April 23, 2006
“Our
God Is Truth”
The
Credibility Question
The
Da Vinci Code: The Truth Behind the Book
Prayer
and Scripture: Warren
· This
morning we’re starting an eight part series that will respond to Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code. This novel claims to be based on historical
truth, which it is not, and many people are being deceived by it. I finished reading it just over a week ago
and I’m concerned about several claims Brown makes. We need to know the real truth and to be able to share that truth
with those we are in daily contact with.
· The
Da Vinci Code isn’t just a thriller written to entertain us;
instead, it chronicles Dan Brown’s spiritual journey, and it casts a lot of doubt about the truth of Christianity.
· Listen
to what Brown says: “I chose this
topic for personal reasons -- primarily as an exploration of my own faith and
my own ideas about religion. I believe that one of the reasons the book has
become controversial is that religion is a very hard thing to discuss in
quantitative terms. If
you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three
different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must
accept the Bible as immutable historical fact. Still others require a
belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are
doomed to hell. Faith is a
continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating
semantics to the point where we entirely miss the fact that we are all trying
to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of
enlightenment. I consider myself
a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For
me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress. Deciding to write about this topic was
simply part of my own personal quest for understanding.” http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/pub_weekly.html
· He says in another interview: “...the secret I reveal [in the book] is
one that has been whispered for centuries….My sincere hope is that The Da
Vinci Code, in addition to entertaining people, will serve as an open door for readers to begin their own
explorations.”
http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html
· Dan Brown admits that he wrote The Da
Vinci Code to be more than just a fun read. So, why are Christian leaders so upset about it?
Let me take a few minutes to share with you a few quotes from the book
to highlight these concerns and why I’m doing this series.
· First,
a quick synopsis of the
book: The Da Vinci Code is
basically the story of The Holy Grail…you know, King Arthur, Knights of the
Round Table…Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
stuff… The Legend is that the cup that
Jesus used at the last supper was the same cup that caught his blood at the
Cross. But in the novel, instead of the
Holy Grail being a cup, it’s actually a person and the identity of this person
has been protected for centuries by an organization called The Priory of Sion which Brown references in the
beginning of his book as an actual organization; a secret society began in
Europe in 1099. The book says that according to the historic
record, Leonardo Da Vinci was a member of this secret society, and as such painted clues to the identity of the Holy Grail in
paintings such as The Last Supper (show the Power Point of the painting).
According to art historians that Brown researched and interviewed, when
you look closely at the person on Jesus’ left, it’s not actually the disciple
John, instead it’s a woman. The book
claims that one of the reasons we don’t see this in most photographs of this
painting: “…is that many of the
photographs in art books were taken before 1954, when the details were still
hidden beneath layers of grime and several restorative repaintings done by
clumsy hands in the eighteenth century.
Now, at last, the fresco has been cleaned down to Da Vinci’s original
layer of paint.” The Da Vinci
Code: Dan Brown, 243.
· Why
does this matter? Brown claims this
woman is actually Mary Magdalene and as the plot of the book unfolds, she and
Jesus were married, had a child named Sarah and were in the royal bloodline of the Merovingian’s of
France. The child was kept
secret so as to protect all three of them from being killed. Brown has come to accept this falsehood as
truth.
· In an interview with the Washington Post, he says: “’I
was skeptical, but after a year and a half of research I became a believer,’
says Brown. ‘As soon as people
understand that the few Gospels included in the bible are not the only versions
of the Christ story, they begin to sense contradictions. Magdalene is most obvious. Her role, he says, was deliberately
distorted, a smear campaign by the early church fathers.”
The
Mysteries of Mary Magdalene: Roxanne Roberts:
Washington
Post, Sunday, July 20, 2003; Page D01
· On
page 245 his book says: “The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene
is part of the historical record.”
And then he quotes some from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene that is part of what have been called
The Gnostic Gospels or the Nag Hammadi. These were found in 1945 by an Arab peasant named Muhammad ‘Ali (no joke) near Nag Hammadi, a
city in Upper Egypt. These supposed
lost Gospels are other writings by various people including Peter, Paul,
Phillip, Thomas and of course Mary Magdalene.
In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, she writes of an account where Jesus
appeared to her in a vision giving her the mandate to build the Church, not
Peter. The book goes on to say: “According
to these unaltered gospels, it
was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the
Christian Church. It was Mary
Magdalene.” The Da Vinci Code:
Dan Brown, 248. On page 231 it says: “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New
Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion—Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John among them.”
· Now,
as the plot thickens in the book, the Roman Catholic Church launches a smear
campaign to impugn Mary’s reputation by stating that she was the sinful woman
of Luke 7. “That unfortunate
misconception (the book says) is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the
early Church. The Church needed to
defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret—her role as the
Holy Grail.” The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown, 244
· Dan Brown re-defines the Legend of the Holy
Grail. On page 249 he writes: “The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend
about royal blood. When Grail legend
speaks of ‘the chalice that held the blood of Christ’…it speaks, in fact, of
Mary Magdalene—the female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline.” The book says this was: “…the greatest
cover-up in human history. Not only was
Jesus Christ married, but He was a father…..Mary Magdalene was the Holy
Vessel. She was the chalice that bore
the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ.”
