Since some of my friends asked about what's wrong in The Da Vinci Code, I illustrate the mistakes in the book with this post. The italicized words in quotation marks are from The Da Vinci Code authored by Dan Brown. The following short paragraphs explain why the words from the book are wrong. I could be wrong, but I think it basically gets to the points.
“Jesus is a great man or prophet in the earliest historical sources but was later proclaimed divine at the Council of Nicaea.”
Jesus is called “God” 7 times in the New Testament. He is called “Lord” in the divine sense numerous times. No serious historian argues that these texts postdate the Council of Nicaea
“The Dead Sea Scrolls along with the Nag Hammadi documents are the earliest Christian records.”
The Dead Sea Scrolls are purely Jewish documents. There is also no evidence any of the Nag Hammadi documents existed before the late second century A.D., with the possible exception of the Gospel of Thomas.
“One particularly troubling theme kept recurring in the [Gnostic] gospels. Mary Magdalene… More specially, her marriage to Jesus Christ.”
The Gnostic Gospel, a collection of anonymous writings that blended pseudo-Christian ideas with esoteric spirituality, say nothing about Mary and Jesus being married.
“The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine.”
The Bible was not collated by Constantine, who died in 337 A.D. The Old Testament existed prior to even Jesus’s day. And the New Testament, although it started coming together by the end of the first century (about 90-100 A.D.), was not formalized until about 393-397 A.D. (after Constantine’s death).
“The royal bloodine of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians.”
Following this comment about “historians”, Dan Brown, who is the author of The Da Vinci Code, lists 4 books by various authors: Margaret Starbird, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince. However, none of them are historians. Starbird has an M.A. in comparative literature and German. Baigent holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and is pursuing an M.A. in mysticism. Leigh is a novelist and short story writer. Lincoln gained notoriety as a BBC television personality and scriptwriter. Picknett, along with Prince, is involved in occultism, the paranormal and UFO studies.
“Leonardo Da Vinci made the following comments about the New Testament: 1) ‘Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude’, and 2) ‘Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes.”
These remarks have nothing to do with Leonardo’s views on scripture. His first comment, in context, is about alchemists who claimed that they could change lead into gold. His second comment, in context, refers to the foolishness of what he called men’s “own opinions”, “lascivious joys”, and “vain splenour”. Brown completely misrepresented Leonardo’s writings to make it seem as if the great artist detested the Bible.
“The Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH-the sacred name for God-in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
YHWH was not derived from “Jehovah”. The term actually predates “Jehovah” by thousands of years. Brown, in fact, has it backwards-i.e., “Jehovah” was derived from YHWH. It is merely the sixteenth century Latinized from form of YHWH with “a” and “o” and “a” (the vowels from adonai “my lord”) inserted between each consonant (Latinizing the word changed the “Y” and “W” to “J” and “V”). As for the word Havah, there is nothing “pre-Hebraic” about it. This is simply “Eve” in Hebrew and it appears in the Old Testament.
“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.’ ”
First, there was no “new” Bible commissioned by Constantine. The emperor simply requested that Eusebius (the Bishop of Carthage) make fifty copies of the already existing and widely accepted scriptures. Second, no evidence suggests that Constantine or anyone else “embellished” Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Third, there were no gospels burned by Constantine. Although some texts written by Arius were burned, none of them were gospels. Fourth, there were no gospels “earlier” than Mark. Finally, as previously noted, the gospels in our Bible clearly depict Christ’s “human traits”, which is consistent with the Christian teaching that Jesus was 100% deity as well as 100% human.
“Any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’s life had to be omitted from the Bible.”
The gospels in our New Testament present many “earthly aspects” of Christ’s life such as his physical frailties (hunger, fatigue, death); emotions (anguish, outrage, love); and relational interactions (with his mother friends, and followers).
“Leonardo’s worship of goddess and the feminne can be seen in his Mona Lisa painting. That name comes from two Egyptian deities: the god Amon and the goddesss Isis, whose ‘ancient pictogram was once called L’ISA. The title Mona Lisa, then is really ‘an anagram of the divine union of male and female.’”
