Apologetics
The DaVinci Code
Chance to divide/Novice did cheat/Ditch naive code/Did have conceit
2Peter 2:1-2 KJV “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”
The anagrams of The “DaVinci Code” above are surely true. Jesus in a discussion with Peter said on the rock, which was the statement Peter made, not Peter himself, that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God, He, Jesus will build His Church. In addition that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. That means that it does not matter what the world or the devil use against the Church, we are not going to loose the battle on this earth. It will be inevitable that The Church of Jesus Christ, not the organizations called “Churches”, but the true Church of Jesus Christ, those who are born again, will prevail over her enemy, namely the devil and his servants and their devices.
With taking on the deity of Jesus Christ the writer of this book, “The DaVinci Code” admits that Jesus was a real person to those who might have thought that He was only a Christian figment of the imagination. This also means that the writer believe there was a Jesus of Nazareth, but that he does not believe Jesus is who the Bible says He is.
This book of Dan Brown, and the film that is now released based on the book will come and go down in history as feeble attempts to dethrone Jesus Christ as God and Savior, but after they have gone and will be forgotten, the Church will still be around busy with the work of God and leading people to Jesus and no one will be able to stop us, only those who will reject the truth will not be saved.
However, the Bible says in, John 8:32 KJV “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Therefore from what shall the truth set you free? From lies of course, nobody can expect to be successful in anything if he/she relies on doubtful information or outright lies therefore nobody put any credence in lies. In addition if you will trust in lies like “The DaVinci Code”, which are dished up from time to time because of your lack of firm faith in Jesus Christ, you will have a problem that can only end in sorrow of one kind or another.
Therefore how shall we approach this book? It is a fact that the most deceptive lies are half-truths, which this novel is based upon. We will be discussing some of the people and organizations in this book, like The Priory of Sion, the book’s version were fictitious, The Knights Templar, which was a real entity, although they had nothing to do with digging for the supposed ‘Sangreal’ documents and Mary Magdalene’s sarcophagus. And then there is the “Les Dossiers Secrets” which has a history all of its own. Chapters 55 to 65 of this book are where the writer goes into an almost enthusiastically evangelistic discourse on the ‘secret’ life of Jesus Christ.
He refers erroneously to David and Solomon, and is definitely under the impression that Solomon is David’s father on pages 252 and 270 of the paperback novel I read, this means he did not make any effort to actually read the Bible history of those two men. To those who do not know the Bible, David is Solomon’s father. He then goes on to try and ‘defend’ as it were Jesus as a man who is misrepresented by His followers today. Then the writer says Jesus’ human attributes were discounted by the Christian Church and that Emperor Constantine was effectively the person who has put the Bible together to gain political power. The last straw of course is the ignorant claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene was married and had a daughter. Only someone ignorant of God and His salvation plan will make claims of that nature.
I was actually surprised and disappointed at some Christian writers when I started to research this topic, when they said that they would have no problem if Jesus were married and had children. They obviously do not understand that Jesus could only have one bride and He is coming to fetch her, Revelation 19:7-9 ISV “Let us rejoice, be glad, and give him glory, because the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. She has been given the privilege of wearing fine linen, dazzling and pure." (The fine linen represents the righteous deeds of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, "Write this: 'How blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb!'" He also told me, "These are the true words of God.”
And
Matthew 22:2 KJV “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son.”
And
Mark 2:18-20 KJV “And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.”
And
Revelation 22:16-17 KJV “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
In the four quotations this is what we learn, the Lamb is Jesus Christ and the wife is the Church/saints. The certain King is God Almighty His son is Jesus Christ. The children of the bride chamber refer to the disciples/ apostles/ church, the bridegroom is Jesus Christ. In the last quotation we, the Church calls out to Jesus Christ to come and fetch us to be with Him.
It will be rather strange for Jesus to have a wife and family on earth when it has nothing to do with His purpose of coming to earth. Something else we need to remember is that He was sinless, which would have made His children sinless beings without the normal sin nature. Jesus having his own family is just nonsensical; in addition on the cross he only asked John to look out for His mother and said nothing about a wife because He did not have a pregnant one as is mischievously suggested.
