Cracking the Da Vinci Code
Part I: Do the Winners Write History?
Lee Strobel
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[Note: This message was immediately preceded by the video segment from Session 1 of the Discussing the Da Vinci Code DVD, available at www.outreach.com]
That’s what we’re going to find out in this new series on The Da Vinci Code. Garry Poole and I traveled to Europe to investigate the sites of Dan Brown’s story, but our biggest surprise occurred in Lincoln Cathedral. That’s where director Ron Howard filmed scenes for the movie because he had been denied admittance to Westminster Abby.
We walked through the massive front door and down a corridor, opening a creaky door and seeing some impressive artwork. From a distance, one piece really caught my eye – a beautiful marble statue that could have dated back from the 16th Century.
But as I examined it more closely, something was amiss. I reached out and picked it up – and it was as light as a feather! It was made of Styrofoam! It turns out that Ron Howard had left behind some of the props that he created to make the inside of the cathedral look like the interior of Westminster Abby. I looked at a beautiful fresco painted on a stone wall in the room – but when I touched it, it turned out the fresco and the stone wall were both painted on canvas! I knocked on what looked like an 18th century monument – and it was made out of plywood.
Ron Howard had been doing what Hollywood does best – creating illusions. This was merely movie-making trickery to fool movie-goers into thinking these props were real artwork.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this sort of Hollywood illusion. But Dan Brown claims in The Da Vinci Code that there’s a more insidious illusion that has been perpetrated for centuries by Christians.
You heard me describe on that video some of the biggest allegations made by Brown. To sum it up, one character in the book says, “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.”
The book claims you can’t trust the four Gospels in the Bible – and we’ll deal with that in the second part of this series. It makes the sensational allegation that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that she was supposed to have run the church and that Christianity has systematically suppressed women through the centuries – which will be the topics of the third installment. And it says Jesus never claimed He was the Son of God and, in fact, wasn’t considered divine until he was “upgraded” to a deity in the 4th century – which will be answered in the final week. These four weeks correspond to the Discussing the Da Vinci Code curriculum that many of you are using in your small groups.
Some of you might be wondering, “Four weeks? Why are you devoting all this energy to refuting a novel? Come on – it’s just fiction!” But the truth is, The Da Vinci Code is more than just another novel. For one thing, it’s one of the biggest-selling novels in history, with 45 million copies in print. And, frankly, it’s a skillfully-written page-turner that keeps readers glued to its pages. But more importantly, Brown mixes fact and fiction in such a clever way that people don’t know where reality leaves off and fantasy begins.
In fact, one out of three Canadians who’ve read the book now says they believe its premise that there are descendants of Jesus walking among us today. According to pollster George Barna, a majority of Americans – 53 percent – said the book has been helpful in their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”
Even some of the media have bought into it. USA Today said the book consists of “historical fact with a contemporary storyline.” The Library Journal called it “a compelling blend of history and page-turning suspense.” Dan Brown himself told ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas: “I began as a skeptic. As I started researching The Da Vinci Code, I really thought I would disprove a lot of this theory about Mary Magdalene and holy blood and all of that. I became a believer.”
Brown specifically claims that much of his book is true. He begins the novel with a page that says FACT, and includes this statement: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
Since this series was announced, I’ve received emails from some parents here at Willow Creek whose teenagers have read the book and now have serious doubts about their faith. One man told a pastor I know that he will never set foot in a church ever again, because now he knows the truth.
Friends, if the historical claims in this book are true, then Christianity is a fraud that’s built on lies and deceit – and I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. But if the historical claims are false, then this book is spiritual snake oil that has clearly poisoned the faith of far too many well-meaning readers.
The Bible says in First Thessalonians 5:21: “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” And that’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to sort of go back to my roots as legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and today we’re going to fact-check some of Dan Brown’s most serious claims about history.
You see, history is especially important to Christianity because, unlike other religions, our faith isn’t merely a collection of amorphous beliefs, but it’s grounded in historical reality. It asserts that Jesus Christ lived at a specific point in history, claimed He was the unique Son of God, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and then rose from the dead in one of the best-attested events of ancient history. But Dan Brown claims that we can’t trust what we’ve been taught about history.
In fact, he tries to pull the rug out from under history by writing this: “…History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books – books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe…. By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account.”
But is that true? Is Christianity a “winner” that has skewed the historical record so that it can’t be trusted? To find out, I interviewed Dr. Paul Maier, a respected professor of ancient history, the author of more than 250 articles in professional journals, as well as numerous books and even novels about historical figures and events. I asked him point-blank: Is history always written by the winners? Here’s how he responded.
