Words like “blockbuster,” “publishing juggernaut” and “monster hit” are being applied to the book and forthcoming movie, The Da Vinci Code. Author of the book Dan Brown is reputed to have earned $442 million for his work. The book, published in 2003, has sold 46 million copies in 44 languages. The paperback edition sold 6 million copies in just one month.

Director Ron Howard’s upcoming movie of the book stars Tom Hanks and reportedly has a marketing budget of upwards of $100 million. The movie opens Friday, May 19^th.

The startling religious claims in The Da Vinci Code include this pure lie — that early Christians did not believe that Jesus Christ was divine.  It also contains one concept that is unknowable according to the scriptural accounts we have — that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene.

Christian Groups Will Counter Errors

In an era when everyone owns a Bible but few actually read it, Dan Brown’s religious accusations are too often taken as fact. Those who do know the doctrines of the King of kings feel that Christianity is under a very real attack.

One offended Catholic, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, had this to say about The Da Vinci Code: “It is trading on the vast resonance of the name of Christ and on all that he means to a large part of humanity, to achieve wide publicity at very little cost... this is literary and artistic parasitism.”

The April 24, 2006 cover of Time magazine features a controversial Catholic organization that was vilified in Dan Brown’s book. Opus Dei (meaning the work of God) has mounted a campaign called “Operation Lemonade,” believing the group can turn the glare of publicity into a proselytizing opportunity. To replace the Code’s horrific image of a fictional Opus Dei albino assassin named Silas, the article has the benign photograph of a Mr. Peepers-like Vicar Thomas Bohlin.

The Campus Crusade for Christ International is also looking for an opportunity to counter the distortions of this book-publishing phenomenon and upcoming movie. Christian apologist Josh McDowell (author of Evidence That Demands a Verdict), has written a book titled The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers. The Campus Crusade organization wants to distribute 250,000 copies of the book in the days leading to the release of the Da Vinci movie. The group plans to tell people how to find “the true Jesus Christ of the Bible.”

Is The Da Vinci Code Anti-Christian?

Why did this novel and soon-to-be-released movie create such a stir in Christian circles?

The Da Vinci Code offers up a pastiche of Gnostic and occult material purporting to prove that:

As to Mary Magdalene, it is my belief that conjecture regarding the Savior’s private life is not pertinent to my salvation. Since no mention of a wife is made in Scripture or by modern-day prophets, I consider this a closed topic. It may be sacred ground and I will not comment on such.

In a recent Deseret News interview, BYU professor Andrew C. Skinner concurred, saying, “In recent years, we have, in fact, been counseled by current prophets and apostles... that where the scriptures are silent, we should pass over them with reverence and focus on those doctrines that are revealed in clarity.”¹ [Skinner has joined with Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas A. Wayment in writing What Da Vinci Didn’t Know for LDS readers.]

There are certainly other issues with the book that are troublesome. What may be problematic for some readers is that author Dan Brown prefaces his novel with a page titled FACT where he writes “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” Since there is now a cottage industry of books debunking The Da Vinci Code (more than 20 at last count), it is obvious there are many inaccuracies.

David A. Shugarts has written a biography of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and discusses his “FACT” literary device:

While I found Dan Brown’s Code to be entertaining fiction, I also flagged many pages and scribbled scripture citations in the margins when his novel presented twisted information.

Rather than be misled by Brown’s, “If this is true, then the following is also true,” reasoning, readers and movie-goers need to put the material to the test of scholarship and testimony.

The assertion that no one believed Jesus was the Son of God until 300 A.D. flies in the face of recorded history. Not only did the original apostles die as martyrs believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but the writings of the early church fathers completely confirm this New Testament doctrine.

Almost All You Need to Know About Gnostics

What irritated me the most about the book was the assertion that the early church fathers suppressed “the truth” and that, according to Brown’s hero, “The Church’s version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and that the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold.” [Pages 266-67] Brown leans heavily on Gnostic writings to prove his theories. Most people who read The Da Vinci Code will not understand who wrote these alternate “gospels” and why Gnostic theories did not (and cannot!) replace the writings of Christ’s apostles in the New Testament.

Meridian Magazinepublished two insightful articles by Eric D. Huntsman on issues raised in The Da Vinci Code. He wrote that “Gnosticism, an alternative strand of post apostolic Christianity, developed over time. Even in its earliest forms, it seemed to stress the idea that knowledge, particularly gnosis or secret knowledge alone rather than the Atonement, was what saved the individual.” (My emphasis.)

