Modern Assaults Against the Truth

Dan Brown's books have electrified readers. His previous book, "Angels & Demons", for instance, was a great read with much thought-provoking social commentary. Now his book "The DaVinci Code" is a blockbuster movie. But sadly "The DaVinci Code" emphasizes the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" myth - something that Bible students have been aware of for some time. This myth says the Catholic Church ...has falsified the records of Jesus ..has fictionalized His death on the cross ..has covered up the fact that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and retired to the south of France where He had children ..has suppressed the knowledge that the blood-line of Jesus is the hidden meaning behind the Grail This series of ideas is to serious Bible Students what guys in tin-foil hats trying to keep the aliens from controlling them are to psychiatrists. We have to deal with the confusion, but it's not fun.  Conspiracy theories are always exciting because they tweak the powers that be. But you can't judge a Conspiracy theory by how exciting or appealing it is. You have to get to the truth. Sadly, Dan Brown says that he believes the theories outlined by the characters in his book. You deserve to know the truth. Error # 1: The church suppressed the fact that Jesus married and had children because it would "undermine the critical notion of Christ's divinity and therefore the Christian Church" (p. 254). Wrong. There is no theological reason why Jesus could not have married and had children. The Bible teaches that He was both 100% God and 100% human at the same time. As a human, He could easily have married and had children. Nor does the Bible teach that sex is wrong, or tainted. It merely limits it to marriage. So did Jesus marry? There is no reputable record that He did. In fact, He probably avoided it because He knew His mission was to die on the cross, and taking a wife and having children would be irresponsible. The "evidence" Brown provides for Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene is based on his understanding of a single unclear statement (calling Mary Magdalene a companion of Jesus) lifted from the gospel of Philip (written between 180 & 300 AD - long after Jesus). Some of the words in the quote are missing because the manuscript is so worn out! That's pretty sketchy evidence! Error # 2: The traditional gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are not the earliest records of Jesus. The gospels of Philip and Mary, as well as some other Gnostic sources, are far earlier. Wrong. There is no evidence that the gospels of Philip and Mary were written prior to the late 2nd Century AD. That means that the authors were not the Biblical Philip and Mary. In contrast, all scholars place the writing of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the 1st century AD - some think as early as a few years after Jesus' death on the cross. Almost all scholars feel that John was also a first century AD document. This places the 4 traditional gospels much closer to the time of Jesus than the Gnostic gospels on which Dan Brown relies. Many scholars believe they were written by the actual Apostles whose name they bear. Error # 3: Church Councils and the Emperor Constantine forced everyone to accept the four traditional gospels as true, suppressed the Gnostic gospels, and declared Jesus to be divine. Distortion! The traditional 4 gospels had long been accepted as the authoritative story of Jesus long before Constantine was ever born. The Gnostic gospels, like the Gospels of Philip and Mary, had long been rejected by Christians because they were written later, by Gnostics - a sect that the Christians considered to be heretical. They were not suppressed. They were rejected, if not ignored entirely, by Christians. As for the statement that the church councils "decided" that Jesus was divine, nothing could be further from the truth. Christians had always accepted Jesus as divine. The Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament are full of declarations that Jesus is divine. The councils (like Nicaea in 325 AD and Chalcedon in 451 AD) were dealing with various cults that had arisen that were distorting the understanding of people on Jesus, and their mission was to clarify what the Bible meant when it said Jesus was divine. The Councils didn't decide to make Jesus divine. They defended the  universal Christian belief that He was divine. Confusing these two is like saying Columbus invented America. Error # 4: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi documents are the earliest Christian Manuscripts. Wrong! The Dead Sea Scrolls never mention Jesus, or Christians. They are not early Christian documents - they are Jewish documents. There is no scholarship saying anything different. Dan Brown is just completely wrong. The Nag Hammadi documents, on the other hand, do mention Christianity and Jesus, but they are much later documents than the 4 traditional gospels (probably no earlier than the late 2nd century AD). They, too are from the Gnostic sect. Dan Brown wants you to believe that they are the "earliest Christian manuscripts". But they actually quote verses from books of the traditionally received New Testament! They can't quote the New Testament unless they were written after the New Testament! Error # 5: The Gnostic Gospels reveal a different picture of Jesus - a Jesus who was trying to bring pagan ideas about women and sex into Judaism. Wrong! Brown's book marries a large number of mythologies that don't go together. The Gnostic books Brown claims are his sources are ascetic (denying pleasure and self). A Gnostic would be outraged by the idea of ancient pagan fertility worship and "the Sacred Feminine." In addition, some of the Gnostic books are very anti-feminist, speaking abusively about women. Error # 6: The true nature of the Grail is hidden in much art and literature. Irrelevant! Brown's book identifies certain symbols and art as supporting his premises. Some of this is fabricated or poorly researched. But even if there were hidden anti-Christian messages in Medieval and Renaissance art, literature, or architecture, it doesn't help Brown's case. DaVinci's "The Last Supper" painting, for instance, shows a woman, claims Brown (a point many art scholars would dispute). But who cares? DaVinci, painting his "Last Supper" between 1495 and 1498, could put 20 dancing girls in the painting, and it's still merely his guess about what happened 1460 years before. Error # 7: Religion is not really about facts, but about belief and hope. Distortion! in the book, Robert Langdon says "Every faith in the world is based on fabrication... Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical" (page 341-342). Wrong! We want you to understand that all over the world are millions of believers and thousands of Bible Scholars who believe that a real man named Jesus walked this earth, and that He was God come to us in the flesh, and that He did die for our sins and rise again, and that the New Testament accurately recounts what happened and what it means. We don't believe it merely because it brings us hope. We believe it as surely as we believe George Washington fought in the Revolutionary War. And we also believe that we have compelling historical evidence that backs this up. And that makes us the true believers - as opposed to those who merely find their hearts warmed by the symbolism in a story. This information is taken from a tract the was written by my pastor Rev. Michael Durning and can be downloaded from our church website by clicking HERE