The Da Vinci Code:
A house of cards
that collapsed
Who’s fooling who?
The Da Vinci Code is without question a thrilling novel. Unexpected codes and tremendous action pulls the reader along.
Has Western civilization been fooled by a
gigantic church cover-up operation for
2000 years?
The Da Vinci Code addresses important
issues regarding religion, power, feminism,
history and truth. It is positive that such
issues are being investigated. However,
a thriller novel filled with undocumented suggestions
and made-up sources is of no use
for those who want new insight and reliable
knowledge.
In The Da Vinci Code it is being stated that
the book’s theory and allegations are based
on research done by known historians. The
novel thereby passes itself off as being
scientifically based when it most certainly
is not. The fact is that it would be hard to
find even one serious historian willing to
verify the historical constructions and theories
of The Da Vinci Code. This pertains to
all researchers, be they atheist, agnostics,
Christians and others.
Dan Brown has a vivid imagination and writes
thrilling books. As a guide in the Western
world history as well as in church history, he
is unreliable. This text will explain why.
Ace =
Priory of Sion?
The story in The Da Vinci
Code is built around the secret
Priory of Sion and the documents that are
supposedly being hidden by this priory.
“The Priory of Sion – a European
secret society founded in 1099 –
is a real organization.” (Statement on the
FACT page in front of The Da Vinci Code)
The truth is that the book’s
claims regarding the Priory of
Sion are pure fiction. The priory
was never in existence before it
was established as a paperorganization
by the Frenchman
Pierre Plantard in 1956. He is
the person who made up the
entire history of the priory. In
the 1960’s Plantard tried to create
a myth about himself as the
last Grand Master of his invented priory.
He produced false documents and actually
fooled the authors of Holy Blood, Holy
Grail, the book in which Dan Brown found
many of the theories that he uses in The Da
Vinci Code. Plantard’s fraud was exposed
in the 1980’s. When interrogated under
oath by the police in 1993, he admitted that
the whole thing was a hoax.
On www.priory-of-sion.com you will find solid information
regarding Pierre Plantard and his imaginary
Priory of Sion.
Secret documents?
“In 1975 Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale
discovered parchments known as Les
Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous
members of the Priory of Sion, including
Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli,
Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci.”
(Statement from the FACT page in front of The Da
Vinci Code.)
The truth is this: Pierre Plantard and a
couple of friends produced the collection
of parchments known as Les Dossiers
Secrets. The false documents were
deposited in the archives of the library.
The deception was exposed, and Plantard
confessed the fraud.
The house of card collapses
When you realize that the Priory of Sion is
a product of Plantard’s imagination and that
Les Dossiers Secrets is a forgery from the
1960’s, the historical allegations stated in
The Da Vinci Code collapse like a house
of cards. Leonardo da Vinci was never a
leader of the Priory of Sion,
because the priory did not
exist. Therefore, he could not
have known about secret documents
regarding Jesus and
Mary Magdalene. The claims
of The Da Vinci Code regarding
the Holy Grail, “gigantic
chests” containing documents
from the time of Jesus, secret
codes in Da Vinci’s paintings,
etc., are pure fantasy and fiction. These
claims could be considered creative elements
in a fictional novel, but as historic
information, they have absolutely no value.
King = Jesus?
“Jesus’ establishment
as ‘the Son of God’ was
officially proposed and
voted on by the Council
of Nicaea. (…) 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.” (Chapter 55, The
Da Vinci Code)
These and many other allegations in The
Da Vinci Code conflict with clear historical
facts. Jesus was worshiped as the Son
of God from the beginning of church
history. There are numerous documents
and thousands of quotations in the centuries
before Constantine that prove this. The
statement that Christians viewed Jesus as
an ordinary human being up to the Council
of Nicaea in 325 AD is historical fraudulence
contrary to all facts.
The Da Vinci Code states that Constantine
commissioned and financed a new,
revised Bible. “The earlier gospels were
outlawed, gathered up and burned” (chapter
55). This is all false, as is so much else
in the novel. Constantine had nothing to
do with the discussions about the content
of the Bible, and he never burnt or revised
it. The truth is that we have a number of
Greek Bible manuscripts from the two
centuries before Constantine. It is from
these texts that our Bibles are translated
– not from imaginary revisions invented by
Dan Brown.
The Da Vinci Code describes the Gnostic
gospels (the gospel of Mary, of Philip,
etc.) as being more trustworthy than the 4
gospels in the Bible. This claim does not
correspond with historical facts. Virtually all
scholars are in agreement that the biblical
gospels were written while people of Jesus’
own generation were still alive. The Gnostic
gospels were, on
the other hand,
written 100-200
years after
Jesus’ death.
Almost all of
what is written
in The Da Vinci
Code regarding
the Gnostic gospels
is wrong.
According to the
novel “these documents speak of Christ’s
ministry in very human terms” (chapter
55). The truth is exactly the opposite.
