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The DaVinci Code - Is the Bible Reliable?

E .M. Forster said "that the secret of writing a good book is to make people want to keep turning to the next page". That is certainly the case with The Da Vinci Code. It is one of the best fiction books of all time, having sold to date at least 50 million copies. The book was described by the New York Times with these words "intrigue and menace mingle with one of the finest mysteries I have ever read. An amazing tale with enigma piled on secrets, stacked on riddles ". Alternatively some have read it and described it, a little cruelly, as the "baddest, bad bad book ever written badly".

Whatever the literary qualities of the book, that is not the issue I wish to discuss today. It is the content. This causes concern to many people especially Christians, root it is an attack on Christianity as we know it. Let me summarize the plot. It begins with the murder of a museum curator in the Louvre in Paris. In his death throes, the man has left a coded message scattered around the Museum. The story concerns the unraveling of this code which reveals that Leonardo Da Vinci (hence the title) and many other famous people were members of a secret organisation, The Priory of Sion. This organisation holds the secret of the true identity of Christ. He was not God, but just a man who happened to marry Mary Magdalene. His bloodline continues to this day amongst the descendants of the Kings of France. The Bible has been tampered with to suit the purposes of a male dominated Church. The original goddess worship which Jesus persued with Mary Magdalene has been suppressed and is only known to the faithful few.

The book challenges many of the central tenets of Christianity. For instance is the Bible true and reliable? Is the text we have substantially what the original writers wrote and is a true record of Jesus Christ? It challenges who Jesus was. Did he really claim to be God or is it a claim made up by the Church later on for their own purposes? Did he marry Mary Magdalene? Is the Church deeply corrupt and only run by people interested in preserving their own power?

Maybe these are questions you have or maybe not. However at this moment I ask you not to switch of and think I am not going to read the book or see the film because I don't need to know. These are questions that people have whether they have seen the film or read the book or not. They are questions that people often ask about Christianity. Today I want to look at the first of those questions is the Bible reliable? I want to briefly look at four peoples views and let you to make up your own mind. They are Dan Brown, the Old Testament writer King David, one of Jesus' closest followers Peter and finally Jesus himself.

Dan Brown and the Bible. Why do we have the four Gospels? This is a good question raised by the Da Vinci Code. One character (Leigh Teabing) claims that "the Bible as we know it was collated by the Roman Emperor Constentine.... he commissioned and financed a new Bible which omitted those Gospels which spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those Gospels which made him more Godlike. (the Da Vinci Code p 313 - 317). Perhaps at this point in reading the book you may want to either a). throw the book in the bin in disgust or b). think "Ah! I always knew there was something really fishy about this Christianity stuff - now what is the real story."?

And indeed it is true that Archeologists have found fragments, indeed sometimes quite large fragments of ancient books purporting to be about Jesus. It is estimated there are between 40 and 80 of these books. They books claims to be Gospels. However before we need go any further we need to ask a more basic question, what actually is a Gospel? Many things are called Gospels but simply to use the word Gospel is misleading because there is great variety in styles of this body of literature.

Imagine a two minute slot on the TV News about the conflict in Iraq, is that a documentary? In a documentary, as a type of television programme we would expect something reasonably long (half an hour to an hour) and something that covers the subject in depth, from the point of view of at least more than one person. Not only that it would be a distinct programme with an introduction, ending with credits and probably some music. In the same way for a Gospel to be reasonably described as a Gospel it should at least have a basic outline of Jesus' life. Namely his origins, life, teachings, miracles, death and resurrection. That being so how do these alternative Gospels match up?

There is not enough time to cover all the alterantive Gospels in detail now but let us simply look at one of the more widely known ones mentioned in the Da Vinci Code. That is the Gospel of Thomas. It was found in a jar in a field in Egypt in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. It consists of a collection of a 144 possible saying of Jesus. Some sayings are very similar to what we have in the Gospels others are very different.

It is perhaps the differences that stand out more. Firstly very few ancient manuscript copies of the Gospel of Thomas exist. Amongst those that we do have there is quite a lot of variation between the copies. The copies we have are in Coptic (the land of ancient Egypt) from about 400 AD, possibly translated from an earlier but lost text written about 150 AD. This means the text of the Gospel of Thomas has we have it today may well be not quite what was originally written. In contrast the text of the four most established Gospels is very consistent and found in a very large numbers of manuscripts hundreds - hundreds not tens. In addition these manuscripts date from a much earlier period, closer to when the Gospels were originally written.

Secondly the contents of the Gospel of Thomas are very different from the four canonical Gospels. These all follow a similar outline beginning with John the Baptist, and then going on to look at Jesus' miracles and teaching, his death and resurrection. There are some differences in content and the stories are told from different angles but they are essentially the same story.

The Gospel of Thomas is very different. It contains none of the above but rather is simply a collection of sayings. It appears to be a rather random list of possible sayings of Jesus. Some are very similar to the Gospels, others very different and sometimes even bizarre - eg Logion 7. This reads as follows Jesus said "lucky is the lion that the human will eat so that the lion will become human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat and the lion will still become human".

As a whole, the Gosple of Thomas seems to read like a rather bad version of the devotional aid 'Living Light'. It is like a collection of favourite Bible verses which have been written down from memory, but not written not directly from the text and then recopied the same way a few times. Jumbled in with that is the odd bit of popular wisdom such as, "God helps those who help themselves". The resulting text is not particularly useful in understanding the historic Jesus nor probably a particularly reliable source of information about him. It is the echo of the echo of the voice of Jesus.

