The Truth About The Da Vinci Code

1. The Truth About The Da Vinci Code Responding to the movie’s claims

2. Questions From the Book: • Is Jesus God? • Is the Bible true? • Was Jesus married? • Lost Books of the Bible - Are They Real? • What is the Sacred Feminine? • What about the Holy Grail?

3. Is Jesus God? “My dear,” Teabing, declared, "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet. . . a great and powerful man, but a man nevertheless. A mortal." "Not the Son of God?" "Right," Teabing, said. "Jesus' establishment as the Son of God was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea." The Da Vinci Code p. 233

4. Is Jesus God? • Fact: Jesus was viewed as divine from the very beginning of Christianity. He is referred to as God at least seven times in the New Testament and Lord as a divine title many other times. • Fact: The earliest documents from the Christian church ascribe to Jesus divine status. • Fact: The entire flow of the Old Testament requires that God come into the world, as Immanuel (God-with-us e.g. Isaiah 7:14).

5. Is Jesus God? "Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 233

6. Is Jesus God? • Fact: Even non-Christian writings from Romans such as Celsus, Pliny and Lucian state that the Christians venerated Jesus as God. • Fact: Jesus' original followers were routinely martyred for their belief that Jesus was God - a belief they would not recant even unto death. • Fact: It is always possible to find someone holding such a view, but to claim there are many is simply untrue.

7. Is the Bible True? "The Bible is a product of man my dear, not of God." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 231

8. Is the Bible True? • Fact: The Bible is the most reliable book of antiquity - with more manuscript evidence and less significant variations deviation than any other, by a long shot. • Fact: The Bible demonstrates its inspired origin in many ways, including its lofty doctrine, its historical precision, its predictive prophecy and the way that it was acclaimed by Old and New Testament figures, especially Jesus and the apostles.

9. Is the Bible True? "[The Bible] has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 231

10. Is the Bible True? • Fact: The New Testament has more manuscript evidence for its preservation as the original authors wrote than any other book in antiquity. • Fact: The nearly complete consistency between the many versions is recognized as an astonishing testimony to its single origin.

11. Is the Bible True? "The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 231

12. Is the Bible True? • Fact: The earliest testimony we have today of a list which corresponds exactly to our New Testament is from Athanasius of Alexandria, in 367. However, the concept of a New Testament, and much of its content are attested as early as I Clement (95 AD), and is essentially the same as ours by the mid second century, which is 175 years before the Constantine’s rule (306-337). • Fact: Tradition strongly suggests Constantine became a Christian in 312. He did a lot for the church, including forbidding persecutions and calling councils, but it would not have occurred to him to collate the Bible.

13. Is the Bible True? "Fortunately for historians, some of the gospels Constantine tried to eradicate somehow survived (in the Dead Sea Scrolls)." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 234

14. Is the Bible True? • Fact: There are two main types of documents contained in the scrolls: Biblical books (all except Esther), and a large collection of documents, some complete, some in fragments of stuff written by the Essenes. However, there is no Christian literature in the Dead Sea scrolls at all! • Fact: Not only was no attempt made to suppress these books, but they cast considerable light on the New Testament background.

15. Was Jesus Married? “Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of the church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene” Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.248

16. Was Jesus Married? • Fact: If Jesus had married Mary Magdalene, we would expect to see some type of her veneration in the history of the early church – like we see for Mary Jesus’ mother. However, there exists no reference or tradition anywhere to worship or veneration of Mary Magdalene. • Fact: The Son of God came to earth not to start a family but to save the Church, which is his true bride (Ephesians 5:22-33)

17. Was Jesus Married? “If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible's gospel's would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood.” Robert Langdon The Da Vinci Code p.245

18. Was Jesus Married? • Fact: Whenever Jesus' family is referred to, it is his brothers and sisters who are mentioned, but never a wife. Contrast this to descriptions of the rest of the apostles, Peter, and the brothers of the Lord - all of whom are said to have had wives. • Fact: At the crucifixion, Jesus shows no special concern for the care of Mary Magdalene as he does his mother. • Fact: This claim commits the fallacy of Hasty Generalization – just because the majority of Jews would be married, it doesn’t follow that EVERY Jew would be.

19. Was Jesus Married? "When Grail legend speaks of 'the chalice that held the blood of Christ' … it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene - the female womb that carried Jesus' royal bloodline." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.249

20. Was Jesus Married? • Fact: There exists no mention of a wife in any scripture of Jesus, in his ministry, when he was tried and crucified, or after his death. • Fact: The legend of the Grail is indeed about the lost cup from the Last Supper. But biblical language about a mothers’ womb is always a reference to gestation and protection, never about bloodlines. Indeed, shed blood was always about the opposite of birth, that is, death.

