What is a Christian to do with

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What is a Christian to do with
?
Dealing with Dan Browns best-selling novel
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Raise your hand if you agree Christians should
not read any book that challenges the authority
of Scripture, whether covertly or overtly.
Why?
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The reality is

• Whether or not you agree with this statement, in
  some way you will be confronted by this book, or
  something from it.
• Heres a situation Someone you know has read The
  Da Vinci Code and wants to know what your opinion
  is on its claims. What do you do?

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The Plot
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the
Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover
a secret that has been protected by a secret
society since the days of Christ. The victim is a
high-ranking agent of this ancient society who,
in the moments before his death, manages to leave
gruesome clues at the scene that only his
granddaughter, a noted cryptographer, and a
Harvard symbologist can untangle. The duo races
against time as both suspects and detectives to
uncover the truth about the victim and his deadly
secret.

• Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene
• Together they had a child the Holy Grail (or
  blood)
• This secret was hidden from the power-hungry,
  repressive, chauvinistic early Church
• It has been protected for over a thousand years
  by a secret society called the Priory of Sion,
  among whose members was Leonardo Da Vinci

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FACT All descriptions of artwork, architecture,
documents, and secret rituals in this novel are
accurate. (italics mine)
Its just fiction, right?
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The Bottom Line
As I mentioned, the early Church needed to
convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus
was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that
described the earthly aspects of Jesus life had
to be omitted from the Bible. Unfortunately for
the early editors, one particularly troubling
theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary
Magdalene. More specifically, her marriage to
Jesus. -Page 244
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Brown is arguing the following

• It is at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD where
  Constantine and others present created the idea
  that Christ was divine to cover up his humanity.
• To achieve this goal, those present at Nicea, led
  by Constantine, selected only four gospels -- the
  ones that emphasized Christs divinity -- from a
  voluminous list of texts for inclusion in the
  Bible.
• This whole effort was meant to cover up the
  fact that Jesus was not only a mere mortal, but
  he was married to Mary Magdalene, had a child,
  and together established a powerful royal
  bloodline.

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Three Areas of Primary Interest

• The Council at Nicea (AD325) - Christs Divinity
• The Council at Nicea (AD325) Canonization
• Mary Magdalene

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1. The Council at Nicea (AD325) - Christs
Divinity
Until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed
by His followers as a mortal prophet. A great
and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A
mortal. (pg. 233)

• The most primitive confession had been Jesus is
  Lord Rom 109 Phil 211
• The Council of Nicea did not define that Jesus
  was divine but addressed the issue of the exact
  relationship between the Son and the Father
• Canon of Bishop Irenaeus took its cue from 1
  Corinthians 86 "Yet for us there is but one
  God, the Father, from whom all things came and
  for whom we live and there is but one Lord,
  Jesus Christ."
• The earliest Christians used ?????? when
  referring to Jesus, recorded in both Scripture
  and extra-Biblical work as early as 100 AD.
• The Council of Nicea merely formalized these
  beliefs

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2. The Council at Nicea (AD325) Canonization
The twist is this Because Constantine upgraded
Jesus status almost four centuries after Jesus
death, thousands of documents already existed
chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite
history books, Constantine knew he would need a
bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound
moment in Christian history. Constantine
commissioned and financed a new Bible, which
omitted those gospels that spoke of Christs
human traits and embellished those gospels that
made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were
outlawed, gathered up, and burned. (pg 234)
The Bible was complied and edited by men who
possessed a political agenda to promote the
divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His
influence to solidify their own power base. (pg
234)
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2. The Council at Nicea (AD325) Canonization

• The gathering of the New Testament documents
  began within the first century (four gospels,
  Muratorian canon, etc.)
• The Dead Sea Scrolls are purely Jewish documents
• F.F. Bruce The NT books did not become
  authoritative for the Church because they were
  formally included in a canonical list on the
  contrary, the Church included them in her canon
  because she already regarded them as divinely
  inspired, . Church councils did not impose
  something new upon the Christian communities but
  codified what was already the general practice
  of those communities.
• Bruce Metzger You have to understand that the
  canon was not the result of a series of contests
  involving church politics. . You see, the canon
  is a list of authoritative books more than it is
  an authoritative list of books. These documents
  didn't derive their authority from being
  selected each one was authoritative before
  anyone gathered them together.

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3. Mary Magdalene
Its a matter of historical record (Page 244)

• Silence among witnesses
• Supposed proof Gospel of Philip probably written
  sometime in the late third century A.D. Relevant
  portion (63.33-36) has gaps and reads, And the
  companion of the... Mary Magdalene... her more
  than ...the disciples.. kiss her... on her
• Jesus must have been married since he was an
  early Jew, (p. 245)
• exceptions to this sort of rule in early Judaism
• Josephus (Ant. 18.1.5.20-21 Jewish War 2.8.2)
• Philo (Hypothetica 11.14-17)
• Dead Sea Cemetery all attest to the fact that
  some early Jews felt a calling to celibacy.

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What is a Christian to do with
?
Dealing with Dan Browns best-selling novel
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In Summary

• The divinity of Christ was a well-established
  belief among the earliest Christians long prior
  to the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
• The gathering of the New Testament documents
  began within the first century and is a list of
  authoritative books instead of an authoritative
  list of books.
• There is not one shred of credible evidence that
  Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, had a child,
  and together established a powerful royal
  bloodline.

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Should a Christian read The Da Vinci Code?

• If you are firm in your faith, to the point
  that the book would not cause you to question,
  doubt, or speculate, and if you can stay focused
  on the fact that it is a novel and nothing more,
  then read it.If you begin reading it and then
  start questioning reality based on the fiction
  contained therein, stop reading it.If you are
  not firm in your faith, to the point that the
  book would cause you to question, doubt, or
  speculate, or if you are the type that would at
  some point begin thinking, "hey, maybe this stuff
  is really true and Mary Magdalene really was what
  it says she was and the Church has been lying to
  us all these years," then don't read it.
• Frankly, the book is interesting as a fictional
  novel -- in the same sense that the recent
  mini-series "Revelations" was interesting as a
  fictional novel -- but both are about as factual
  as a book or mini-series about 18th century
  chicken breeding on Mars. Sadly, there are people
  out there who are incapable of discerning between
  fact and fiction.
• Father John MatusiakOCA Communications Director