Brother Huntsman notes that The Gospel of Thomas (infamous to me for asserting that Christ can make a woman male so that she can be saved), was found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt and that it “probably originated in Syria in the Greek language in the second century, around A.D. 150. This is early but at least 60 years after the last gospel, presumably John, appeared in its final form.”³

Below, I have included typical passages from the Gnostic writings. If readers and movie-goers will compared Gnostic doctrine and the doctrine presented in the New Testament, they will get a clear understanding of these incredible examples of the Apostasy and how early the doctrinal errors crept in among believers.

Stephan A. Hoeller has written a book called Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Traditions of Inner Knowing (Quest Books/The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 2002). Hoeller discusses The Testimony of Truth from Nag Hammadi saying, “The text extols the wisdom of the serpent and casts serious aspersions on the Creator, asking ‘What sort is he then, this God?’ It answers that God’s prohibition concerning the fruit of the tree is motivated by envy, because he does not wish humans to awaken to higher knowledge.”⁴

Eric Huntsman’s two Meridian articles are full of such examples and mention the heresies that Christ set aside his body at the resurrection and could only be recognized by the elect. And that the Second Coming happened already so there will be no big winding up scene. Brother Huntsman also explains the Marconite heresy (which may have been influenced by Greek Platonic though) that spirit was considered good and the physical as corrupt. He explains this heresy:

In pondering the pop-schlock sound of ancient Gnosticism, you can’t help but compare these writings to the inanity of today’s New Age philosophies. Does the Gnostic teacher, Monoimus sound a bit like Shirley McLaine when he says:

Recognizing the Adversary’s Hand

Just from the brief Gnostic excerpts noted above, we can understand how easily the early Church lost the understanding that our Father has a glorified body. What jealous and envious entity made these foolish people believe that bodies are evil and that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was the god? Who provided the twisted thinking that the resurrected Christ would shed his body? Who would have us worshipping goddesses?

When the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, he gave us the words of Christ condemning these heresies. In Revelation 2:20-22 the Savior warned,

The Hieros Gamos ceremony described in The Da Vinci Code is called “sacred marriage” and one of Brown’s characters claims: “Physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis — knowledge of the divine.” [Page 308] What Brown is describing was called temple prostitution in biblical days.

The last sentence of the Brown’s book has hero Robert Langdon kneel, not for the Savior of mankind, but for the goddess, the woman of his myth, Mary Magdalene. [Page 454]

Brown is careful to have one of his characters say, “Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to live better lives.” [Page 234] But over and over, Brown’s characters deny that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that a scripture in 2 Thessalonians warns us that one lie, one BIG lie, will mark the last days:

I believe that the most crucial and damaging of the immense pack of lies that Satan presents is the lie that Jesus is not the Son of God.

In a speech given in October 2005 Dan Brown said, “I was not born with the luxury of absolute faith. I have a lot of questions. I’ve written a novel in which fictional characters ask some of those questions and offer possible answers.” From a song that Dan Brown wrote called “All I Believe,” it would appear that Brown knows at least what he doesn’t have faith in. The happily married Brown wrote these words in a love song:

Armored Against the Lies

There is a powerful little book by D. Kelly Ogden (reviewed by Meridian) called 8 Mighty Changes God Wants for You Before You Get to Heaven. Brother Ogden tells the answer Elder Bruce R. McConkie would give when asked how he knew so much about the scriptures: “I read them.” Brother Ogden tells us that “True spirituality is not born out of ignorance. We would all be better Latter-day Saints if we knew the scriptures better.”⁶

I have learned that consistently being in the Word of God has given me an ear for His truths. There is a cadence, a resonance, an illumination that resounds in the Word. When I read truth elsewhere, it has a similar echo. The Holy Spirit has inscribed the Word on the tablet of my heart, and this is my sonar, my early-warning device.

I commend this guide to you for navigating the increasingly choppy, spiritual waters of our day.

Notes

1. Carrie A. Moore, “Errors in ‘Da Vinci’ covered,” Deseret Morning News, May 13, 2006.

2. David A. Shugarts, “In Search of Dan Brown,” in Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code,” edited by Dan Burstein, CDS Books, 2006, page 377.

3. Eric D. Huntsman, “Decoding Da Vinci: Mary Magdalene in the Apocryphal Gospels,” Meridian Magazine.

4. As quoted in Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code, page 184.

5. Huntsman, ibid.

6.  D. Kelly Ogden, 8 Mighty Changes God Wants for You Before You Get to Heaven, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, UT, 2004, page 1.