A similar critique could be made of some of the other purported Gospels of Jesus. Dan Brown begins his novel with three statements which is claims are facts. At many points his novel characters such as Leigh Teabing discuss real documents and events. The question for us is does he then jump into speculation or is his novel really based on fact.

David's View - Psalm 12.

This is a prayer of David. an Old Testament King of Israel, who is experiencing a situation in which all those around him seem to lie. It distresses him. However in the midst of this he remembers "the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace seven times" (v6). David remembers that when God speaks he speaks the truth. The truth has a quality and purity that goes way beyond anything that we as human beings know. The picture he has is of heating silver ore in a crucible. The rubbish and impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off. Normally once is enough but when God speaks it is absolutely pure and so here the process is repeated seven times. Seven is a number often associated with perfection in the Bible. David is saying there is not even a hint of inaccuracy, mistake or exaggeration that might be in human speech when God speaks. This is because of the nature of God. The Bible is reliable not because we can absolutely prove it is so nor eliminate all errors but firstly because of the character of God. You can argue over the Bible being reliable, however I believe it because firstly that God is faithful and true. Since he is faithful and true anything that comes from him has the same qualities.

You might have spotted that this is a circular argument. In other words the Bible is reliable because God is faithful and true. How do we know that God is faithful and true, because we read it in the Bible. All our thinking is to some extent circular. There are assumptions that you can't prove and just take as read.

I do not accept these assumptions because they are plucked from mid air or it is convenient to see that they are backed up by the way the world is. For instance the existence of scientific laws suggests a reliable and consistent creator. In addition the events in the Bible are backed up by history and experience. The character of Jesus is one of utter faithfulness and truth. He frequently quoted on and based his arguments on the Bible. David thought the Bible was a reliable pure truth from God - but what do you think it is.

Peter's View - 2 Peter 1 verses 12-21B

Peter was one of Jesus' closest followers in the earliest days. In verses 13-14 he finds himself living in a tent of his body which would soon be put aside. He is referring to his imminent death. There is a very strong church tradition that he is martyred in Rome, about 65 AD under the Emperor Nero's persecution of the Church. Even if that didn't happen it is very clear that the early Christians such as Peter suffered a lot by claiming that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, was the ultimate Lord and would come again to judge the earth. Yet it is still possible that they made all this up.

Peter however claims that he was an eye witness of Jesus' life. He writes (verse 16) "we did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ". He goes on to mention his experience of seeing Christ's majestic glory (verse 17) at the Transfiguration .Here he had a glimpse into the future and the full glory of God to be revealed in Christ. "The Glory of God" was used in the Old Testament at times as a literary way of expressing God himself. What Peter is implying here is he believes that Jesus is God.

Peter and other New Testament writers, were eye witnesses to the life, works and teachings of Jesus. Two of the four Gospels, Matthew and John, were written by people who were Jesus; Apostles, who spent three years following Jesus around. Mark very probably got the information for his Gospel direct from Peter.

They are not the only ones with this view of Jesus. Through the previous 1500 years of history, men, called prophets had been looking ahead to the coming of Jesus. Peter explains their work in verses 20-21 "no prophecy of scripture came by the prophets own imagination. For prophecy never had its origins in the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit". As scripture Peter means primarily the Books of the Old Testament. However if we go to 2 Peter we see here that Peter brackets the writings of Paul in the same category as the "other scriptures". (2 Peter 3: 16) His claim is that the Bible was not complied as a result of messy 4th century imperial politics. Rather the Bible is written by eye witnesses and people at the time inspired by God. It comes from God. That was Peter's view what is your view?

Jesus' View - Luke 24 v 36-49

We now move on to Jesus' view of the Bible. It is the evening of the first Easter Day. Jesus has risen from the dead and appears to his disciples. They cannot believe what they see, even after touching and feeling him. So he asks for a piece of fish and eats it in their presence. What more proof could you need? But Jesus has more to say to them. He turns them to Bible (v44-45), specifically the Law of Moses (that is Genesis and Deuteronomy) the prophets by which he means not just the prophetic books but also the historical books. He also points them to the Psalms, being the Psalms, Proverbs, Job etc. He is refering to the whole of the Old Testament. As they look he says to them effectively "if you want to understand me this is the place to look". We say that seeing is believing. Jesus claims that believing in the Bible is as reliable as seeing and touching him. The whole of the Old Testament is the story of God's purpose and history unfolding and reaching it's conclusion in Jesus. It is not just a place to look but the place to look.

Jesus says (v44) "everything must be fulfilled".

There is a certainty about the events predicted in the Old Testament that is like anything else in human experience. Because God speaks it will happen. When God speaks it is different to when we speak for his word perfectly expresses his will and being an all powerful God nothing can stop that from happening. If we want to understand Jesus, Jesus suggests that the Bible is the book to look in. Dan Brown seems to think otherwise. What do you think?

Conclusion

I began with the quote "the secret of a good book is that you most want to keep turning the pages". Dan Brown has written many other books and I think that his first book Deception Point really is a page turner. It turns a world changing scientific discovery found under an ice sheet in the Arctic. As the plot unfolds it turns out to be not quite what it seems but rather politicians manipulating the truth for their own end. th ebook shows how when even scientific fraud takes place it is shocking how easily people can jump to conclusions and believe things because everyone else believes. Yet when the characters in the book look more closely they see the truth is very different.

Many people are very skeptical about Christianity today and easily believe the things that Dan Brown writes. Christianity seems old fashioned and people believe that the Bible is largely made up, but when we read the book itself and encounter Jesus we find something else. When the Bible is read, God speaks and we encounter Jesus, we too can have an encounter with him and he will transform our lives. Luke's Gospel ends with Jesus ascension to heaven and records "they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy" What will you experience be?

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