[Show clip of Maier’s response from the Discussing the Da Vinci Code DVD, available at www.outreach.com. Here’s a transcript of what he says: “No, the whole premise is false. I can give you some interesting instances where history was written by the losers. For example, one of the greatest civil wars in the ancient world was the famous Peloponnesian War. This was written by Thucydides, who was an Athenian, and the Athenians lost the war. Sparta won. And yet, Thucydides writes a very objective treatment of what happened in the Peloponnesian War.”]
Dr. Maier is right. Historians have developed sophisticated ways of testing the reliability of ancient accounts. They ask questions like:
• Are there multiple sources reporting on the same event?
• Are the accounts rooted in eyewitness testimony?
• Are the reports written soon after the event, before legend can contaminate it?
• Is there confirmation from archaeology?
• Is there embarrassing material in the accounts that would have been edited out if the writer felt free to whitewash the record?
• Is the writer biased? Does he have an ulterior motive to lie or mislead?
• How carefully have these accounts been transmitted through history?
Those historical tests are why I became a Christian! Because when I was an atheist checking out Christianity, and I applied these standard historical tests to the New Testament, it passed with flying colors. You’ll be hearing more next weekend on why the Gospels in the Bible are reliable, but my central point is this: History is a friend of Christianity.
Yet in contrast, time after time Dan Brown’s claims about history wither when exposed to scrutiny. Said journalist Sandra Miesel, who has investigated Brown’s claims: “So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth.”
Let’s do some investigative reporting ourselves and look at the major claims that Brown makes about history.
First, the whole book hinges on an organization called the Priory of Sion – so let’s start there. In fact, at the beginning of the novel, Brown says this under the heading FACT – keep in mind that he’s specifically claiming that this is true:
“The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’ Bibliothèque 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.”
Later in the novel, it’s revealed that the Priory’s mission was to protect the secret that Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene, they had a child named Sarah, and their bloodline continues to this day. In fact, the Priory protects the descendents of Jesus from being killed by the Catholic Church, which wants to suppress the truth.
But are Brown’s claims about the Priory true?
Well, let’s check them out. I’m putting on the screen a copy of the actual registration papers that were filed in France to create the Priory of Sion. [One place to find the document is at: http://priory-of-sion.tripod.com/psp/posd/rd1.JPG] Can you see the date it was filed and stamped by the government? It’s dated and stamped May 7, 1956! In reality, this was an organization founded to campaign for low-income housing in France.
On this 2nd page [http://priory-of-sion.tripod.com/psp/posd/rd2.JPG] you see the signature of Pierre Plantard, born in Paris in 1920, who was secretary general of the Priory. Who was he? If you investigate him, you find out he had a very checkered past. Documents show that he was a con man who was convicted of fraud and embezzlement and served six months in prison in 1953. He was also an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer.
But here’s the most incredible part: Pierre Plantard actually counterfeited several fraudulent documents in order to create a phony history of the Priory of Sion, including the document that Dan Brown refers to on his “fact” page. Plantard then planted these documents in the French national library.
When they were “discovered” in 1975, people said, “Look at this! Here’s evidence that this clandestine organization has existed since 1099 and involved Leonardo Da Vinci and other famous people – and, lo and behold – guess who those documents claim is both a descendant of Jesus and the rightful heir to the French royal throne? Surprise! No one other than Pierre Plantard himself!”
Where was the fact-checker at Doubleday Publishers when Dan Brown submitted his manuscript? It doesn’t take much effort to document that what he claims is based on truth is actually based on fantasy. Several French books and a BBC documentary in England exposed the entire hoax a decade ago and Plantard confessed to the whole scheme before he died. French authorities considered him nothing more than an eccentric crank.
Yet Brown uses this bogus material as the foundation of his book. If there’s no real Priory of Scion, then there’s no connection with Leonardo Da Vinci and no reason to keep speculating about hidden meanings in his paintings – in fact, disproving the so-called “facts” about the Priory of Sion is like pulling out a thread that causes the whole book to unravel like an old sock.
I mean, we could stop right there! But let’s go further. The truth is that no serious scholar takes Brown’s historical claims seriously. His errors include minor matters, like saying the glass pyramid at the Louvre Museum in Paris, under which he suggests without any evidence that Mary Magdalene’s bones are buried, has 666 panes of glass – a spooky reference to Satan’s number in the Bible. But, again, he’s wrong – go over and ask the Louvre yourself and they’ll tell you there are 673 panes of glass. But, then, that number isn’t quite so mysterious sounding.
Other allegations border on the obscene. For instance, Brown says on Page 309: “…early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah.”