The Gnostic gospels contain, for the most
part, conversations between Jesus and the
disciples after the resurrection and before
the Ascension – consequently a highly
divine Jesus. These gospels contain almost
nothing about His ministry. The Gnostic
gospels portray Jesus as an exalted and
unapproachable teacher who is far from
ordinary people’s lives.
It is only in the 4 gospels of the Bible that
we get to know a human Jesus who acts,
eats, weeps, becomes angry and tired
– and who cares about the weak and rejected.
It is only in the gospels of the Bible
that we meet Him as a trustworthy man and
as a merciful Saviour.
Queen =
Mary Magdalene?
“Jesus was the original
feminist. He intended for
the future of His church
to be in the hands of Mary
Magdalene.” (Chapter 58,
The Da Vinci Code)
The main characters in The Da Vinci Code
assert the following: 1. Jesus’ plan was to
marry Mary Magdalene and father children.
2. Mary Magdalene was appointed by Jesus
as the leader of the church and as a
goddess. 3. She was to be the icon for the
“sacred feminine” in Christian theology and
worship. 4. Ritual intercourse was a central
element in Jesus’ teaching. “Through
intercourse (...) the man could find spiritual
wholeness and communion with God.” (The
Da Vinci Code, chapter 74; see also chapters
28 and 60.)
According to The Da Vinci Code, Jesus was
not able to organize his planned sex-cult
before his crucifixion. A pregnant Mary
Magdalene had to flee to France. The child
Sara was born there, and the descendants
later married into the French royal family.
According to The Da Vinci Code, the Priory
of Sion is the guardian of thousands of pages
of secret documents. These documents
prove the real plans of Jesus – and Mary
Magdalene’s role as the church’s leader
and goddess. The church has suppressed
all these secrets about Mary Magdalene for
nearly 2000 years. Some day the documents
will be made public.
All this may serve as a creative conspiracytheory
for a fictional novel. However, as a
description of historical realities, it is nonsense.
There is no historical evidence,
and no sources. It is pure speculation and
a figment of the imagination. And as stated
earlier, no Priory of Sion exists to guard
these kinds of secrets…
Knight =
Leonardo da Vinci?
Leonardo da Vinci accepted
“hundreds of lucrative Vatican
commissions” and he
“incorporated in many of his Christian
paintings hidden symbolism that was
anything but Christian.” (Chapter 8, The
Da Vinci Code)
Many of the claims in The Da Vinci Code regarding
Leonardo da Vinci are without historical
basis. Da Vinci undertook only one
commission for the Vatican, not “hundreds”,
as told in the book. And Leonardo was not a
rebel against the church or its beliefs.
For instance, The Da Vinci Code tells that
Leonardo named the painting Mona Lisa
based on two Egyptian god-names. That is
not the case. The painting was only named
31 years after the artist’s death.
Since the Priory
of Sion did not
exist, Da Vinci
had no knowledge
of all the
alleged secrets
that Dan Brown
speculates
about. The codes
and symbols
that Dan Brown
finds in his art
are, therefore,
only his own imaginative interpretation and
without basis in Da Vinci’s life. Isn’t it naïve
to believe that a novel writer has greater
insight in Leonardo Da Vinci’s art than all art
experts during the last centuries?
One example is the painting “The Last
Supper”. Dan Brown asserts that the
person to the right of Jesus is a woman. For
500 years everybody has known that it is
the youngest of the disciples – John. At the
time of Da Vinci it was common to paint very
young men with feminine features. The Renaissance
gives us many examples of this.
And where is John, if Mary has taken his
place? For many different reasons there can
be only one conclusion: Dan Brown is wrong
about the person sitting on Jesus’ right side.
Ten = Any more?
The Da Vinci Code is an unusually
creative and thrilling novel.
But it is nothing more than that.
The theories and speculations
in the book don’t turn into truths
because the story takes place
in historical buildings. Those
who interpret the speculations in the book
as historical realities will be building their
understanding of Western civilization and
Christian history on legends, falsifications
and non-existing sources.
Oskar Skarsaune is a well-known
Norwegian professor of early Church history
and an expert on the theories and history
behind The Da Vinci Code. After publishing
a book about the novel, he was asked by
a journalist if most of the historical claims
in Dan Brown’s novel are incorrect. He
answered: “I will put it even stronger:
Nothing of what Dan Brown claims regarding
historical events in the early church or in
the medieval times is correct. Nothing.”
Documentation
Do you want more information or more thorough
documentation? Visit the following websites:
www.leaderu.com/focus/davincicode.html
www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code
www.priory-of-sion.com
This text has no copyright. It can be freely copied,
translated and distributed in any form without permission.
It is written by Björn Are Davidsen and Öivind
Benestad, Benestad@bigfoot.com. The former is the
author of a Norwegian book called Da Vinci Decoded
and has led 60 seminars and meetings about the novel
during the last couple of years.