Leonardo did not even name this particular painting. None of his works, in fact, were titled by him. The Mona Lisa was catalogued by author Giorgio Vasari in his books Lives of the Artists It was he who first called it the Monna Lisa, which in English was shortened to Mona Lisa, and refers to the likely subject: Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
“Jesus is a great man or prophet in the earliest historical sources but was later proclaimed divine at the Council of Nicaea.”
Jesus is called “God” 7 times in the New Testament. He is called “Lord” in the divine sense numerous times. No serious historian argues that these texts postdate the Council of Nicaea
“The Dead Sea Scrolls along with the Nag Hammadi documents are the earliest Christian records.”
The Dead Sea Scrolls are purely Jewish documents. There is also no evidence any of the Nag Hammadi documents existed before the late second century A.D., with the possible exception of the Gospel of Thomas.
“One particularly troubling theme kept recurring in the [Gnostic] gospels. Mary Magdalene… More specially, her marriage to Jesus Christ.”
The Gnostic Gospel, a collection of anonymous writings that blended pseudo-Christian ideas with esoteric spirituality, say nothing about Mary and Jesus being married.
“The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine.”
The Bible was not collated by Constantine, who died in 337 A.D. The Old Testament existed prior to even Jesus’s day. And the New Testament, although it started coming together by the end of the first century (about 90-100 A.D.), was not formalized until about 393-397 A.D. (after Constantine’s death).
“The royal bloodine of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians.”
Following this comment about “historians”, Dan Brown, who is the author of The Da Vinci Code, lists 4 books by various authors: Margaret Starbird, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince. However, none of them are historians. Starbird has an M.A. in comparative literature and German. Baigent holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and is pursuing an M.A. in mysticism. Leigh is a novelist and short story writer. Lincoln gained notoriety as a BBC television personality and scriptwriter. Picknett, along with Prince, is involved in occultism, the paranormal and UFO studies.
“Leonardo Da Vinci made the following comments about the New Testament: 1) ‘Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude’, and 2) ‘Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes.”
These remarks have nothing to do with Leonardo’s views on scripture. His first comment, in context, is about alchemists who claimed that they could change lead into gold. His second comment, in context, refers to the foolishness of what he called men’s “own opinions”, “lascivious joys”, and “vain splenour”. Brown completely misrepresented Leonardo’s writings to make it seem as if the great artist detested the Bible.
“The Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH-the sacred name for God-in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
YHWH was not derived from “Jehovah”. The term actually predates “Jehovah” by thousands of years. Brown, in fact, has it backwards-i.e., “Jehovah” was derived from YHWH. It is merely the sixteenth century Latinized from form of YHWH with “a” and “o” and “a” (the vowels from adonai “my lord”) inserted between each consonant (Latinizing the word changed the “Y” and “W” to “J” and “V”). As for the word Havah, there is nothing “pre-Hebraic” about it. This is simply “Eve” in Hebrew and it appears in the Old Testament.
“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.’ ”
First, there was no “new” Bible commissioned by Constantine. The emperor simply requested that Eusebius (the Bishop of Carthage) make fifty copies of the already existing and widely accepted scriptures. Second, no evidence suggests that Constantine or anyone else “embellished” Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Third, there were no gospels burned by Constantine. Although some texts written by Arius were burned, none of them were gospels. Fourth, there were no gospels “earlier” than Mark. Finally, as previously noted, the gospels in our Bible clearly depict Christ’s “human traits”, which is consistent with the Christian teaching that Jesus was 100% deity as well as 100% human.
“Any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’s life had to be omitted from the Bible.”
The gospels in our New Testament present many “earthly aspects” of Christ’s life such as his physical frailties (hunger, fatigue, death); emotions (anguish, outrage, love); and relational interactions (with his mother friends, and followers).
“Leonardo’s worship of goddess and the feminne can be seen in his Mona Lisa painting. That name comes from two Egyptian deities: the god Amon and the goddesss Isis, whose ‘ancient pictogram was once called L’ISA. The title Mona Lisa, then is really ‘an anagram of the divine union of male and female.’”
Leonardo did not even name this particular painting. None of his works, in fact, were titled by him. The Mona Lisa was catalogued by author Giorgio Vasari in his books Lives of the Artists It was he who first called it the Monna Lisa, which in English was shortened to Mona Lisa, and refers to the likely subject: Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
