The Da Vinci Code: Truth? Fiction? Both?

1
The Da Vinci Code Truth? Fiction? Both?

• By Doug Krueger
• 5/27/06

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A Novel, A Movie, A Controversy

• The Da Vinci Code is a mystery novel and now a
  movie.
• The author is Dan Brown. The book was published
  in April 2003 and has remained a best-seller.
• The movie based on the book had the second most
  successful worldwide opening on 19 May 2006.
• Why are so many Christian believers upset about a
  work of fiction?

Look Now a video game too!
3
The Plot

• Jacques Saunière, curator of the Louvre, is
  murdered by a Catholic albino in his own museum.
• Side note Albino advocates are not happy about
  this.

Actor Paul Bettany as Silas
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The Clues Blues

• The murder victim was a DaVinci aficionado, and
  leaves clues about his murderers identity and
  motives in DaVinci-related, puzzling ways as he
  expires. Sort of like a Batman villain in
  reverse.
• It was probably the most protracted death since
  Leonard Nimoy in The Search for Spock.

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The Hero Heroine

• Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology
  at Harvard, becomes a suspect.
• Sophie Neveu, a French cryptographer for the
  Judicial Police, helps Langdon work to prove his
  innocence.

Clockwise from left Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon,
Mona Lisa, and Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu
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Gandalf Helps

• Sir Leigh Teabing, an expert on Holy Grail
  related matters, joins in the hunt for the
  solution.
• Together, they reveal many startling bits of
  information.

Sir Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing
(He was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings)
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A page from The DaVinci Code
The DaVinci Code purports to base its plot on
specific facts that are at odds with mainstream
Christian beliefs.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture,
documents, and secret rituals in this novel are
accurate.
The novel also portrays the Catholic organization
Opus Dei as a secretive, manipulative,
aggressive, CIA-like arm of the Vatican.
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The Source

• Frenchman Pierre Plantard wrote a book about the
  descendants of Jesus that was never published.
• In 1967, Gérard de Sèdes rewrite of that work
  was published as L'Or de Rennes (later Le Trésor
  Maudit).
• In 1982 Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and
  Richard Leigh wrote The Holy Blood and the Holy
  Grail was based on the BBC documentary of their
  work.

It is typical of my unregenerable soul that I
can only see this as a marvellous theme for a
novel. Anthony Burgess, in The Observer.
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Lawsuit

• Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh of The Holy
  Blood and the Holy Grail sued Dan Brown claiming
  he plagiarized from their work in creating The
  DaVinci Code.
• They lost on appeal.

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The Code Thesis

• Here are five claims from The DaVinci Code that
  many Christians dispute. Let us call these and
  supporting claims the Code Thesis
• Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had
  children. Mary Magdalene and the bloodline are
  the real Holy Grail.
• The Roman Catholic Church worked to suppress this
  information because it wanted to subvert divine
  feminine aspects and emphasize divine masculine
  characteristics.
• The descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene exist
  today as the French Merovingian royal family.
• Evidence of the real Holy Grail was discovered in
  1099 and a group called The Priory of Sion was
  formed to guard the secret and protect the
  bloodline.
• Leaders of the Priory of Sion such as Leonardo
  DaVinci sometimes left clues about this secret in
  works of art and architecture.

Lets survey the evidence.
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The Priory of Sion

• Much of the evidence for the Code Thesis depends
  on the existence of the secret Priory of Sion.
• This organization allegedly guards the evidence
  for Jesus marriage and bloodline and allegedly
  created the famous Knights Templar as their
  military wing.

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The Rich Priest

• Father Bérenger Saunière, who ran a French church
  in Rennes-le-Château renovated the church well
  beyond his means.
• It was discovered that he was taking money for
  more prayer services than he could perform.
• He was sued for trafficking in masses, resigned
  his priesthood, and died penniless.

