Another of Langdon’s “truths” was that men and women were able to reach spiritual wholeness through herios gamos. We have given sufficient treatment of this topic earlier. Langdon makes an interesting comment regarding the worthiness of those who seek high office within the Priory of Scion. They were given a test to prove their trustworthiness. It is interesting to note that tests of worthiness are common in the Wiccan/Pagan tradition. It seems as if Brown is implying that those who seek “true” spirituality must prove themselves as ones who are worthy of these hidden secrets and thereby gain salvation.

Teabing makes, in my mind, one of the most egregious statements when he calls the Scriptures into question. He declares that, “The Bible is a product of man . . . Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions.” Here Brown, through Teabing, brings the veracity of the Bible into question and begins a campaign to undermine its integrity and reliability.


           The Bible is the most scrutinized book in history. There is more manuscript evidence for it than any other book in history, yet there are those who would disparage it to further their personal agenda. The Gnostics (along with others who seek to advance their interpretation of “truth”) need to create unanswerable doubts regarding the Bible in order to fully establish their plan. The Gnostics provided other gospels to bring confusion to the common man about God, man, and salvation. Teabing makes a further claim that “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion.”However, when a timeline is established indicating the authorship of all the gospels under “consideration” it becomes apparent that those gospels chosen for inclusion in the Bible and those that were not had not only time separating them, but general acceptance.


           The books of the New Testament were written between AD 40-90. In AD 110 the John Rylands fragment, P52, the oldest known New Testament manuscript fragment, was discovered. Also in the year AD 110 Papias mentioned the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In AD 130 the four gospels along with thirteen of Paul’s letters were accepted as authoritative by many of the early churches. Between AD 125-150 Gnosticism begins to spread throughout the ancient world. In AD 150 Clement refers to Jesus as God and the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas was written. AD 180-188, Ireneaus, Bishop of Lyons, writes Against Heresies where he condemns Gnosticism and mentions all four Gospels as authoritative. AD 180-200, The Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene is written. AD 250-450, the rest of the Gnostic Nag Hammadi documents are written and begin circulation. It becomes apparent with the timeline above that the New Testament gospels were widely in use and fully accepted long before the Gnostic texts were in circulation. Then in AD 325 the Council of Nicaea denounced the Arian heresy and agreed on the divinity of Christ.


           The canonized gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were fully accepted by those in the early church. They had apostolic authorship and were readily used as Scripture. The Gnostic Gospels, on the other hand, were written 60-100 years after those revered by the church. As an example, the authorship of the Gospel of Thomas, written AD 150, is unknown. “New Testament scholars generally agree that none of the gospels were written by people who had ever met Jesus of Nazareth during his lifetime. But at a later date names were assigned to them that were associated with famous individuals in the earliest church. The name of the person who supposedly wrote the Gospel of Thomas is given in the first lines of the text as "didymos Judas thomas." The word "didymos" is Greek for twin and the word "thomas" is Aramaic for twin.”


Another key to understanding the trustworthiness of the canonized gospels is the apostle Paul. He wrote the earliest writings that were accepted by the young church as being authentic. His writings were in doctrinal agreement with the accepted gospels, whereas the Gnostic texts were troublesome in that they often contradicted known or verifiable teaching. Paul stands alone as the true arbiter of holy writ. He had an intimate understanding of the teachings given the apostles who came before him and he was generally accepted by friend and foe alike.


Teabing offers another potential roadblock to Scriptural reliability by suggesting that the Roman emperor Constantine the Great took matters into his own hands and forced a unified religion on the region by calling a council to settle the issue. In 325 A.D., he held the Council of Nicaea to establish Christianity as the sole faith to be recognized by Rome.


Teabing disparages the council by stating that the gathering debated and voted upon a number of issues including “the divinity of Jesus.” Teabing adds that “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.” Teabing’s reasoning was that “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”


Once again Teabing (read Brown) got it all wrong. The church council at Nicaea was “held to determine important doctrinal matters” and they were not uncommon. “We read in Acts 15 how the church leaders came together to decide how Gentiles were to be treated. Councils were important in order to maintain an orthodox faith and prevent the spread of false teaching.”


As noted by Brown, one of the most controversial issues to be considered before the council was the church’s teaching regarding Jesus. According to history, Arius was ordained as a priest in Alexandria in 311. He taught that Jesus was a created being not unlike other humans. Arius did not consider Jesus to be the Son of God, but simply a man and certainly not divine. He taught that Jesus “acts as a bridge between God the Father and the rest of the created world. Although the Son is not God, he has become divine because of his moral purity. The Son, who became incarnated as Christ, serves as the example for all people: If we become morally pure, we, too, can become divine.”


Constantine called more than 300 bishops to consider the aberrant teaching of Arius. “The Arians submitted their statement of doctrine that flatly denied the divinity of Christ. It was soundly rejected. The bishops, led by Athanasius, considered what was taught by the original church in the writings of the New Testament” and found no agreement with the teachings of Arius. The matter was closed. Yes, they did vote and the outcome was not even close. Only two bishops dissented. Yet, in an alternative universe, Teabing called the vote by a narrow margin. Implying that Jesus’ deity was without doubt still in question.


Arius did, however, provide an important stimulus in the formation of early church doctrine. It is plausible that without his errant teaching regarding the nature of Christ the Council of Nicaea may not have fully come to a timely resolution concerning Jesus’ deity.