Before we take on this book let me just take the opportunity to spell out Christianity for you. It is not institutionalized religion, but a personal relationship with God, the name Christianity does not come from a Biblical doctrine, but from a heathen description of Jesus’ followers.
The Roman Catholic Church is not the be all and end all of Christianity and their doctrines are erroneous and none Biblical in many respects, therefore I will not even attempt to defend what they believe. I am only interested in what the Bible teaches, error riddled doctrines of denominations who ever they might be, does not need defending.
If Jesus was not born of a virgin, was not the only begotten Son of God, was not crucified, did not die, was not risen from the dead, and is not seated at the right hand of the Father, then there would be no point to Christianity. It will have no purpose because then Jesus was only a man, and a liar. If the real Jesus was married then He did not know why He came to earth. He will indeed have a bride, but not like the writer of the “DaVinci Code” suppose, the Church will be His bride. Jesus did not come to take a bride, have children and then went to heaven just to come and take another bride with the rapture of the Church.
However I know Jesus Christ better than that, He has an impeccable nature, infallible judgment and nobody had to tell Him what His purpose was in life. At the age of twelve He already knew He was the Son of God and when John had to baptize Him, He already knew how and when He would lay down His life. Unique does not describe Him; He is more the quintessence of God incarnate to do a work for us, which we could not do. To lie about Jesus like this “DaVinci Code” book does is a slanderous and shameful thing.
Somebody is not sure of the facts and is rather confused with what he thinks Christianity is, and that man is Dan Brown the writer of the “DaVinci Code”. He did not think that he would actually shock real Christians with this book did he? People who are shocked by the “facts” in this book will probably also believe in evolution, because the premise is the Bible is a flawed book. Such people should read the Bible, which as a matter of fact did not change for 4000 years of Old Testament and 2000 years of New Testament doctrine.
Now coming to the “DaVinci Code” book, we will look at what under pin this work. If the “facts” according to this book can be substantiated then Dan Brown has done us all a favor, however if the “facts” according to Dan Brown can not be substantiated, then you will have to warn people against the deception of this book that poses as a pseudo historical revelation.
There is no doubt about this man’s ability to tell a story, however it is very apparent that Dan Brown should sharpen up his history research and his theological knowledge. Let us start:
The Priory of Sion:
This organization has everything to do with a man by the name of Pierre Plantard; if the surname sounds familiar it is because Dan Brown uses the surname in his book as one of the surnames that describes a supposed descendent of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Plantard along with André Bonhomme founded this organization in 1956 and the reason was to support the establishment of low-cost housing. In the same year of its establishment Plantard was convicted for a felony and went to prison for a year, which was the end of the Priory of Sion. You might say that cannot be, because the Priory was founded in AD 1099? Well Plantard revived the Priory name in the 1960’s and gave it the pedigree you read about in the Da Vinci Code, that Godefroi de Bouillon founded it during the Crusades. Therefore the Priory of Sion was never what it was said to be in the book and never had anything to do with protecting a secret or anything else and had nothing to do with the Knights Templar. If the history above is too simplistic for you, you can do an internet search on Pierre Plantard and find out more for yourself. Just by the way a new version of the Priory was dreamt up in the late 1980’s, which discounted much of the 1960’s version, with a new founder and everything.
The Priory of Sion was nothing else but a hoax, you have to wonder about Dan Brown if he ever did as much research as his book suggests he did.
http://priory-of-sion.com/: The most extensive resource for an exposure of Pierre Plantard as a hoaxer.
Les Dossiers Secrets
The above-mentioned Pierre Plantard also had a finger in this pie. Plantard got one of his fellow fraudsters Philippe de Chèrisey to actually create these documents on parchment no less. On the parchment documents they created the Priory’s list of Grand Masters, which included Isaac Newton etcetera as you might have read in “The DaVinci Code”. They then went and actually planted these fabrications in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Plantard then lead unsuspecting men like Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh to find these documents and the latter two went and wrote a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” on the knowledge that the “Les Dossiers Secrets” were actually authentic documents. Just read this one, “Plantard later rejected these claims during the late 1980s when he revised the mythological pedigree of the Priory of Sion, claiming it had nothing to do with the Knights Templar, that the "Dossiers Secrets" was written under the influence of LSD, and that the Priory of Sion had in fact been founded in 1681 at Rennes-le-Château by the grandfather of Marie de Negri d'Ables.”
