6th September, 2005

GAVIN BOX

If there is anyone who hasn't already read or heard about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, then that should all change by mid-2006.

By then the film version, starring Tom Hanks as the lead role, will have been released in cinemas across the US and, one presumes, soon after in Australia.

Dan Brown's international best-seller has captured the imagination of millions worldwide, not the least for its attempt to reinvent Christianity and its founder, Jesus Christ.

BEWARE OF IMITATIONS: Melbourne University Ridley College lecturer Rhys Bezzant says the claims contained in Dan Brown's book 'The Da Vinci Code' don't stack up when tested. Bezzant says The Da Vinci Code is popular in part because it is scratching people where they are itching intellectually. Many people, he says, are looking for an excuse to reject Christianity as a viable alternative for meaningful value and direction - and the book gives them just that.

A readable murder/mystery/thriller, it tells the tale of a Harvard academic enlisted to solve the murder of a curator at the Louvre Museum.

Christians, however, will be concerned at the book's more explosive claims: that the historic Jesus was not divine, that the New Testament Gospels were fabricated and, most bizarrely, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and their children became kings of France.

But is there any basis to what Brown is saying?

Not according to church history lecturer at Melbourne University's Ridley College, Rhys Bezzant.

Bezzant says, as far as fiction goes, he enjoyed reading the book, but there is no substance to Brown's claims from a historical perspective.

He says the book is popular in part because it is scratching people where they are itching intellectually. Many people, he says, are looking for an excuse to reject Christianity as a viable alternative for meaningful value and direction - and the book gives them just that.

Bezzant says Brown's version of events surrounding the birth of the Christian church, his portrayal of the historic Jesus and his view of the New Testament Gospels just doesn't stack up when put to the test.

Bezzant responds in detail to the book's claims:

1. Was Roman emperor Constantine the first to instigate the idea of a divine Jesus (through the Council of Nicea, about 325AD)?
Bezzant says that, on the contrary, Christians had long before acknowledged Jesus as divine, as evidenced by church and secular writers of the time. The Apostle Paul, writing to the churches in about 61AD referred to Jesus as "Lord'' (Paul's Letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, verses 9-11). "The word Lord implies the highest exalted description of God himself,'' Bezzant says. There is also secular evidence. Two hundred years before the Council of Nicea, Pliny, the secular governor of Bithynia, wrote in A New Eusebius (112AD) that Christians were in the habit of "reciting affirmations of words to Christ as God". "This was no political beat up," Bezzant says.

2. Was there a cover-up? Did Constantine suppress alternative gospels which focused on Jesus' humanity and instead promote Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as definitive?
"If there was an attempt to suppress the (alternative) books it wasn't very successful,'' says Bezzant. "I have copies on my shelf.'' He says it is "entirely wrong'' to say that Constantine put together the contents of the New Testament. "One hundred and fifty years before Constantine, Christians had already decided Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were authoritative texts. This was not something imposed top down by a council on the Christian community." Bezzant says one of Christianity's early church fathers, Irenaeus, writing about 180AD (about a hundred years earlier than the Council of Nicea) claimed that God gave the church the four Gospels. The Gnostic gospels - unlike the Gospel canon - also could not trace their pedigree to the earliest followers of Jesus and contained teaching contrary to scripture: that matter was evil, that women were a defective form of men and that physical matter was he result of a cosmic abortion. "I'm glad the church doesn't believe in the Gnostic gospels, because the content is so distasteful," says Bezzant.

3. Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene, have children and did they become Kings of France?
Bezzant says the justification for this comes from a corrupted text  - with missing words  - in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip 63:33-36, which reads: "And the companion of the...Mary Magdalene...he more than ...the disciples...kiss her... on her...". "It is beyond logic that you could extrapolate from that the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had kids and they became kings of France,'' Bezzant says. "All it suggests is that they knew each other. Anything else is wishful thinking. In fact, one of the world's leading authority on the Gnostic gospels, Elaine Pagels, was asked during a TV interview whether Jesus had married. She said: 'I'd like to think he did; but there is actually no evidence for it'.'' Bezzant says that had Jesus married, there would have been no debate among early church leaders about whether they ought to marry, as evidenced in the Christian Epistles. "Nowhere is it argued that Jesus set a precedence...because Jesus never did marry."

4. Are the New Testament Gospels a fabrication?
Bezzant says any number of tests can be applied to determine authenticity, but for simplicity he offers three:
i. Historically reliability: "The Gospel accounts contain references to two events of similar detail, placed next to each other - tor example, feeding of the 5000 in Matthew 14 and feeding of the 4000 in Matthew 15. If the author was trying to create a fabricated account why wouldn't you just combine  both and make it the feeding of 9000? The answer: Jesus did it twice.''

ii. Words and phrases credited to Jesus are distinctive: "What Jesus was recorded as saying was dissimilar to anything said before or after Him. A writer wouldn't invent words not in use at the time. This makes me confident these words in the NT gospels are the very words of Christ.''
iii. Personally provable: Christianity works.

5. Does Christianity devalue women?
" I find that idea laughable,'' Bezzant says. "What Dan Brown has done is conflate pagan belief, which has a divine view of women, with Gnostic belief, which has a low view of women, and present them as supposedly a Christian view of women. In fact, his own portrayal of women is shocking. He claims to be a supporter of women's liberation, yet one of the book's key characters, Sophie, is repeatedly presented asking dumb questions, while men give intelligent answers. He appeals to women's dissatisfaction with the church, but does it in a way that's not entirely helpful or honest.'' Bezzant says the New Testament Gospels, on the contrary, show a Jesus who held women in high regard, in contrast to the culture of his time.

Bezzant has some final advice for those who have read The Da Vinci Code.

"If you have read Dan Brown please take the time to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John," he says.

"Of all the ancient texts they have the greatest number of early manuscripts to support them, they are based on eyewitness accounts and they understate events (they are not fanciful). They are internally consistent and coherent, historically reliable and personally provable.

"When you read them, ask yourself the question: Can this Man (Jesus) run my life better than I can?

"The answer: He can."