This is was never part of traditional Judaism; ritualistic sex was never, ever sanctioned in the Temple. In fact, Moses warned against such depravity in Deuteronomy 23. And the Jews believed so strongly in monotheism – the existence of only one God – that they didn’t even have a word in their language for “goddess.” The word “Shekinah” isn’t even in the Bible; it comes from later rabbinic writings and it unambiguously refers to the glory of God’s presence; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the idea of a female counterpart.
Other blatant errors include Brown’s claim that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained documents saying Jesus was a mere human being. The truth is that Jesus isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls. How do we know for sure? Because they were written before he was born in Bethlehem! Actually, the Dead Sea Scrolls are friends of Christianity because they confirm how carefully our Old Testament was transmitted through the centuries.
But Brown’s inaccuracies multiply out of control when he commits what Dr. Maier called “character assassination” against Constantine, the first Christian emperor of the Roman empire. The conversion of Constantine was a landmark in Christianity, because it meant an end to the horrific Roman persecution of the church.
But Brown paints Constantine as a villain of history. According to him, Constantine wasn’t a Christian at all, but he was a lifelong pagan who was only reluctantly baptized on his deathbed, when he was too weak to protest. Brown said that to consolidate his own power, Constantine convened a conclave of theologians called the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. Under Brown’s conspiracy theory, Jesus was declared to be God for the first time at the Council, and they also put together the Bible, eliminating the Gospels that portrayed Jesus as human. In fact, Brown says the vote on Jesus’ divinity was precariously close.
All of this flies in the face of the historical record, as any secular or Christian historian will tell you. First, was Constantine a Christian? No less of an authority than Dr. Kenneth Scott LaTourette, the late professor of ancient history at Yale University, said yes – and certainly the evidence for this is strong. No question Constantine was a deeply flawed individual, but as Dr. Maier told me:
“Constantine was a true convert to Christianity…. He built cathedrals as if there were no tomorrow. All the main identification spots associated with Jesus in Palestine are Constantinian construction: the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. He couldn’t do enough for the church. He reimbursed the church for all the damage it had suffered in the persecutions. He invited the clergy regularly for dinner. He called himself a bishop of those outside the church in order to bring them into the church. He felt that God had appointed him to convert the Roman Empire to Christianity. He was active in church affairs. He exempted the church from taxation. He called the first great ecumenical council into session – and I could go on. It’s ridiculous to say he was a lifelong pagan. It’s simply,” declared Maier, “a bald lie.”
What’s more, Constantine wasn’t reluctantly baptized on his deathbed – he sought baptism at the end of his life because of the innocently mistaken theology in that day that a Christian should wait until the last minute to be baptized because it would wipe their slate clean of all preceding sins.
Did he convene the Council of Nicea? Yes, because theological rifts were creating problems in the culture. A guy named Arius was going around saying Jesus was God, but a created God, and he was turning his message into catchy little musical jingles that people were going around singing. He was sort of an early advertising whiz. So because of the confusion this was creating, Constantine called together over 300 bishops.
But here’s the thing: Jesus wasn’t deified by that council in 325 AD. For one thing, we have incontrovertible evidence that he was considered the Son of God centuries before the council met. Jesus unambiguously declared it himself. You’ll be hearing more about that in the fourth week of this series. Secondly, not one delegate went into the Council of Nicea believing Jesus was merely human; they all knew He was God but they wanted to affirm exactly what that meant.
For instance, was he a created God? The delegates immediately and overwhelm-ingly rejected Arius’ position. After all, Colossians 1:16 declared about Jesus in the first century: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” As Dr. Erwin Lutzer has pointed out, how could Jesus have been created if He created all things?
Then the delegates considered whether Jesus has the very same nature as God the Father or whether he has a similar nature to God the Father. Again, they affirmed that their nature was the same, just as the New Testament showed from the outset. Jesus said in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one” –the Greek word means “one in essence.”
So how close was the vote? It wasn’t quite the squeaker that Brown makes it out to be. Actually, it was more than 300 to 2! Thus, today we have the Nicean Creed, in which Jesus Christ is affirmed to be “Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made….”
Finally, did Constantine collate the Bible? Friends, no historian believes that. The books of the Old Testament had been cemented even before Jesus’ time.
The four Gospels in the Bible are the only Gospels from the very first century and meet the stringent historical tests I listed earlier – and the eminent scholar F. F. Bruce said that generally speaking they were “accepted to the exclusion of others from the early part of the second century.” Scholar David Strauss summed it up in an interview with me when he said: “The New Testament books were considered inspired Scripture long before Constantine was born.”
Fortunately, we have a historical record of all 20 rulings at the Council of Nicea – and not one of them deifies Jesus or picks which books would go into Bible.