Fr. Bérenger Saunière (18521917)
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Pierre Plantard(1920-2000)

• Pierre Plantard was a professional con man with a
  history of creating fictional organizations.
• Plantard held that Saunière got rich by
  discovering the Priorys documentation of the
  real Holy Grail and blackmailing the Church.
• Plantards past included jail time for fraud and
  embezzlement.

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The Grandmaster?

• In 1975 parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets
  were discovered in Pariss Bibliothèque Nationale
  identifying Grandmasters (leaders) of the
  Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton,
  Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.
• Pierre Plantard is identified in the secret
  papers as the most recent Grandmaster of the
  Priory of Sion by virtue of his ties to the
  Merovingian royal family.

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Priory of Sion--Founded in 1956!

• The Priory was really founded in 1956 by Pierre
  Plantard and Andre Bonhomme. The Priorys
  purpose was to promote the Defense and Liberty
  of Low-Cost Housing.
• The Priory of Sion had nothing to do with the
  Holy Grail, or related matters, according to
  co-founder Bonhomme.
• There is no evidence linking Plantards Priory
  organization with any ancient group.

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Priory of Sion Deux
Plantard retracted his extravagant Priory claims
after critiques by legitimate scholars. In the
1980s he revised the list of Grandmasters and
insisted that the earlier list was written while
he was on acid. On the new list, Plantards son
Thomas was the latest grandmaster. In 1993,
Plantard claimed that a prominent politicians
dead son was a grandmaster. Legal action ensued.
Papers were found in Plantards possession
declaring him the true King of France. In court,
Plantard confessed that all of it was a hoax.
LSD Molecule
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The Clues?

• But what of the clues in works of art, such as
  DaVincis The Last Supper?
• If there is no ancient Priory of Sion, there is
  no known evidence that Leonardo DaVinci or any
  other alleged Grandmaster was in a position to
  determine whether or not Jesus was married.
• According to the Code Thesis, the person usually
  identified as the apostle John in The Last
  Supper is really Mary Magdalene.

Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
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Da Vincis The Last Supper (1495-1498)
On the wall of the refectory of the Dominican
monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan,
Italy.
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Detail from The Last Supper

• This is the character portrayed as Mary Magdalene
  in The DaVinci Code.
• Mary Magdalene, or John, the apostle Jesus
  loved (Jn. 1323)?

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Detail before restoration
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DaVincis John the Baptist
Depicting men as less than macho was not uncommon.
1513-16. Musée du Louvre, Paris
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Del Castagno, 1447
Andrea del Castano, 1390-1457, Florentine painter
The Apostle John
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Da Ponte, 1542
Giacomo da Ponte, 1510-1592, Venetian painter
The Apostle John
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Ghirlandaios Last Supper,1486
Domenico Ghirlandaio,1449-1494, Florentine painter
If John the Apostle was typically represented as
effeminate, perhaps The Last Supper does not
depict a woman at all.
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The Divine Feminine

• The Code Thesis also asserts that the V shape
  between the figures is the sign of the divine
  feminine.
• The opposite, a ? represents the masculine.

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The M Word

• The Code Thesis also suggests that an M can be
  found in the figures.
• The M can be for Mary, Magdalene, or Marriage.
• This is called data mining and is useless as
  evidence, since many shapes could be found in the
  bodies.

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Im Famous!

• Doug is in The Last Supper too!

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DaVincis Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It
carries a subtle message of androgynythatis
DaVincis little secret, and the reason for Mona
Lisas knowing smile.The DaVinci Code
Painted between 1503 and 1506. Louvre, Paris.
This is mere speculation.
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A Cover-up?

• Did the Roman Catholic Church work to subvert
  divine feminine aspects and emphasize divine
  masculine characteristics?
• The Code Thesis asserts that the Emperor
  Constantine, specifically, commissioned new
  versions of the New Testament books that omitted
  mention of a Jesus-Mary relationship and slanted
  the emphasis toward the masculine.

