Of Da Vinci Code, Gnosticism and the Bible

Popularity cannot ensure authenticity or accuracy; we are not saying just because the Bible is the all-time bestseller it must be absolutely correct and reliable as the Word of God (I certainly believe it is so but not for this reason). If it were so we would have a problem with one run-away bestseller The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, because it blatantly claims that the Bible doesn’t tell half the truth about Jesus Christ.

Over 80 million copies of The Da Vinci Code have been sold since 2003; it has become the best-selling English novel of the 21^st Century. The author claims that the story he tells about Jesus Christ and the church is absolutely true, which means what the Bible says about Jesus is not. The juicy part of it is that Jesus was supposed to have married Mary Magdalene and that she carried the bloodline of Jesus. The early church fathers were accused of suppressing the truth in collaboration with the Roman Emperor Constantine I and chose what they want people to believe to be included in the Bible.  According to the book, some ancient writings about Jesus known as the Gnostic Gospels were marginalized in favor of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John found in our Bible. The following is a quote from the Wikipidea on The Da Vinci Code:

“According to The Da Vinci Code, the Roman Emperor Constantine I suppressed Gnosticism because it portrayed Jesus as purely human. The novel's argument is as follows. Constantine wanted Christianity to act as a unifying religion for the Roman Empire. He thought Christianity would appeal to pagans only if it featured a demigod similar to pagan heroes. According to the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus was merely a human prophet, not a demigod.  Therefore, to change Jesus' image, Constantine destroyed the Gnostic Gospels and promoted the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which portray Jesus as divine or semidivine.”

The Gnostic Gospels are not some new discovery, the early church fathers and scholars were well aware of them.What believers need to know is that the Gnostic Gospels were indeed not considered Scripture when the canon (a standard or norm) of the New Testament was established but not for the reason stated in the novel.  In their book From God to Us (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), Geisler and Nix listed 5 basic criteria for discovering canonicity (i.e. for a biblical book to be recognized as Scripture and included in the Bible): (1) Is the book authoritative – does it claim to be of God? (2) Is it prophetic – was it written by a servant of God? (3) Is it authentic – does it tell the truth about God, man, etc.? (4) Is the book dynamic – does it possess the life-transforming power of God? (5) Is this book received or accepted by the people of God for whom it was originally written – is it recognized as being from God? All the books in the Bible by and large fulfilled all the above but the Gnostic Gospels did not. In fact they were included in a category of books known as Pseudepigrapha, meaning the books rejected by all! To quote Geisler and Nix again: “…Eusebius (one of the renowned early Church Fathers) called these books totally absurd and impious. Virtually no Father, canon or council pronounced any of those books canonical. So far as Christians are concerned, these books are mainly of historical interest. Their contents are heretical teachings of Gnostic, Docetic, and ascetic errors. The Gnostics were a philosophical sect claiming special knowledge into the divine mysteries. They held that matter is evil and denied the Incarnation of Christ. Docetics held to the deity of Christ but denied His humanity, saying He only appeared to be human. The ascetic Monophysites taught that Christ had only one nature, which was a fusion of the divine and human.”

So out of the way the Gnostic Gospels! And Dan Brown’s book could at best be recognized as good fiction, quite entertaining. The Bible is authentic and accurate, not least because of the stringent conditions for discovering canonicity for the books it contains, but also because of the almost fool-proof transmission process of the books. We will not go into the details here. I don’t think The Da Vinci Code has done much harm to the perceived credibility of the Bible. If any, it has raised the Christian’s awareness and understanding of Gnosticism – which was a prominent Greek thought in the times when the New Testament was written and had influenced some of what’s been written. Armed with this awareness the believer will certainly understand his New Testament better. So thank you, Brown!