Quote from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Plantard
Therefore Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci never belonged to the fictitious Priory of Sion. Therefore all the nonsense about Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, which is spoken about in the book should also be fictitious.
Some of the above based on, The Da Vinci HOAX Copyright 2005 by Olaf H. Hage. All rights reserved.
The Knights Templar
They were actually an organization founded in AD 1118, which had the mandate of protecting Christian pilgrims who were en route to the ‘Holy Land’. King Baldwin II granted the Templars quarters on the Temple Mount. They did not do work for the Priory of Sion as proposed by the “DaVinci Code.” They actually did have a code where they swore to some strict rules and they in time also became very rich. The reason they were rich was because the work they have done inspired many of the nobles to give them land etcetera and they were exempt from paying taxes. They did not blackmail the Roman Catholic Church because of the supposed ‘Sangreal’ documents they found in the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. These knights were however shamelessly treated by those who envied their wealth and status namely King Philip IV of France and Pope Clementine of the Roman Catholic Church. They were falsely charged as heretics etc. and some were burnt at the stake including their last Grand Master. Many of them were however not found guilty of the unfounded accusations. It goes without saying that the Knights Templar and Pierre Plantard’s Priory of Sion had nothing to do with one another whatsoever.
Based on the writings by Stephen Dafoe
Opus Dei ‘Work of God’
“The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, commonly known as Opus Dei (Latin for "Work of God") or the Work, is an international prelature created by the Roman Catholic Church, composed of a prelate (senior clergyman) secular priests, and ordinary lay people, whose mission contributes to spreading the Catholic teaching that everyone is called to become a saint and an apostle of Jesus Christ, and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. Founded on October 2, 1928 by a Roman Catholic priest, St. Josemaría Escrivá, Opus Dei was established as a personal prelature by Pope John Paul II, making it a part of the Church's institutional structure.”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It seems that this Roman Catholic Church’s Opus Dei organization was founded to do a good work, although we are called saints from the time we are born again and ordinary life is not a path to sanctity, only accepting Jesus Christ as your savior is. However, in Opus Dei usually there are two types of members, supernumeraries, the normal member (about 70%) and then there is the type that is like the character “Silas” in “The DaVinci Code” which are called numeraries.
They actually according to the articles from Wikipedia do practice what is called corporal mortification, which to the uninitiated is physical self induced ‘punishment’ as it were. Although it must be said that the article does not describe the discipline as severe as the “DaVinci Code” makes it to be.
The Bible and Emperor Constantine (Victor Constantine Maximus Augustus)
Here allot of thumb sucking took place in Dan Brown’s book. We cannot go into the whole refutation of what was written in the “DaVinci Code”, but let us look at some issues. Dan Brown paints this man like he was out to gain glory from Christians, but he never seem to look at the whole picture, which is famous in this book. He apparently forgot to check that before Emperor Constantine came along, Constantine’s predecessors mercilessly murdered the Christians. I do not know of any other religious persecution that covered 300 years, this three hundred year persecution of Christians Constantine ended, he himself becoming a Christian in the process.
Brown talks about the counsel of Niceae, which took place in the year AD 325 and was convened by Constantine. However constructing the cannon of books for the Bible was not the topic of discussion, but it was about an erroneous theological belief of a certain Arius, which he held to and taught those who he had influence over. This doctrine took away of the deity of Christ which was unquestioned in the Church, because the gospels of the apostles and letters of Paul were already widely used and known of. Because of the taking of sides this doctrine started to have an adverse effect on the relationships between the Christian brethren and Constantine who was the emperor and a Christian intervened to sort out the problem. There was counted about 318 bishops from everywhere and there was a vote to anathematize (to declare evil) Arius and those who clung to his doctrine. The vote was 313 to 5; do you remember the character “Teabing” saying in the book that the vote was only just in favor of Christ being made a deity? Jesus Christ by His own words made Himself equal to God that is what got Him killed; nobody had to vote for Him to be made God! He was 100% man and 100% God that is why He could die for our sins, no Christian should over emphasize either side.