Flavius Valerius Constantinus (285? 337 CE)
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• Constantine and his male successors successfully
  converted the world from a matriarchal paganism
  to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign
  of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine,
  obliterating the goddess from modern religion
  forever. The DaVinci Code, page 124.

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The Matriarchal Claim is Unsupported

• Most religions have always been strongly
  anti-woman.
• In the Greek and Roman pantheons, the leaders of
  the gods were always men.
• That religions of the world were originally
  matriarchal is a discredited thesis.

Venus of Willendorf 20-30,000 years old
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Oppression of Fellow Believers

• Constantine asked bishops to convene in Arelate
  (Arles) in 314 CE to resolve theological disputes
  with the Donatists, who emphasized mysticism and
  the separation of church and state. He oppressed
  the Donatist view.
• There is no evidence that anti-feminine views
  were a concern of Constantines actions here.
• Athanasius of Alexandria compiled the first list
  of currently accepted 27 NT books in 367, after
  Constantine.
• The canon of the Bible was not official until 405
  CE when the Pope accepts the canon and ratifies
  it.

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Was Jesus God Before Constantine?

• Did Constantine skew the view of Jesus to make
  him divine?
• The Church DID alter the text of New Testament
  works to oppose the adoptionist view of Jesus.
• AdoptionistJesus became the son of God at his
  baptism.
• These alterations did not begin or end with
  Constantine, however.

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Was Jesus Married?

• Rabbis were usually married.
• However, John the Baptist and Paul were not
  married.
• The New Testament documents AND the apocrypha do
  not state whether Jesus was married.

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Pauls Mentions Married Leaders
1Cor 93-5 (NIV) This is my defense to those who
sit in judgment on me. Don't we have the right to
food and drink? Don't we have the right to take a
believing wife along with us, as do the other
apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas That
is, Peter? Or is it only I and Barnabas who
must work for a living?
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Scriptural Clues

• In John 2017 Jesus tells Mary M. not to touch
  him (KJV) or not to hold him (RSV), because he
  has not yet ascended.
• The actual word in the original Greek is
  haptomai, "to attach oneself to," and is related
  to hapto meaning "to fasten" and also "to set on
  fire."

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The Gospel of Mary

• In the Gospel of Mary, Peter says to Mary,
  "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more
  than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the
  Savior that you remember, which you know but we
  do not. Nor have we heard them."
• In this Gospel, Mary M. gets information that the
  other apostles dont get.

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The Gospel of Philip

• And the companion of the ... Mary Magdalene ...
  loved her more than all the disciples and
  used to kiss her often on her ... The rest of
  the ... they said, Why do you love her more than
  us?
• Jesus seems to have been more affectionate to
  Mary M. than to the other apostles, to the point
  of jealousy.

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Dating the Gnostic Gospels

• The Nag Hammadi scrolls, from which we get most
  of these apocryphal gospels, are from the 4th
  century.
• Since they are probably copies, they may be even
  earlier.
• The Nag Hammadi Library in English states that
  Philip was probably written in Syria in the
  second half of the third century C.E.
• The Gospel of Mary is probably about the early
  third century.

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A Basic Problem

• The canonical (accepted) Gospels are much earlier
  than those of Philip and Mary.
• If Jesus had been married, one would expect that
  early traditions would have reflected that.
• The same would be true if Jesus and Mary M. had
  had children.

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Another Problem

• Discussion of the Gospels all too often assumes
  that they are historical. They are not.
• Even the canonical Gospels are anonymous, as are
  the apocryphal ones.
• The actual details of Jesus life are mostly
  unknown.
• Since little or nothing of Jesus life can be
  known with certainty, Jesus could have been
  married, but this hypothesis must be relegated to
  mere speculation.

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The Final Verdict?

• While The DaVinci Code has many correct
  statements about ancient texts, many of its basic
  premises are false.
• The book is a fascinating read.
• Most people seem to oppose The DaVinci Code for
  the wrong reasons.
• It is not blasphemy, it is fiction.