The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown, 249.
· There’s more.
The book also challenges the inspiration of Scripture. It says that the 66
books we have in the Bible today were included and canonized by Emperor Constantine the Great whom
Brown says was a pagan, and to which the book refers to as: “The fundamental irony of Christianity!” The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown, 231.
· (On pages 233 & 234) the book states that at the
Council of Nicea…”…many aspects of Christianity were
debated and voted upon—the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration
of sacraments, and, of course the divinity of Jesus….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….Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after
Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a
mortal man”
· Then (on page 234) it says: “Constantine
commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke
of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him
godlike. The earlier gospels (which he
believes were the Gnostic Gospels, I’ll get to that later) were outlawed,
gathered up, and burned….some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to
eradicate managed to survive. The Dead
Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950’s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean
desert. And, of course, the Coptic
Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In
addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ’s
ministry in very human terms. Of
course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried
very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn’t they?
The scrolls highlight glaring historical
discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming 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.”
· And
then (on page 235) it says: “…almost
everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.” Another
quote (on page 231): “The
Bible is a product of man…Not of God….Man created it as a historical record of
tumultuous times and it has evolved through countless translations, additions,
and revisions. History has never had a
definitive version of the book.”
· There’s a lot more and I’ll unpack it as we go
through the series… do you see why this series is so crucial
to us? This book raises all kinds of
questions like:
· Are
the books we have in the Bible the right ones?
How were they determined, how can I trust them? Is there any historical, archeological proof
that the Bible we have is true? We’ll
talk about that next week!
· Were
there really 80 other Gospels that were considered to be part of the Cannon of
scripture we have today? Did
Constantine really upgrade Jesus’ status to God? Was Jesus only thought to be a man for the first 400 years of
Church history?
· Was
Jesus married? Was Mary Magdalene his
partner, confidant, and His appointed ‘apostle to the other apostles’? And what’s the big deal if He was
married?
· Is
Christianity really a collection of other pagan religions…did we really steal
their symbols and change them to be our own?
Did we merge pagan holidays with our own? Why do we worship on Sundays, isn’t that the pagan holy day where
they worshiped the Sun?
· Was
Jesus the first feminist? Is all that
we have been taught really a lie to cover up the fact that women have been
sidelined for all church boys club?
· And
what is this Sacred Feminine doctrine the book talks about?
· This book stirs up a number of significant issues. And
if you are a new believer these questions can really shake your world. Even if you’ve been a believer for years,
most Christians today don’t have enough exposure to church history to be able
to refute some of these claims.
· Dr.
Bruce Shelley in his book: Church History In Plain Language, says: “As
a consequence of our ignorance concerning Christian history, we find believers
vulnerable to the appeals of cultists. Some
distortion of Christianity is often taken for the real thing.”
Dr.
Bruce Shelley: Church History In Plain Language, XV.
· So
for the next few weeks, we’re going to go back in history and I’m going to show
you the other side of the issues raised in the book. I’m going to show you credible, historic, archeological evidence
from both sides, both secular and sacred that will give you something to think
about. I’m going to show you what the
Bible says, and I’m going to share with you an extensive bibliography so you can study this stuff for yourself.
· And
let me be clear. My goal is not to bash Dan Brown. Instead, I want to equip you to have a credible conversation with people who are
asking you as a Christian what you think about this book and the questions
it raises. And I want to help those of
you who have had your spiritual world shaken to be assured that your faith is grounded in extensive credible, historic documentation that is supported by
archeology and scientific fact.
· In
many respects, Dan Brown has done us a
favor. He has challenged us to
go back and study what we believe and why, we don’t have to be defensive about
this…we haven’t check our brains at the
door or committed intellectual suicide by becoming Christians…we have
reasons to believe, credible, scholarly, historic, supported by archeology and
science, we have nothing to
hide and absolutely no reason to be afraid.
· Now, one other quick thing. If you have come here with a friend, and
you’re a skeptic of Christianity, Christ, the Bible, miracles, I want you to
know that you and your questions are
welcome here. And I want to be real honest with you. My goal is that by the time we’re done with
this series you will have more questions and lots of stuff to think about…and I hope that you do come to the place where
you trust Jesus Christ with your life and eternal destiny…that is my
hope and prayer. But I’m not going to manipulate you. Ok, that’s a long introduction, but it’s
important that we begin this series all on the same page.
· Now,
let’s take the rest of our time this morning to address one of the many
questions that the book raises. THE QUESTION IS SIMPLY THIS: WHERE DID THE BIBLE COME FROM? This is a crucial question because
the Bible is the foundation for Christianity. You prove the Bible to be a myth,
inaccurate and full of error and you prove that we are a bunch of misguided idiots. Voltaire said it best: "If we would destroy the Christian
religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible."
· Folks,
this is why attacks on the truth of the
Bible will always be on center stage…if you disprove the Bible you
disprove everything we believe. This
kind of attack is nothing new. Once the Roman emperor Diocletian figured out
that the Christians based all their beliefs in the Scriptures, he began
in 303 A.D. a systematic attempt to destroy the scriptures and persecute the
Christians. We’re not really sure why
he did this. He reigned for 20 years
and did a lot of great stuff for the first 18 years. But all of a sudden, he unleashed an unbelievable persecution.
