Matt Lauer to The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown: How much is this based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?
Brown: Absolutely all of it. Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies - all of that is historical fact.
The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code was much more than an adventurous read. Indeed, the wild assertions about a merely human Jesus, his marrying Mary Magdalene, the Catholic Church's age-old involvement in invention, mystical coercion and cover-up are truly taking root in the public consciousness. Imagine the ripple effect the film will have.
Here are just a few of Brown's assertions from the book. Yes, Brown speaks through his fictional characters but they are certainly no less forceful or influential than if they were in a textbook. Indeed, quite the reverse.
* "Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove." (Page 341)
* "Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.... Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people." (Page 342)
* "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus." (Page 232)
* "The Bible is a product of man,... not of God." (Page 231)
* "The New Testament is false testimony." (Page 345)
* "The New Testament is based on fabrications." (Page 341)
* "The Bible... has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book." (Page 231)
* "More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." (Page 231)
* "The modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda ... to solidify their own power base." (Page 234)
* "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 gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned." (Page 234)
* "The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus' life had to be omitted from the Bible." (Page 244)
* "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, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever." (Page 124)
* "Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah." (Page 309)
* "The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH - the sacred name of God - in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah." (Page 309)
* "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." (Page 235)
* Jesus was a "mortal prophet... a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal." (Page 233)
* "Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death." (Page 234)
* "Thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man." (Page 234)
* "Jesus' establishment as the 'Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea.... [and it was] "a relatively close vote at that." (Page 233)
* "Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power." (Page 233)
* "The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record." (Page 245)
* The Last Supper practically shouts at the viewer that Jesus and Magdalene were a pair." (Page 244)
* Based on the Gospel of Philip, Brown asserts that "the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, 'Why do you love her more than all of us?'" (Page 246)
* "The rock on which Jesus built His Church ... was not Peter ... It was Mary Magdalene." (Page 248)
* Jesus "intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene." (Page 248)
Make no mistake; The Da Vinci Code is anything but a harmless diversion. It is one of the most far-reaching vehicles of blasphemy and perversion in recent years, much more influential than, say, The Passover Plot of an earlier generation.
Clicking the title of this post takes you to a very thorough rebuttal by Dr. Ron Rhodes of each one of these attacks on the Faith. It is well worth reading carefully. And it is well worth passing on to those you know who may have been affected by this deeply pernicious novel.
