As we are in a place of looking at some of the ways that church history effects us today and because there are so many questions about the book, The Da Vinci Code, which makes many assertions about church history, I think we need to address some of these questions before proceeding. (NOTE: This is basically covered in a recent Special Bulletin also posted on this website.)

The Da Vinci Code may be a well-written suspense thriller, but for historical accuracy it is hard to imagine one that has so twisted and distorted the facts. Even though it is a compelling read, it is taken too seriously by many, which is a statement about our times that we need to understand.

In this book the author very cleverly uses characters who are supposed to be esteemed experts and historians to make bold and authoritative declarations about the church, its history, and the Bible which are not only false, but are wild exaggerations or outright fabrications. Is this acceptable just because it is a novel? Usually even novels that are based on historic events are held to a high standard in their representation of them. Why isn't this one? There is an obvious agenda in The Da Vinci Code that we need to understand. What is it? Why does it matter?

This may be one of the most demonically-inspired books of our times, with a profoundly evil agenda. It quickly becomes obvious that this book is a regurgitation of the ancient Gnostic doctrines, as well as the promotion and glorification of paganism and rituals associated with satanic worship, while at the same time seeking to undermine Christianity and faith in the Bible.

Gnosticism was a heresy that arose in the first few centuries A.D. when Christianity was spreading throughout the world, and it claimed to be Christian, but was not. It was rather a very basic departure from Christian truth, and promoted a salvation that was more of an elevation of the soul, through a secret knowledge rather than through the atonement of the cross. It also very basically attacked the deity of Jesus for obvious reasons.

Gnosticism was considered by many to have been the very deception that the Lord prophesied would seek to deceive even the elect (see Matthew 24:24). For the first few centuries of Christianity, this deception was effective in deceiving many new or unstable believers and even some of the leaders. It seemed especially prone to pick off those who on one extreme had a low self-esteem or on the opposite extreme were driven by selfish ambition.

It is important for us to understand why this same heresy is surfacing again today in The Da Vinci Code, and the spin that many are putting on the discovery of The Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Judas that was discovered is probably authentic as far as being old, but it was not written by Judas as it is being promoted. We know that this "gospel" existed because it is referred to a number of times by the early church fathers, but always as a heresy, just like the other Gnostic gospels that painted a very different picture of Jesus than the biblical testimony. Just because something is old does not make its teaching true.

With a brief scan of the web, you will find a growing number of studies that have and are being done on The Da Vinci Code by serious historians and even art critics. It appears that they are all united in declaring the assertions in this book to be anywhere from inaccurate to outrageous. The book does not even get the architecture correct on the prominent buildings used in the novel, which could have easily been done with a little research through the Internet. The mistakes made by this book's assertions are so overwhelming it almost seems like they were done purposely. There are too many to cover in much depth, but we will look at just a few of the basic ones that are especially used to attack Christianity and the Bible.

Because Gnosticism is obviously being resurrected in our time, we should keep in mind that there have always been two main assaults of Gnosticism:
 

1. To undermine Christianity by attacking its most basic truth—the deity of Jesus, His death, resurrection, and exaltation.
2. To attack the validity of the Scriptures.

The purpose of the first attack is obvious as it is the very basis of Christian faith. The second is more subtle, but its result will always cause a fall just as it did in the Garden. We see in Genesis that the very first lie of Satan was an attempt to get Eve to doubt the Word of God. This is why there is such a massive and continuous assault on the validity of the Scriptures. If the "scientific" methods and standards used to determine authenticity of ancient writings are applied to the Scriptures, there are almost certainly no writings on the planet that pass these tests better than the Bible. However, science almost always uses a double standard when it comes to the Bible—the most flimsy evidence that attacks the Bible will be accepted, while the overwhelming evidence that confirms it is rejected. Why?

Though there are many intellectually, honest people in the scientific community, many of which have begun to speak out about such double standards in their profession, we can count on human courts to always try to condemn Jesus—even those who have faith in Him, just as the Sanhedrin did the night before He was crucified despite the overwhelming evidence they had seen with their own eyes. The truth of the gospel will never be accepted by anyone who is not willing to bow the knee and serve the truth.

Gnosticism seems to be an especially interesting parallel to the first forbidden fruit that brought all of the death into the world in the beginning. Satan seduced Adam and Eve into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by asserting that this knowledge would make them "like God." Gnosticism comes from a root word that means "knowledge," and it actually purports to lead those who acquire the secret knowledge to become like God. This perverted doctrine did much damage to the early church, and it is obviously being resurrected to do the same in our time.

The Da Vinci Code seeks to make heroes out of secret societies and groups like the Templars, but you can be sure that secret societies, or groups that have secret rituals, will be used for evil. If we are abiding in the light, then anything we do should be able to be exposed to the light or openness.

Even so, there have been societies, or orders, in church history that have done much good for the faith, but they were never secret orders; they were always very open about what they did. One of these is The Order of the Mustard Seed that was founded by early Moravians and was instrumental in the conversions of John and Charles Wesley. We should beware of any secret society or order, and can assume that if something has to be kept secret it is in darkness.

This book also asserts through its characters, who are supposed to be esteemed and celebrated intellectuals and historians, that the Roman Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea (in the early fourth century) forced on the church the doctrines of the deity of Jesus, and his own desired canon of Scripture. The facts are that the canon of Scripture was not even on the agenda at this council, and the "close vote" on the deity of Jesus was 300 to 2. Does that sound like a "close vote" to you?

