?

A.    Some might point out that this is, after all, a fictional work.  Brown doesn’t claim that anything about the book is true, does he?

1.      On June 9, 2003, Matt Lauer of “The Today Show” asked Brown, “How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?”  Brown responded: “Absolutely all of is.  Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies -- all of that is historical fact.”

2.      In an article that appeared in “Bookpage” magazine in April 2003, Brown said: “One of the aspects that I try very hard to incorporate in my books is that of learning.  When you finish the book, like it or not, you’ve learned a ton.”

3.      These quotes reveal that the author was attempting something more than fiction.  In his mind, the ideas he proposes are facts, the real truth about Jesus and the Christian religion that we know today.

B.     Does Dan Brown have all of his facts straight?

1.      The material in the book sounds authoritative.  The descriptions of scenes in Paris and in London are factual; the details about the Lourve Museum are all correct.  So when Professors Teabing and Langdon speak about the “outlawed” gospels, it’s tempting to believe they’re telling us the truth.

2.      But a statement at the very beginning of the book should alert us to the fact that Dan Brown often distorts the truth.

3.      At the opening of the book - page 1 - the word “Fact” is in bold letters.  The first paragraph of the book states: “The Priory of Sion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization.  In 1975 Paris’ Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.”

4.      As Brown goes on to describe it, the Priory of Sion was a society whose purpose was to guard the secret truth about Jesus; namely that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and that they had a child.  The bloodline of Jesus continues even to the present, and the Priory of Sion carefully guards that knowledge, much to the dismay of the powers of Christianity.

5.      In the book, “Cracking DaVinci’s Code”, James Garlow and Peter Jones present the truth about this Priory of Sion.  A group was begun in France in 1954 by four men who were protesting the price of housing in Paris.  The group dissolved in 1957, but Pierre Plantard kept the name.  During the next two decades, Plantard created a series of documents which “proved” the existence of a bloodline from Mary Magdalene through the kings of France, down to the present day including himself.  In 1993, Plantard was arrested in France in a political scandal, and documents were siezed from his home in which he claimed he was the rightful king of France.  Plantard admitted under oath that he had made up the entire Priory of Sion scheme.  It did not originate in 1099, as Dan Brown claims in the opening paragraph of his book.

6.      If Dan Brown is wrong in the very first paragraph of his book, in a matter he boldly labels as “Fact”, how many more errors are there in the book?  As it turns out, there are many.

C.     Will this book matter to anyone?

1.      According to an article in “World” Magazine, May 20, 2006, George Barna conducted a survey to see if anyone took the ideas of “The DaVinci Code” seriously.  He found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said that it aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding”.

2.      We live in a postmodern society.  “Truth” has been seriously redefined in our day.  We would be naive to think that people will disregard the claims of this book just because Dan Brown got the facts wrong.  For those who are already inclined against Christianity, this book is a welcome appearance.

D.    1 Pet. 3:15 - It seems that this is an opportunity for Christians to be ready to respond to questions others may ask in the wake of this book.  Will we have any answers for them?

II.    Essential Errors About Jesus In “The DaVinci Code”

A.    Jesus was married and fathered a child:

1.      This is easily the most sensational claims of “The DaVinci Code”.  It is not a new idea, but it has never been promoted by as popular a book as this.  The idea always seems to shock Christians when it is mentioned.  (“The Last Temptation Of Jesus Christ” was a movie that appeared in 1988, and was boycotted throughout the country.  It made a similar claim about Jesus.)

2.      First, if it were true that Jesus was married and had fathered a child, there would be nothing sinful about that.  God ordained marriage, and childbearing within marriage is a beautiful thing.  If this had been the path Jesus had chosen, we would have rejoiced over Jesus’ marriage.

3.      But there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus was ever married.  The claim in Brown’s book is intended to shake our confidence in what we think we know about Jesus.

4.      Brown’s only “proof” that Jesus was married:

a.       An individual in Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” painting looks almost feminine.  Brown asserts that this was none other than Mary Magdalene.

b.      A statement by Professor Teabing: “... the social decorum of [Jesus’] time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried.  According to Jewish custom, celibacy was condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father was to find a suitable wife for his son.  If Jesus was 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)

5.      Notice that Brown bases his argument on silence.  “If Jesus was not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels wold have mentioned it ...”  Also, Brown seems to forget that other powerful figures in Jesus’ day were unmarried: John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle.  There is nothing that supports this view that Jewish custom “demanded” that a man be married.

B.     Jesus was mortal:

1.      Here is the more serious error that is consistently claimed in “The DaVinci Code”.  Brown regularly asserts that Jesus, though a great teacher, was nonetheless human.  It was later that power-hungry church authorities made Jesus divine to serve their own purposes.

2.      The consistent claim of the New Testament is that Jesus was Divine.  His miracles point to that, as do His teachings and His explicit claims to be the Son of God.  These are facts in documents that have been verified as 1st-century documents!

3.      1 Jn. 2:22 - Were there ancient writings that presented Jesus as merely mortal.  John acknowledged that there were enemies of Jesus, claiming He was not divine.  A large body of writings called “Gnostic” follows this line of thinking.  But the Gnostics were preceded by the books of our Bible which presented Jesus as more than a man.

4.      Acts 1:1-3 - Luke presented Jesus as having been “taken up” (ascended back into heaven), and that there were “many infallible proofs” that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

5.      1 Cor. 15:3-8 - Paul pointed to eye-witnesses to the risen Christ, people who were still living at the time and could be questioned about this sensational claim.

6.      And what about the testimony of the thousands of martyrs who died in the early years of the church.  Were they people to be pitied, people who had been duped by an impostor?  Or do they not argue eloquently that there were strong reasons for seeing Jesus as the Son of God?!

7.      1 Cor. 15:17 - If it were true that Jesus is mortal, then our faith would be in vain and we would still be in our sins.  But we have strong evidence that shows Jesus to be Who we always have thought Him to be.

C.     Jesus never envisioned “our” Christianity:

1.      Professor Teabing speaks for Dan Brown: “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.”  Is this claim true?  Did Jesus never envision the faith we now practice?

2.      Mat. 4:17 - Jesus preached the same message that John had been preaching: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  What kind of kingdom did Jesus have in mind?

3.      Mat. 16:18 - Jesus told His closest followers that His intention was to build His church, an institution that would stand though assaulted by Hades itself.

4.      Eph. 5:25-27 - Paul later declared that church had been established, the kingdom He had come to bring to the earth.  Christ loved this church and died for it - indicating that Christianity is exactly what Jesus had in mind.

5.      1 Jn. 1:1-4 - Keep in mind that these records were produced by eyewitnesses of Jesus, people who were with Him or who were with people who had been with Him.  The very earliest records of Jesus and of Christianity affirm that our faith is exactly what Jesus envisioned.

D.    Of course, many of the arguments we’re making in this lesson are from the New Testament, a book Brown claims has been tainted and is no longer trustworthy.  In our next lesson, we’ll evaluate that claim.

Conclusion:

  1. The early reviews of the movie based on Brown’s book are that it’s not very good.  Perhaps

        that will keep some from going to see the movie.

  2. But the challenge has already been issued.  A book that has sold over 43 million copies has

        already proven that it is popular, and that people will be talking about its ideas around the

        water cooler.

  3. Do we know Jesus?  Have we seen the evidence that enables us to say with rock-solid

        conviction, “I know Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of mankind”?  The evidence is there

        in the Bible.  It’s past time for us to know it.