THE
DA VINCI CODE (PART 1
“…one particularly
troubling earthly theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary Magdalene.” He
paused. “More specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ.”
“I beg your pardon?”….
“It’s a
matter of historical record” (244).
The above conversation provides a sampling
of the way that Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, treats history and the Bible. In fact, his inaccurate grasp of the
historical record is exceeded only by his inadequate comprehension of religious
matters. He is not even aware, for
example, that the Scriptures nowhere define the forbidden fruit (of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil) as an apple.
He apparently assumes that certain traditions are correct. This misinformation figures prominently in
the novel.
The Purposes of the Novel
One purpose for Brown writing this novel
is to entertain, and in that he has been successful. The action moves swiftly along with only one
major flaw. Sophie, the heroine who
works as a cryptographer with what is the equivalent of the French FBI,
“forgets” that the armored car they stole would have a global positioning
device that would enable the police to find her and the American Robert Langdon
(who will be played by Tom Hanks in the movie version about to be
released). Obviously, Brown succeeds in
entertaining, considering the success of the book on the best seller’s
list.
The other purpose of the book is to be a
propaganda piece for “goddess” worship.
Brown admits in the last paragraph of his “Acknowledgements” that he
draws “heavily on the sacred feminine”; in truth, his novel is a shameless
promotion of the pagan doctrine, which involves attempts to rewrite history.
Brown seems to follow the pattern that
James Redfield did in his popular book a decade ago, The Celestine Prophecy. This
New Age novel was on the best seller’s list for more than three years. On
The story itself concerns a man who
is informed about this ancient manuscript by a friend. He decides to go to
Obviously, if Redfield had just
written nine insights, he probably would not have had a best-seller on his
hands, but by incorporating them into an adventure story he can sustain the
reader's interest, much as Ayn Rand did with Atlas
Shrugged (still a great novel despite her unworkable and flawed system of
morality).
Similarly, Dan Brown’s entire novel has at
its core the teaching of “the sacred feminine.”
The only way “goddess” worship can be championed, however, is at the
expense of Christianity. Brown
repeatedly attacks Constantine and the Roman Catholic Church of being
anti-women and tampering with New Testament documents. Of course, he offers no proof of anything,
but the main characters all agree that these absurd and outrageous charges are
true, such as the one highlighted at the beginning of this review.
Fact or
Fiction?
On the copyright page of the large-print
edition of the book, at the very top of the page, are the words: “This book is
a work of fiction,” which is a factual statement. But then the reader comes to page one of the novel, and it begins with the word FACT, which is somewhat
fictional. What follows is a description
of two Catholic organizations that are at odds with each other and which serve
as the main source of conflict as the story unfolds.
The first is the Priory of Sion, which really does exist today. The other is called Opus Dei (meaning “the work of God”); they really do have a $47
million World Headquarters in
According to
Goddess Theology
In February of 1997, this writer reviewed a
book that teaches the “goddess” philosophy—without all the adventure of a
fast-paced work of fiction. Riane Eisler published The Chalice and the Blade in 1987. Comments from that review are given below:
In a nutshell, Eisler believes that in prehistoric times, men and women
lived in relationships in which they shared work and responsibilities,
worshipped “the goddess,” and experienced peace, all of which are symbolized by
the term chalice. Then the blade was invented; men began to worship
its power (xvii), and women became dominated….
She describes murals,
statues, and figurines of what she calls “the Goddess, whose body is the divine
Chalice containing the miracle of birth” (19).
So the chalice and the blade not only
metaphorically represent the female (peace) and the male (violence); they
symbolize each gender physically as well.
Dan Brown teaches this same doctrine—only he is willing to specify that
Mary Magdalene is a specific chalice—to be precise—“the Holy Grail” (244). Since, according to Brown, she was the wife
of Jesus, she bore His earthly seed, the child who came from this union. By now, the reader is surely saying:
“What? What kind of nuthouse did Brown
escape from?” Unfortunately, he is
serious.
Most people have thought that all of the quests
for the Holy Grail were searches for the cup Jesus used when He taught the
disciples that the fruit of the vine represented His blood. Such a notion is ridiculous to Brown (so much
for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). He has an entirely different
interpretation. The character, Professor
Teabing, explains:
“The legend of the Holy
Grail is a legend about royal blood. When Grail legend speaks of ‘the chalice
that holds the blood of Christ’ … it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene—the
female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline” (ellipsis belongs to Brown).
“…the great cover-up in
human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear,
Mary Magdalene, was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that
bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ” (249).
