The Da Vinci Code Cult
A Critical Look at Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
by Robert Sheaffer
Much has already been written decoding, deconstructing, and debunking Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, including Tim Callahan’s critical review in Skeptic. But since then the book has become a cult hit, having sold over 25 million copies in 44 languages, and the paperback edition is not even out yet! It reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list on April 6, 2003, and has stayed on the list for 103 straight weeks (as of this writing), half at the No. 1 position (and never below No. 5). As a consequence, Brown’s three other novels have now sold over 7 million copies, earning him an estimated $50 million in the last two years. In addition, a film starring Tom Hanks is in production, a sequel is in the works, and at least 20 other nonfiction books have now been published by other authors in response, promising to help readers “decode” it in some way. And if all that wasn’t enough, in March 2005, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, head of doctrinal orthodoxy for the Vatican, issued an official statement on behalf of the Catholic church, calling the novel “a sack full of lies” and urging Christians not to read it. Thus, in addition to it being appropriate to revisit The Da Vinci Code, I also think that its critics have been too soft and that there are even deeper flaws in the book that need to be revealed.
By definition a novel is fiction, so it would seem that Cardinal Bertone’s assessment is irrelevant. But, in fact, Brown says in the book: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” In this “factual novel,” Brown makes some extremely remarkable claims that, if true, would revolutionize not only all of the Christian religion, but much of history as well. Brown would have us believe that the practices of early Christianity were vastly different than we have been taught, and that a huge conspiracy has prevented us from knowing this. A patriarchal plot by a famous Roman emperor obliterated the early Christians’ worship of “the sacred feminine.” Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and sired a royal bloodline that continues to this day. A secret society of some of history’s most famous scientists and artists has been dedicated to preserving these ancient secrets for almost a thousand years. At a minimum, these claims would overthrow more than a century’s worth of painstaking research by serious scholars from the most respected universities in the world. If ever there were an extraordinary historical claim that requires extraordinary historical proof, this is it. How good is the proof that Brown presents?
The Earliest Christian Records?The principal claim to support Brown’s radical historical revision is found in the statements by a character in the novel, Leigh Teabing, who is a Grail researcher and scholar: “These are photocopies of the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls, which I mentioned earlier,” Teabing announces, “
What are the earliest surviving Christian texts? If you want to read them, you will find them in the New Testament. Scholars believe that Paul’s epistle, now known as 1 Thessalonians, was written during his second evangelical journey, about the year 51. That would make it the earliest of all surviving Christian documents. Galatians was probably written during Paul’s third evangelical journey, around 54-58. The Book of Acts appears to have been completed by the year 61, although some portions of it appear to be earlier still, and some editing may have occurred a few years later.1 The Gospel of Mark is unquestionably the oldest surviving gospel. It is usually dated around the year 70. Matthew is later than Mark, but was composed before 100. The Gospel of Luke was composed around the year 100. John was written a few years later, but before 120. There is some quibbling about these dates, but New Testament scholars would accept them as being reasonably close.
As for the Nag Hammadi texts, some of which are unquestionably previously unknown early Christian documents, when were they written? The noted biblical scholar James M. Robinson, who headed up the project to study and translate these invaluable archaeological finds, writes that while an exact dating has not yet been determined, “dates ranging at least from the beginning to the end of the fourth century CE have been proposed.” One Nag Hammadi text makes reference to the Anomoean “heresy,” which briefly flourished in Alexandria around the year 360. Some miscellaneous papers bound with the Nag Hammadi Codices can be dated to the years 333, 341, 346, and 348.2 Thus, the physical Nag Hammadi library is unquestionably from the fourth-century, and at least some of its texts are that recent.
More:
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v11n4_da_vinci_code.php
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