Based upon the writings of Eusebius Pamphilus, and John Foxe
Yahweh and Shikinah
Here are some more thumb sucking, Brown say that the early Jews in King Solomon’s temple worshiped not only God/Yahweh, but also His powerful female equal Shikinah. I have heard some nonsense in my life but this one borders on insane. This man just doesn’t know what he is talking about. God gave the Israelites the mirror image of the temple of heaven when He gave Moses the pattern of the tabernacle of meeting in the desert. Many years later David wanted to build God a proper building because the tabernacle was just a tent, but God wanted Solomon, David’s son to build Him a temple, the holy of holies housed the Ark of the Covenant that is all. Israelites never had temple prostitutes like Brown claims, women was not part of the priesthood and anyone having sex with someone he or she was not married too was stoned, so much for his knowledge of the people we call Jews today. Shikinah is a Hebrew word that has to do with the glory of God and to my surprise it is not found in the Bible. Nobody who knows the ways of the Israelites will ever get to the conclusion that they ever worshiped a female deity. Brown is just ridiculous here.
Nothing in Christianity is Original?
I am not going to have a drawn out argument here if people gave themselves the license to dream up a story then say it is fact. You, who know it is a lie, actually have to do more work to disprove the lie than the one who has only to dream up the foolishness. In the book it seems we stole the miracle birth, the death, burial and resurrection from Mithraism; we stole Sunday worship from pagans and the gold, frank incense and myrrh story from the birth of Krishna and so on and so forth. Now what about that? Mithraism is some mystery religion; some say it is very old about 1500 years BC, but then the evidence for this is from 100 AD? Of course the problem is that there are actually two religions, which calls their God by the same name. The one is of Persian origin and the other a later version of the Romans.
However the story goes that we stole the manner of how he, Mithras, was born, but he was born from a rock, in a cave? It is said that he was born of a virgin, maybe the rock was the virgin, but there was no woman because he was fully-grown at birth. The myth says that at his birth he also had a cap on, and that is not me trying to be funny, that is the myth. The December 25th date of his birth is a non-issue, since this date for Jesus’ birthday is non Biblical and just a tradition that came along after the establishment of the Church. Then they say there were shepherds at his birth, but he was born before creation? How can that be and where did the rock and cave come from if he was born before creation? It is said that the shepherds brought him sacrifices, again where did the sacrifices come from if he was born before creation? So he was born before creation from a rock with shepherds looking on and wearing a cap, something is not right with that picture. That is certainly not how Jesus was born. According to legend Mithras did not actually die, therefore he could of course not resurrect. Let us just say he, as a mythical person was no Jesus Christ. Just by the way the evidence for the story of the myth is so scarce that most of the myth is based on speculation. Now about Jesus Christ; 800 years before He was born the prophet Isaiah prophesied that a virgin shall give birth to the Messiah. Did the Jews steal that prophecy also?
Source: Mithras, the Secret God, M.J. Vermaseren, London, 1963, Copyright © 2001-2006, Farvardyn Project. Source: Mithras By Mark McFall, www.frontline-apologetics.com. Source: Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions? By Ronald Nash. Source: Mighty Mithraic Madness Did The Mithraic Mysteries Influence Christianity? J. P. Holding, www.tektonics.org.
Since the time of Paul the apostle we came together on Sundays, the Sol Invictus cult which is mentioned in the book and who “worships” on a Sunday came after the Church was established. Krishna, well here we are speaking about Indian mythology and to say we stole the items that were given as a gift to Krishna who is actually a mythical person is silly, can’t two persons get the same gift? By the way frankincense and myrrh were valuable trading items in the east so it is no wonder it was given to royalty, I think Jesus was not the only One who got it as a gift. With the receiving of those gifts it is actually a witness to the fact that baby Jesus was indeed visited by wise men from the east because of the frankincense and myrrh trade of the people of the east.
