The worldwide best selling book

1. The worldwide best selling book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown Is it Fact or Fiction?

2. In the Da Vinci Code Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu are caught in a fast paced chase through Paris, London and elsewhere upon uncovering the secret of the Holy Grail—non other than the ‘royal’ bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene—of which Sophie is one of the few remaining survivors. The Roman Catholic Church has supposedly suppressed this amazing secret and killed many belonging to the bloodline.

3. In the title page, the author, Dan Brown wrote: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” This very statement supposedly caused readers the confusion over reality and fiction.

4. The Da Vinci Code claimed: • The Priory of Sion is a European secret society founded in 1099 by Godefroi to protect the bloodline of Jesus and Mary (p.345). Actual Historical Fact • Pierre Plantard formed Priory of Sion in 1954 to help those in need of low-cost housing (group dissolved in 1957). • 1960s and 70s Plantard created a series of forged documents on the existence of a bloodline descending from Jesus and Mary through the kings of France to himself.

5. This is Pierre Plantard He and his associates called themselves the Priory of Sion and deposited these documents in libraries all over France, including the National Library. 1993 Plantard admitted, under an oath to a French judge, for this fabrication. The judge issued him a severe warning and dismissed him as a harmless crank.

6. The Da Vinci Code claimed: In 1975 parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets were discovered identifying members of Priori of Sion such as Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci, Grandmaster of The Priory of Sion left cryptic clues in his painting The Last Supper that the person on Jesus’ right is not John the disciple, but Mary Magdalene – supposed ‘evidence’ that Jesus had a special relationship with her that leads to marriage and a child: “The Last Supper practically shouts at the viewer that Jesus and Magdalene were a pair” (p.329).

8. Actual Historical Fact Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452. That would have made him 502 years old if he were to be really a Grandmaster of the Priori of Sion society! As for Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), he was at least 312 when he was a member. How absurd!

9. The Da Vinci Code claimed: In Brown’s book, Pope Clement V suppressed the Knight Templars because they blackmailed him with the secret of the Holy Grail. “And these four chests of documents were the treasure that the Knights Templar found under Solomon’s Temple?” (p.344)

10. Actual Historical Fact Founded in 118, the Knights Templar is an order of soldiers who took a monastic vow to protect pilgrims on their journey to the Holy Land. They are a military religious order. It was King Philip who ordered the arrest of the Templar on Friday, 13 Oct 1307, not for any Holy Grail trail, but on the charge of heresy. This allowed Philip to seize their enormous wealth and assets, including the chalice supposedly used by Christ at the last supper.

11. The Da Vinci Code claimed: “The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion and a dangerous practice known as ‘corporal mortification’. Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York.”

12. Actual Historical Fact The real Opus Dei—“work of God”—is a Roman Catholic lay organization that empowers lay people to emphasize piety and good works, instead of focusing on the spirituality of clergy. Its founder San Josemaria Escriva was born in Babastros, Spain, in 1902. The portrayal in The Da Vinci Code as existing to suppress documents of the Priory of Sion is pure fabrication. San Josemaria Escriva

13. The Da Vinci Code claimed: “The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine (p.231)….Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man….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 [Gnostic] gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned” (p.234).

14. Actual Historical Fact Constantine could not have collected and altered the combined evidence of history that preceded him because other ancient documents (beside the New Testament that we have—which Brown accused Constantine for tampering them) do tell the stories of Christ and his sufferings, death and resurrection. And in history there is no evidence that Constantine ordered the burning of any Gnostic gospels. What were burned were Arian papers found by the Council of Nicaea to be heretical.

15. Should The Da Vinci Code shaken your Christian faith and belief? Absolutely not. Dan Brown is a mere story writer by which he was clever to deceive his readers into buying his bestseller book because of the new revelation that he claimed to have discovered. Dan Brown is classified a ‘historical fiction’ writer—a genre of literature writings in which imaginary characters live within the realistic boundaries of known facts. We can safely say that Dan Brown is also a ‘revisionist historian’—one who tampers and revise history.

16. In an earlier interview when asked, “How much of this novel is true?” Dan Brown said, Ephesians 5:6 Do not let anyone deceive you with foolish words; it is because of these very things that God's anger will come upon those who do not obey him. “The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction…Each individual reader must explore these characters’ viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations.” Lately, Dan Brown no longer claims the Da Vinci Code to be fictional. Is it because money is pouring in from its sales, attracting—or rather deceiving—thousand of readers into buying the book thinking that it carries some new historical evidences?