Teabing makes a compelling argument for the reason the Bible was retranslated, added to, and revised. He and Langdon spin the theory that “the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base.” This statement on its face is ludicrous! The theory promoted by Brown, via Teabing and Langdon, is that Constantine had the Bible rewritten to accommodate the needed changes brought about in the Council of Nicaea.


           The Bible went through a canonical process and only those Scriptures that met strict guidelines were included in the canon. These requirements included a distinct proximity to apostolic authorship among the following.  “Because the apostles were the trusted eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, the writing had to be directly connected to an apostle.  The writing had to be ‘orthodox’ – it could not contradict the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures or of the apostles.  The writing had to be accepted in churches throughout the known world – it could not be accepted only by one group of Christians. These requirements specifically prevented the manipulation of the canon by any one group.”


           The Council of Nicaea and its three hundred members were not easily swayed by Rome. These men, many of whom had suffered for the faith prior to Constantine bringing normalcy to the region, did not create new theologies from whole cloth, but simply formalized and further defined the beliefs already in use. It is not so much that the Gnostic gospels were excluded from canonization, but the fact that they were never serious contenders for inclusion. They were unable to stand up to the test of canonicity.


           Anglican theologian, evangelist and author, the Rev. Dr. Michael Green, argues the fact, “Since Jesus himself left nothing in writing, the most authoritative documents, writings, available to the Christian community were those which came from his immediate circle. ‘They were the guarantors of the continuity between the incarnate Jesus who walked the streets of Palestine and the glorified Jesus whom the church worshipped.’”


Dr. Green adds, "The church developed a rule of faith, a summary of the tenets of the apostolic gospel. It is sometimes called 'the rule of faith' or 'the canon of truth', and the second-century writers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Dionysius of Corinth and Hippolytus were keen to insist that it is the truth itself that is the standard by which any teaching is to be judged. Writings that had any pretension to be authoritative had to be judged on the nature of their contents." The evidence is clearly in favor of the New Testament documents as being reliable and authenticated by those who walked with Jesus. Their relationship with Christ and the fact that they literally spent three years of their lives listening to him and seeing Jesus live out his teachings before them establishes his disciples as the ones who can most authoritatively speak for Christianity.

Gnosticism continues to play a major role in shaping the heresies of the 21st century. It underlies the teachings found in Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Wicca, Pagan Occultism, and New Age belief. Gnosticism gave Dan Brown ample material for his novel as he weaved his deceptive “truths” with its teachings.


           There is more that could be said about Brown’s deception; however, the evidence presented above should prove sufficient for the informed Christian to realize the dangers of his work as it relates to our Lord. Ben Witherington, a scholar of New Testament Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary, makes this observation, “What counts in a post-modern culture is the power of your rhetoric, not the accuracy of your reporting or analysis.” It seems that Dan Brown has proven himself to be a suitable warrior in the battle for the hearts and minds of humanity. He has woven a pseudo-believable tale for those who lack knowledge and biblical understanding and are unable to rightly discern the available evidence. Tom Maurstad, the Pop Culture critic for the Dallas Morning News, made this observation. “Thanks to the way Mr. Brown draws from art, literature and history to tell his story, readers can feel that not only are they being entertained, they are being educated.” Maurstad’s conclusion regarding education might have merit if Brown’s novel was historically accurate. The point is – the only historical fact throughout the book that Brown got correct is that the Louvre is in Paris, France. The ugly truth about his historicity is that the premise of his work is based on a falsehood and theological deception.


           The real concern related to revisionism should be laid at Brown’s feet rather than Constantine and the Council of Nicaea as Brown attempts. Constantine proved to be a facilitator rather than a religious dictator demanding certain outcomes. The Council of Nicaea, through arduous work and great – even heroic – effort, laid the groundwork for biblical orthodoxy and canon of Scripture that would unite Christendom. In the final analysis it was Brown who was the revisionist rather than the church.


“The tragedy of books like The Da Vinci Code is not so much their error as their persuasiveness. Men and women are being lured into believing a lie, the ancient Gnostic lie which the early church fought so tenaciously to suppress. Brown is offering men and women a spirituality that does not work. He is proffering sex and ‘the Force’ instead of relationship with a transcendent Lord. People are being sold a lie that will never provide the satisfaction for which they hunger and thirst.”


           Brown has been reluctant to do interviews, but he has done several. He has consistently mentioned that he began his research as a skeptic. In an interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC Good Morning America he says, “I began as a skeptic. As I started researching The Da Vinci Code I really thought I would disprove a lot of this theory about Mary Magdalene and holy blood and all of that. I became a believer.” In the interview, Gibson asked Brown, “If you were writing it [The Da Vinci Code] as a nonfiction book, how would it have been different?” Brown responded, “I don’t think it would have . . . it is important to remember this is a novel about a theory that has been out there for a long time. When I first heard of it, I said this is a crackpot theory. I began researching it; after two years I decided this theory makes more sense to me than what I was taught as a child.”On another occasion Brown told an interviewer with the National Geographic Channel that he believed that every one of his claims were true. He stated, “As I started researching I really thought I would disprove a lot of this theory about Mary Magdalene and holy blood. But I became a believer.” As I close this paper I can’t help but quote Teabing (Brown) one last time. He is making a remark about the Bible and its ability to indoctrinate. The truth is that Brown is the indoctrinator himself. “Nobody is more indoctrinated than the indoctrinator.”

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