Wayne D's Blog

I don't know about you but I think the hype over the upcoming DaVinci code movie is just a tad bit over the top.  I read the book last year and found it was an entertaining potboiler only slightly grounded in reality.

As I was driving home last night I heard a report on CBC radio about how some Christian groups are using the DaVinci Code as an opportunity to engage others in faith discussions instead of just griping about how Dan Brown was making money off of Christianity. You can here the report here. It seemed like a great idea. Being a died in the wool Lutheran I wondered if there were some Lutheran  friendly resources,  so I spent a few minutes browsing for Lutheran friendly resources. Unfortunately neither the ELCIC  (the national body for Lutherans in Canada) or ELCA (the national body for Lutherans in the United States) have any specific collected resources.  I offer here what I have found along with my comments.

Most of these resources are not specifically Lutheran and should be read with as critical an eye as one should use when reading the DaVinci Code. Please feel free to add your own comments and websites, I'm sure there is some great stuff out there I missed.

• DaVinci Code: Beyond fact vs. fiction Very short, read this one.
  

• Truth Is Stranger than Fiction: The Da Vinci Code and Early
  
  Christianity  A longer, more scholarly work from the Journal of Lutheran ethics.
  

• 5 Big Questions from The Da Vinci Code  Bullet points for discussion. Christianity Today's statement of faith includes a statement on the inerrancy of scripture which is not ELCIC doctrine (My branch of Lutheranism).  I mention this in the interest of full disclosure. The ELCIC position is that  "This church confesses the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God, through which God still speaks, and as the only source of the Church's doctrine and the authoritative standard for the faith and life of the Church."  (from Article 2, Section 3 of the ELCIC constitution) You may think I am splitting hairs but their is an important distinction between the two positions. 
  

• The Truth about the DaVinci Code An article in the magazine of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (the other major branch of Lutheranism in North America), which also professes the inerrancy of scripture. This link takes you to a PDF of the complete magazine, the article starts on page 5.
  

• DaVinci Code - the errors
  
  This great article is reproduces in it's entirety below, It is written by Bart Ehrman,  a well known theologian, historian and writer, a longer interview with him can be
  found at http://www.beliefnet.com/story/167/story_16783_1.html. Buy his books and read them. He has helpful included an excerpt from his book Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code  on his website. Chapter 7 covers Jesus, Mary Magdaline and Marriage, it's worth the time to read these paperback size 22 pages.
  
  
  With the world-wide release of The DaVinci Code movie fast approaching, as a service to our readers, we post Bart Ehrman's list of the 10 historical errors contained in the book.
  
  
  1. Jesus' life was decidedly not "recorded by thousands of followers across the land." He didn't even have thousands of followers, let alone literate ones.
  
  
  2. It's not true that eighty Gospels "were considered for the New Testament." This makes it sound like there was a contest, entered by mail. . .
  
  
  3. It's absolutely not true that Jesus was not considered divine until the Council of Nicea, that before that he was considered merely as "a mortal prophet." The vast majority of Christians by the early fourth century acknowledged him as divine. (Some thought he was so divine he wasn't even human!)
  
  
  4. Constantine did not commission a "new Bible" that omitted references to Jesus' human traits. For one thing, he didn't commission a new Bible at all. For another thing, the books that did get included are chock-full of references to his human traits (he gets hungry, tired, angry; he gets upset; he bleeds, he dies...).
  
  
  5. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not "found in the 1950s." It was 1947. And the Nag Hammadi documents do not tell the Grail story at all, nor do they emphasize Jesus' human traits. Quite the contrary.
  
  
  6. "Jewish decorum" in no way forbade "a Jewish man to be unmarried." In fact, most of the community behind the Dead Sea Scrolls were male unmarried celibates.
  
  
  7. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not among "the earliest Christian records." They are Jewish, with nothing Christian in them.
  
  
  8. We have no idea about the lineage of Mary Magdalene; nothing connects her with the "house of Benjamin." And even if she were, this wouldn't make her a descendent of David.
  
  
  9. Mary Magdalene was pregnant at the crucifixion? That's a good one.
  
  
  10. The Q document is not a surviving source being hid by the Vatican, nor is it a book allegedly written by Jesus himself. It's a hypothetical document that scholars have posited as having been available to Matthew and Luke, principally a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Roman Catholic scholars think the same of it as non-Catholics; there's nothing secretive about it.