The characters in this book also state that this council threw out the "80 some" additional "gospels" that disputed His deity, keeping only the four that confirmed Jesus' deity, which Dan Brown states (always through his characters) that neither Jesus nor His first disciples held to. Again, the canon of Scripture was not even addressed at this council, and the "80 some other gospels" mentioned in this novel are another considerable exaggeration. There were others, but the actual number is closer to 20, so the exaggeration of this was only by a factor of 4 to 1, which seems pretty good by the standards of accuracy set throughout the rest of this book.

The canon of Scripture was established by the early church fathers long before Constantine. Then the Catholic canon was established centuries later and the Protestant canon over a thousand years after Constantine. The Catholic canon is basically the same as the Protestant canon with the exception of including some books that the Protestant Reformers rejected, not as being invalid writings, but as not being worthy of being considered canon Scripture.

The reasons given for epistles or "gospels" that were not canonized by either the Catholic or Protestant canon varied. Some were not canonized because they had been written later than the first century, and therefore were not considered eyewitness accounts. The standard of justice established in the Law demanded that the testimony of any witness had to be an eyewitness account, not hearsay. Some were not canonized because they were believed to be redundant to the four Gospels that were chosen. Others were not acceptable because they contained obvious Gnostic heresies.

Contrary to the assertions made in The Da Vinci Code, The New Testament actually has an abundance of "scientific proof" backing up its authenticity, its dating, and the fact that it has not been changed since the first century. The "early church fathers" are those who lived and wrote between 70 A.D. and 150 A.D., a fact that is well- established and is not disputed in its dating. The early church fathers included some who were direct disciples of those who walked with the Lord Himself such as Peter, John, and the other apostles. From these writings, there are some 30,000 references to what is now considered the New Testament canon. From these well-established authentic writings, you can reconstruct the entire New Testament with the exception of just eleven verses!

These testify quite overwhelmingly that what we have in our New Testament today is the same that was actually penned by the authors. Also, contrary to the statements of the "experts" in this novel, the Gnostic heresies about Jesus not being divine were not corroborated by any of the writings of the early church fathers, but are rather disputed vehemently by all of them.

Even so, epistles that were not mentioned by the early church fathers were not necessarily considered spurious, fraudulent, or as containing false teaching. There were many writings that were considered good and edifying, but did not pass the high test required to be considered canon Scripture upon which the doctrine of the church was to be solely based. The many errors that later entered the church were not the result of rejecting epistles that should have been included in the canon, but were the result of neglecting the canon Scriptures.

In any case, the evidence that what we have in our New Testament today is the authentic writings of its authors is quite overwhelming, in contrast to the assertion of Dan Brown through his authoritative characters that the New Testament was repeatedly changed, modified, and is very different from the original. His assertion is not true, and there is abundant evidence that it is not true.

Other glaring flaws in The Da Vinci Code include almost every assertion about the Bible or early Christian practices including the fact that neither Constantine nor the Council of Nicea were responsible for changing the Christian meeting day to Sunday or establishing the celebration of Christmas. There is also not a single Christian writing included in the Dead Sea Scrolls, nor even a mention of Christ in them.

Brown's biggest distortion of the truth is the assertion that neither Jesus, Himself, nor the first Christians considered Him to be deity. The Gospel of John begins by asserting His divinity; He Himself not only refers to Himself as the Son of God, but states that He and the Father are one. As far as the Christians in the first century not believing in the deity of Christ as Dan Brown asserts through his characters, we have an abundance of testimony to the contrary. In the New Testament we have such clear statements as the first two chapters of Hebrews, the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and an abundance of other more brief testimonies such as Romans 1:1-4:

There have now been books written on the inaccuracies, misstatements, and exaggerations of The Da Vinci Code, and it does seem that every single point about Christianity in this book was not just distorted, but greatly distorted. Even other minor details that had nothing to do with faith were also amazingly inaccurate, such as the one that I'm sure irritated every pilot—a B-58 Baron is not a turboprop, but a light twin piston powered plane, which no one could walk around in as asserted in this strange novel.

From a Christian perspective, his agenda of attacking Christianity, and promoting pagan worship and other rituals that are associated with satanic worship, is not in doubt. When one serves Satan, the "father of lies," you will become like the one you worship. This book is full of lies.

Historical novels are generally held to a very high standard of conforming to the truth when it comes to actual historic events. Why isn't this one? It is expected that both the publisher and Hollywood which is about to release the movie, will defend the book with the protest that this is just a novel and Dan Brown is just taking some artistic liberties. However, this book crosses some very basic lines with its wild and flagrant distortions of history obviously intended to be against Christianity. Every Christian should be offended by this book and the movie.

I would not recommend any Christian being slimed by reading the book or seeing the movie. Just as these same Gnostic heresies deceived and led astray many weak and unstable Christians in the first few centuries, we can be sure that it will do so again if the true shepherds do not protect those they are entrusted to watch over by warning them of these things.

The good that has come from this novel is that many Christians have been provoked into checking out some of the attacks made on basic Christian truths in this novel, as well as historic facts, and have resolved to strengthen their own foundations. We are coming to the time of the ultimate conflict between good and evil, between light and darkness, between truth and error. Good will always win over evil, light will always cast out darkness, and truth will always prevail over every lie. This we can be sure of.