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Is There Any Truth to the DaVinci Code?by Greg Quinn May 17th, 2006 That’s a very good question. The writer of the very popular book, Dan Brown, has sold over 50 million copies of this book, making it one of the best-selling books of our time. Now the DaVinci Code has been turned into a well-hyped movie, with actor Tom Hanks and directed by Opie (Ron Howard). The movie is out at theatres everywhere on May 19th. Getting beyond the hype is what we at Gunblast.com do on a regular basis, and a film and book with this much impact is something that is deserving of careful examination. Dan Brown is a fiction writer, and a good one. But, fiction is not truth. So, why is this fiction writer causing such a stir with this book? One reason is its subject, Jesus Christ. Another is that this writer of stories has made claims, from the very first page of his book, that the historical data from which the book is written is absolutely true. He’s defended this position in numerous articles and interviews. Yet, beyond a casual acceptance of what he says is true is actually truth, one can easily find holes in his claims and supposed research. Therefore, to ask a question, “Is there any truth to the DaVinci Code?”, is both appropriate and something that we feel our Gunblast readers will want to know. We have been working hard for the past 7 years for “truth in gun testing and reporting”. Examining the truth to the claims in this book, and reporting the facts, is something we feel our readers deserve, and something we hope you will find informative and interesting. So, read on and learn for yourself the “true truth”.
Then, you can answer for yourself, “Is there any truth to the DaVinci
code?”
Urban Legends and the DaVinci Code
Did you know that if you are driving at night and meet a car without its headlights on, DO NOT flash your lights. If you do, the car will turn around, catch you, and those in the car will rob and kill you. It’s all part of a gang ritual. Don’t fall for it. You have heard about the guy that goes on a date with a beautiful young girl, the date ends up at her apartment with a glass of wine, and he wakes up in a bathtub of ice-cold water several hours later, missing a kidney. It happens. It’s part of a group of people dealing with robbing and selling kidneys. Here’s another. A guy makes up a story, and since he’s a great storyteller, decides that if he says the story is true, that he’ll get a lot of gullible people to believe it. He writes a novel, sells 50 million copies, sells rights to a blockbuster movie, and gets millions of people believing that the lies he has pawned off as truth are just that. He’s rich, and has impacted millions of people by telling a big lie. The guy is Dan Brown. The book is the DaVinci Code. He’s still laughing. What do these three stories have in common? They are all Urban Legends. Myths. Lies. Stories. The truth within the scare about the no-lights gang ritual is that this is a good story but nothing more. The truth within the no-kidney date story perhaps only has value in keeping your young son from sleeping around; nothing more, as the story is fictional. The DaVinci Code could be passed off as just another wacko fiction story, had the writer not defended the claims of lies becoming truth. And, when the lies told go against the very foundation of the Christian faith, and the values that built the great nation of America, then the writer has gone too far. Dan Brown is a good fiction writer, a good storyteller. He crossed the line when he claimed his stories to be truth. And, having based this errant research on the foundation of the Gospels in the Bible, this goes beyond a good lie to blasphemous tales that go to the heart of those of us that believe the Bible to be true. His research is very sloppy, and this is easily proven. His claims of fact are merely fiction. What he packages as valid research is based on very old but very wrong documents. What he presents to the reader as truth has been discounted for centuries as trash. I have a Masters degree in Bible. Most people that read Dan Brown’s book, or see his movie, do not. The impact for the reader in believing these lies could be eternal in scope. Don’t just take my word for it. Doing so might be kin to believing Dan Brown at face value. Instead, do your own research. Here are some places to start. Read the Bible, a book that has been attacked by unbelievers for centuries, but there has never (and I underscore never) been any validity to any supposed facts that were contrary to the scriptures. Every line, every verse, every incident as reported in the Bible, and especially those concerning Jesus, are 100% accurate. If you read the Gospels in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), and further writings of the apostles and Jesus’ disciples, you will find undeniable truth that supports the claims of the Bible, claims that are backed up by centuries of truthful data and evidence. Do your own Internet research. The DaVinci Code has prompted Bible scholars from around the globe to provide “true truth” that debunks the lies paraded within this book of fiction. People much smarter than I have done a lot of research to provide factual data that eliminates any doubt as to the validity of the claims in Dan Brown’s book. Check out the following: http://www.y-zine.com/mona_lisa.htm http://www.davinciandjesus.com/ http://www.realtruth.org/articles/0402-tdvc.html?gclid=CILOpoHV-4QCFSBjJAodeVoY6Q http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/special/davincicode.html Now, once you discover the truth for yourself, tell others. You don’t let your friends drive drunk. Don’t let them be fed a bunch of lies and believe them to be true. Believing the truth of the Bible allows us to live forever in peace with God. Believing the lies of the DaVinci Code robs us of this.
Truth or lie. Which will you choose?Where do the “facts” as reported in the DaVinci Code come
from? The truth is, the “facts” as Mr. Brown reports, are based on errant data. He does quote (and often misquotes) historical documents. But, just because a document is historical, doesn’t mean it is historically accurate. Let me give you an example. I live near Nashville, Tennessee. A suburb of Nashville is Old Hickory, named after the former President of the United States, General Andrew Jackson. It’s many, many years later, but I could even today write an autobiography of Andrew Jackson, make a lot of crazy claims about him, hide it in a cave, and if it were found 100 years later, some would think that because I claimed that it is an autobiography that this must be the case, and because I claimed that the information was true that it must be factual. When you and I both know that I made it up. So, the “facts” as reported in the DaVinci Code are factual in that some of the data was taken from historical documents, but documents that themselves were perverse and filled with lies. Perhaps you have played the following game. I used to do this in youth classes to teach just how gossip can spread. It’s a good illustration of an old truth. Put 15 people in a circle. One makes up a sentence and whispers it into the ear of the person on their right. The next person takes what they think they have heard and tells the next person, and so on and so on. By the time the story gets back to the person that started it, most often it is terminally different from the initial tale. So, whereas the Bible has the story of Jesus told from people who were there, inspired by God Himself. People who walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, spent time with Jesus. Not people who wrote a story 200 years later and claims the information to be factual. Dan Brown bases his data on what is often referred to as the Gnostic gospels. They were books written by a group called the Gnostics. Their name comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge”. These people thought that they possessed special, secret knowledge, information not given to other men. So, they had a little club and wrote gospels about Jesus and tried to get these gospels accepted by the early church. There were some 50-something writings that attempted to be placed within the Bible, but only 4 were actually included in the Bible and recognized as New Testament gospels. These are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were written by the writers, under the inspiration of God, about Jesus and his life because they were there and/or written down from direct conversations with those that were there. As the teachings of Christ spread, the Gnostics mixed their errant teachings with some elements of Christianity and tried to pass them off as truth. It was at best a counterfeit Christianity. They ended up stripping Jesus of his divine nature, and at the same time dispelling his humanity as well as his deity. The teachings of the Gnostics were discounted in their day, only accepted by those with inclinations toward occultism and oriental mysticism, with astrology and magic. One of the best references as to the errant information reported as truth in the DaVinci Code is found in the following link: http://www.y-zine.com/mona_lisa.htm. If fiction alone, the story could be entertaining. When based on Jesus Christ, the son of God, dispelling the truth of the Bible to mislead and deceive good, honest people, and becoming downright blasphemous in the process, I see little entertainment value indeed. - Greg Quinn
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