· Henry Clarence Thiessen
in his book Lectures in Systematic Theology notes: “He (Diocletian)
killed so many Christians and destroyed so many Bibles that when the Christians
remained silent for a season and stayed in hiding, he thought that he had
actually put an end to the Scriptures.
He caused a medal to be struck with the inscription, ‘The Christian
religion is destroyed and the worship of the gods restored.’” Henry Clarence Thiessen: Lectures in
Systematic Theology, 45. So attacks
on the Bible are nothing new.
· The
Da Vinci Code leads us to believe that the Bible we have
today was written by men not God. Remember, Brown says through one of the
characters in his book: “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…” (pg. 231).
· So,
was the Bible written by men or by
God? Answer: Both. Two
verses of scripture help us understand this:
· “All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17
· There
are a couple of things that I
want you to notice. First, the word “Scripture” (grafh/j) refers to the entire
Bible, both the Old and New Testaments.
Dr. Charles Ryrie, writes
about the importance of this word “scripture”. “The Greek word here translated
‘Scripture’ is used fifty-one times in the New Testament and always refers to
some part of the Bible. Sometimes it
includes the entire Old Testament (Luke 24:45; John 10:35), sometimes it refers
to a particular Old Testament passage (Luke 4:21), sometimes to a particular
New Testament passage (1 Timothy 5:18), and sometimes to a larger portion of
the New Testament (2 Peter 3:16).”
(Dr. Charles C. Ryrie: What You Should Know About Inerrancy,
38).
· 2 Timothy 3:16 is really important in showing that both
God and man wrote the Bible. “God-breathed” also means “inspired”. When Paul talks
about scripture being inspired, what does he mean? Simply put, it means that all
words in scripture are the very words of God. And being that God is perfect (otherwise he wouldn’t be God) then
all these words of God in the Scripture are perfect as well, or in other words,
without error. And God, somehow,
supernaturally worked through men to record his words. In
essence, the Bible is of dual authorship. Erwin Lutzer in his book: Seven
Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible, puts it this way: “The Bible is a
book of God and a book of man. God’s
part was to superintend the writing of the books, revealing His will; man’s
part was to write this revelation using a human language and style so that
God’s message was preserved for future generations.” pages 23-24. The words we have in the 66 books of our
Bible are literally God’s words and all of them are without error; which in
itself is an absolute miracle when you think about it.
· The
Bible is a collection of 66 books
written by 40 different authors (kings,
fishermen, a tax collector, shepherds, prophets, a doctor and a Jewish scholar
named Paul) over a period of 1,500
years. And yet, they all wrote
on one theme, Jesus Christ and the payment for sin that He provided. The whole Bible agrees from the beginning of
Genesis to the closing words of Revelation.
· Now some of you may be thinking: “Pastor Brian,
you’re using circular reasoning here…you’re proving the Bible with the Bible,
and you can’t do that.” I’m
just trying to show you first what the Bible has to say about itself. We’ll talk about other proofs next week.
·
Let’s take a look at
the second major verse that the Bible uses to attest to its accuracy. “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came
about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in
the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit.”
2 Peter 1:20-21. Again, Peter
affirms that “prophecy of scripture” (profhtei,a
grafh/j) can
be literally translated as: “the message
of a prophet”.
· “In the past God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways…” Hebrews 1:1.
God worked through men called prophets to
record His written words. In their
book, When Skeptics Ask, Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks put it this way: “Scripture
comes from God. The only adequate view
incorporates both divine and human factors; it is the prophet model. In this process, the human writer is seen as
one who has received a revelation and actively participates in its writing,
while God gives the revelation and oversees the writing. Hence, the message is wholly from God, but
the humanity of the writer is included to enhance the message. Both the divine and human concur in the same
words. The net result is that we have
the word of God written by men of God, inspired not only in its concepts, but
in the very words used to express those concepts. The human writers are not mere secretaries, but active agents who
express their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings in what they have
written. It is not simply a record of
revelation, but a revelation itself. It
is God’s message in written form.” (page 146).
· So,
the Bible itself claims to be the very Words of God and as such these words
must be without error. Now, some of you may be thinking: “Ok,
the Bible says it’s true, fine…at least I know now what it claims, but why is
this so important?” Because if we know
that the Bible says it is the Word of God and we can disprove anything in it,
we totally destroy all of Christianity.
But the opposite is also true.
· If
we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is true, then we have a
pretty good understanding of who God is, what His will is for us, what our
purpose is in this life and where we will spend eternity.
· So,
we have a lot to talk about over the next few weeks. Next week we’ll answer the questions: How did the 66 books in the
Bible come about? Who chose them, and
if there are 80 other Gospels, why didn’t they make the cut for the New Testament. And, is there any proof outside of the Bible
to prove its genuineness as the very words of God? Can you demonstrate the truth of the Bible without using circular
reasoning?
· Let’s
pray.