21. Was Jesus Married? "Companion of savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The disciples were offended at this." Gospel of Philip The Da Vinci Code p. 246

22. Was Jesus Married? • Fact: This passage comes from the Gnostic gospel of Philip and was written very late. It was written in Coptic, not Aramaic or Hebrew, and there IS no word in Aramaic where companion means spouse. • Fact: The actual manuscript is broken at this passage, so we don't know where it claims Jesus kissed Mary. • Fact: The Gospel of Philip is a Gnostic document, and Gnostics held that the physical expression of sex is not sacred or spiritual - it actually defiles the soul who believes by holding to the corrupt physical.

23. Lost Books of the Bible "More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relatively few were chosen." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.231

24. Lost Books of the Bible • Fact: Other than the four recognized gospels, there are only eleven ancient documents still in existence today that are called "gospel" . • Fact: In all of antiquity, there are only twenty eight other sources no longer in existence that are cited or mentioned in Jewish or Gnostic writings as gospels. • Fact: Most of the Gnostic works are rejected because they are too late to be written by the purported authors, they rely heavily on the stories in the existing gospels, and they contradict the beliefs taught in the orthodox gospels.

25. Lost Books of the Bible "The Nag Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls [are] the earliest Christian records." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.245

26. Lost Books of the Bible • Fact: All of the Biblical gospels date from the last half of the first century, where the two texts the Da Vinci Code relies on most, the gospel of Philip and the gospel of Mary Magdalene, are from the third to fifth century.

27. Lost Books of the Bible "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.” Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.234

28. Lost Books of the Bible • Fact: All four canonical gospels exist in lists of church scripture as early as Papias (c. 115 AD) and Justin Martyr (d. 165) and no other gospels ever appear in any list as authoritative. • Fact: Constantine did not summon the council of Nicaea until A.D. 325 - far too late for this claim to be taken seriously.

29. Lost Books of the Bible “Those who 'chose' the original history of Christ were the world's first heretics.” Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.234

30. Lost Books of the Bible • Fact: The Gnostic gospels reflect a line of thinking that didn't arise until the second century, and it was criticized by the early church fathers Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Tertullian. • Fact: Irenaeus makes it clear that the so-called gospels of the Gnostics are heretical precisely because they were secret documents. The Apostolic writings commend themselves because they are public and verifiable.

31. The Sacred Feminine "Powerful men in the early church ‘conned’ the world by propagating lies that devalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine." Robert Langdon, The Da Vinci Code p.124

32. The Sacred Feminine • Fact: The Advent of Christianity radically transformed the fate of women. Even ancient Roman pagan scholars agree that it was a turning point for the freedom and dignity of women. • Fact: According to sociology scholar Steven Goldberg, “The findings of the past 50 years [have] failed to include a single shred of evidence that such matriarchies had ever existed… All the claims of societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe they ever existed.”

33. The Sacred Feminine "Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine." Robert Langdon, The Da Vinci Code p.124

34. The Sacred Feminine • Fact: Christian women were powerful witnesses to Jesus' message, often despite the sinfulness of a male-dominated culture. Examples throughout many centuries include: Perpetua, Monica, Clare, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Sienna, Katherina von Bora, Susanna Wesley, Catherine Booth, Mother Teresa, and Anne Graham Lotz.

35. The Sacred Feminine "According to these unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.248

36. The Sacred Feminine • Fact: The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, to which the book refers, records Jesus as wanting to transform Mary Magdalene into a man to make her acceptable to enter heaven.

37. The Sacred Feminine "The Priory [of Sion's] membership has included some of history's most cultured individuals: men like Botticelli, Sir Isaac Newton, victor Hugo... and Leonardo Da Vinci... The Priory has a well documented history of reverence for the sacred feminine." Robert Langdon, The Da Vinci Code p.113

38. The Sacred Feminine • Fact: The modern Priory of Sion was created in 1954 by Pierre Plantard. All documents “proving” a blood line and a list of historical Priory members were proven to be forged in a French court of law. • Fact: Much of the supposed research done for The Da Vinci Code is embarrassingly incorrect

39. The Holy Grail "Mary Magdalene became secretly known by many pseudonyms - the Chalice, the Holy Grail..." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.254

40. The Holy Grail • Fact: Before the twelfth century, there were no legends about the grail; by the thirteenth century, the tale had become intertwined with Arthurian legends. The characters from Chretien's story developed into supposed historical figures from the Gospels, and the grail had become the Holy Grail.

41. The Holy Grail ""The word Sangreal derives from San Greal - or Holy Grail. But in the most ancient form, the word Sangreal was divided in a different spot.. Sang Real .. literally mean[ing] Royal Blood." Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p.250

42. The Holy Grail • Fact: There is no historical evidence to connect the ancient female symbol of the chalice to the Holy Grail, since the grail's concept can only be traced back as far as the twelfth century. • Fact: The re-division of the word Sangreal into Sang Real or Royal Blood appears to be completely manufactured.

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