There were never 80 other gospels vying for the Bible in the fourth century, as Dan Brown asserts, nor did Constantine try to wipe out the belief that Jesus was human. After all, Christianity asserts that Jesus is fully man and fully God. We see His human side clearly in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where he is described as going through the stages of childhood; where he is seen working as a carpenter; and where he is shown as becoming hungry, tired, sad, disappointed, angry, and fatigued. He even bled and died!
Friends, Dan Brown has written a mesmerizing, page-turning adventure. No question about it. But it is fiction. Investigative journalist Richard Abanes documented dozens of historical errors in The Da Vinci Code, including claims about church architecture, art history, religious symbolism, the Roman Empire, ancient Israel, and different spiritual systems.
Then he asks this: “If Brown cannot be relied upon to accurately recount even the most basic of historical facts, then how can he be trusted to correctly explain more complex subjects?”
But that leads to a logical question: if The Da Vinci Code is so clearly fantasy, then why are so many people buying its conspiracy claims? That’s a legitimate issue, and I want to end by offering three explanations.
First, some people harbor suspicion towards the church. They look at scandals involving some Catholic priests and some Protestant televangelists, they see the church as a secretive institution, they read about times when Christianity has been twisted to support abominations like slavery – and they don’t like what they see. It becomes easy to believe there might be conspiracies lurking below the surface.
Friends, if you’re repulsed by hypocrisy in the church through the ages – then you’re on Jesus’ side – because He was the biggest critic of hypocrisy. The truth is that when the church has strayed, it’s not a commentary on the validity of His teachings, it’s a confirmation that the church is run by fallible people. So do this: focus instead on Jesus & what He did & taught.
Second, I think many readers have been duped into believing Brown’s book because they don’t know much about theology or ancient history. As the apostle Paul put it in Ephesians 4:14, they’ve become “like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like truth.”
Our bookstore has several books that answer the claims of The Da Vinci Code, including Exploring the Da Vinci Code, which Garry Poole and I wrote. Also, totally free of charge, we’ve made dozens of video clips of experts available at LeeStrobel.com. You can go there and get answers and sign up for my free newsletter, Investigating Faith, which will keep you current on this and future challenges to Christianity and how to respond to them. Or, better yet – join me in our Da Vinci Code room right after this service and spend a few minutes getting questions answered.
You know, the trailer for The Da Vinci Code movie ends by saying, “Seek the truth” – and I’d say, “Seek the real truth.” Test everything, hold onto that which is good.
Finally – please hear me on this. The unvarnished truth is that some people are looking for a spiritual “out.” The Bible warns us in Second Timothy 4:3-4 that there would come a time when “people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear. They will reject the truth and follow strange myths.”
You see, it’s easier to ignore a troubled conscience or a nagging sense of spiritual confusion if you can convince yourself that the whole Christian story is phony anyway.
So some people look for reasons not to believe or they accept far-fetched conspiracy theories if they will ease their mind and help them feel like they’re off the hook with the God whose Spirit is convicting them of their sin and drawing them toward Himself.
I’ve been there and done that. I used to look for spiritual outs. Years ago, when I first walked into this church as an atheist, I wanted to find a scandal, I wanted to find hypocrisy, I wanted to believe Christianity was a fraud because it would put the spotlight on those issues and take the heat off of me. I was hoping there wasn’t a God to whom I would be held accountable for all the things that I knew were wrong but I did them anyway.
Maybe you can relate to that. Maybe you’ve been spending your time looking for things that you don’t like about Christians or the church, or ministers like me. Maybe you’re like the story about W. C. Fields, who was supposedly on his deathbed thumbing through the Bible. Someone asked what he was doing and he said, “Looking for loopholes, m’boy – looking for loopholes!”
Could it be that you’ve been looking for loopholes instead of searching your own heart and asking, “Could it be true that I need forgiveness from Jesus for all of my wrongdoing that has alienated me from God?”
The Bible tells us to test everything, but please don’t let that turn into a cynical spirit that blinds you to the very real truth about God – and the very real truth about yourself. Maybe it’s time to do what I did and say, “I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not going to keep searching for an ‘out’ in order to keep me from a God who loves me, who is reaching out to me, who wants to offer me His free gift of forgiveness, and who wants me to know him personally, now and for eternity.”
Jesus said His mission in this world was to reach out to people like you with compassion and love and forgiveness and grace. And for some of you, the time has come to meet not the Jesus of Hollywood or of a novelist’s fertile imagination, but the very real Jesus of history who bought you with His life – and offers you a new life and a new eternity right now.