Brown has left writing fiction and entered
the land of blasphemous fantasy. He has
applied “goddess” theology in a way that far excels his predecessors. One of Brown’s characters, Professor Teabing, has in his library a book that Brown has drawn
upon: Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The Internet Wikipedia
describes this book:
In summary, the authors purport to argue that there is a possibility that Jesus might have been married to Mary Magdalene, and that their possible
child or children emigrated to what is now southern France.
Once there, they established what became the Merovingian
dynasty, which is championed today by a secret
society called the Priory of
Sion.
An
international bestseller upon its release, Holy Blood spurred interest
in a number of ideas related to the authors' thesis. Response from mainstream
historians and academics, however, was all but universally negative. Critics
argued that the bulk of the claims, mysteries and conspiracies presented as
fact, were concocted by the authors.
This is the type of “historical record”
upon which The Da
Vinci Code is based. With his source
material deeply flawed, Brown can hardly be expected to have any
credibility. He also relies upon Gnostic
material produced in the third century as reliable documents which were
squelched by the church. Although he decries
conspiracy theorists (245), it is obvious to the reader that Brown is one. Goddess worship is one of peace and love and
harmony, and (according to this theory), “Jesus was the original feminist”
(248), but His jealous disciples had to have masculine control.
Curiouser and Curiouser
Catholics, of course, like to say that
Christ was saying the church would be built upon Peter. One might think that interpretation is
correct unless he looked at the entire context or considered how unlikely it
would be to build a Divine institution—one prophesied for centuries—on a
fallible human being. Some Mormons have
argued that the rock is continual revelation, since Jesus said flesh and blood
had not revealed the truth to Peter (v. 17).
The rock, however, is the Deity of Christ, which Peter confessed in
verse 16. Jesus being the Son of God is
what provides a foundation for Christianity that no other world religion can
claim. Still, the Catholic and the
Mormon explanations look almost rational next to Brown’s. Professor Teabing
says, “I daresay Peter was something of a sexist,” to which the heroine is
aghast (temporarily). She counters:
“This is Saint Peter. The rock on which Jesus built His Church.”
“The
same, except for one catch. According
to these unaltered gospels (Brown’s premise is that the Gnostic ones that early
Christians repudiated are unaltered
and true; those in the Bible are cover-ups, gws), it
was not Peter to whom Christ gave
directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It
was Mary Magdalene” (248).
Well, sure, who else? By this time the reader is so exhausted and
bombarded by her name and accomplishments that, if Brown said Mary Magdalene
was the first woman to fly solo across the
The problem with his thesis is that there
is no evidence to substantiate it. Some
technical information will be presented later, but consider the ramifications of
charge that the Bible has been rewritten.
If the life of Christ was revised by men (or women or aliens from outer
space), the New Testament could not be trusted in anything it says. Maybe Jesus cannot offer salvation from our
sins after all. Maybe that is just a
male topic. “Goddess” theology does not
deal with sin—but with sex. What has
been changed or altered to fit a male-dominated church? This whole notion ignores the fact that the
Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, who would not let puny mortals eliminate
crucial teachings from it.
“Goddess” Worship
When the reader is first introduced to
Sophie (the Greek word for “wisdom”), she is clever, calculating, decisive,
bold, and daring. By the middle of the
novel she mainly stands around, muttering, “Really?” to all of the “goddess”
revelations. She just accepts what is
told to her with barely a feeble protest against the tripe that inundates
her.
One example of this involves the
estrangement she had felt for years against her grandfather, the murder victim
in this tale. She had been an
inadvertent witness to something so shocking that she refused to communicate with
the man who raised her and whom she loved deeply. She had not spoken or written to him in more
than ten years.
Eventually, Robert Langdon, the “hero,”
tells her that what she had witnessed was a “sacred” ceremony, called Hieros Gamos. Around the time of the spring equinox a
ritual is performed. Certain men and
women stand in a circle chanting, while a man and a woman are copulating on the
floor in their midst. When Sophie, as a
college student, saw this ritual, she cut off all communication with her
grandfather. But Langdon explains the
“spiritual” significance.
He explained that although
what she saw probably looked like a
sex ritual, Hieros Gamos
had nothing to do with eroticism. It was a spiritual act…. Physical union with
the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually
complete and achieve gnosis—knowledge
of the divine (308).
Mic Jagger would probably agree. Langdon also tries to justify Hieros Gamos as something
Egyptian priests and priestesses performed “to celebrate the reproductive power
of the female” (308). How many unwed
mothers do we have each year? Is this
something that needs its own celebration?
This “ceremony” is supposed to be a means of communion with God, which
again is blasphemous. Even though the
bed is undefiled within marriage (Heb. 13:4), it was never designed as Langdon
defines it—not in the Bible. Only in
pagan “goddess” worship is a physical act glorified as a spiritual one.
In fact, to prepare
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