Based on The Da Vinci Code Personal Unedited Research By: Josh McDowell © 2006 http://www.truefoundations.com. Frankincense and myrrh trade information gained from the Complete Reference collection by the Learning Company.
A Last Word
“One frequently encounters scholars who first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and practices and then marvel at the awesome parallels they think they have discovered.”
Ronald Nash (Nash, CHW, 126)
Brown says something about “the Jewish Tetragrammaton (four letter word) YHWH-the sacred name of God-in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous (having male and female characteristics) physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah”. Quote from “The DaVinci Code”
Nonsense, some historians suggest that there were no earlier language than Hebrew, where does Brown get this knowledge of a ‘pre-Hebriac’ language? Here he does the same thing as with David and Solomon, Jehovah is derived from YHWH and not the other way around. In fact ancient Israelites never uttered God’s name, because it was for them to holy to use.
Hebrew language information from: Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, LETTERS, VOWEL POINTS, and ACCENTS. By John Gill, D.D.
Brown says that when Constantine ‘put the Bible together’ there were about 80 gospels they had to choose from. Nonsense, 150 years before the time of Constantine, Christian and anti-Christian historians will tell you that the four gospels of the Bible were the only ones that were known and agreed upon. The rest of the New Testament is not called gospels, but epistles.
“The now Pregnant Mary Magdalene was smuggled into France by Jesus’ uncle Joseph of Arimathaea”. Since when was Joseph of Arimathaea Jesus’ uncle? This man Dan Brown has an active imagination.
Quote from “The Da Vinci Code”
According to the character "Teabing", Mary Magdalene was from the tribe of Benjamin, which made her a powerful woman and that the tribe of Benjamin was a “Powerful House”. Why would being from the tribe of Benjamin make a Jewish woman powerful and since when was the tribe of Benjamin so powerful? They only had one king and then became very obscure in relation to Judah. And where did he get the information that Mary Magdalene was from the tribe of Benjamin? You will never read that in the Bible.
In the book, “The DaVinci Code”, Robert Langdon is called a Harvard Symbologist, however according to Josh McDowell’s research, there is no such thing as a symbologist at Harvard University.
The Da Vinci Code Personal Unedited Research By: Josh McDowell © 2006 http://www.truefoundations.com
Here is a quote from Bruce Boucher who is the curator of European decorative arts and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. “It is also breathtaking to read that the heroine, Sophie Neveu, uses one of Leonardo’s paintings, "The Madonna of the Rocks," as a shield, pressing it so close to her body that it bends. More than six feet tall and painted on wood, not canvas, the "Madonna" is unlikely to be so supple” So, you have to wonder, if he can’t even get something that simple right how accurate are Brown’s descriptions of other things in the book?”
As quoted by Josh McDowell in, The Da Vinci Code Personal Unedited Research By: Josh McDowell © 2006 http://www.truefoundations.com
You might say why make such a fuss about this book, which some say should not be taken seriously? Well do you think this book is inspired by God and exalt His Name? No, some people definitely take this ‘fiction’ seriously and believe it is founded in truth. Lies about Jesus are never innocent and people should be warned against them.
Listen to Jesus Christ, Matthew 18:6-7 GW “These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be drowned in the sea with a large stone hung around his neck. How horrible it will be for the world because it causes people to lose their faith. Situations that cause people to lose their faith will arise. How horrible it will be for the person who causes someone to lose his faith!”
This book of Dan Brown might be light reading or for some, but if he had caused any to fall away from Jesus Christ, let us just say there will be dire consequences for him. However that does not mean he cannot ask God for forgiveness and try to remedy whatever damage he caused.
Barnamin Bailey, the great circus entertainer once said, “You may be able to fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all of the time!”
Therefore to end off, if Dan Brown wanted to mislead the real Christian with this book, it was a rather superficial attempt at it, but if he wants to attempt a deeper deception, he will be in trouble, because those who attempted to discredit Jesus at a real deep level inevitably ended up a born again believer in Jesus Christ.
Copyright 2007 Richard D Kloosman. All rights reserved
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