The Da Vinci Code is a fictional thriller that is supposed to be set against a backdrop of real history. But how much of its "history" is actually true?

The timeless and perfect standard of historicity and truth is the Bible. It contains true history—God's flawless account of the past, present and future.

The Da Vinci Code attempts to reconstruct Jesus Christ, reinvent Christianity and radically revise the Bible. One of the book's major characters presents its major premise on page 235: ". . . Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false."

Which should we believe, The Da Vinci Code or the Bible? Popular Christianity isn't much help. Ironically, the Bible discredits much of today's Christianity as well, as we shall see.

Why The Da Vinci Code's astounding popularity?

The Da Vinci Code appears to be the best-selling novel of all time. Buyers have snapped up more than 40 million copies, and it has been translated into more than 40 languages and counting!

The Da Vinci Code has become a pop-culture phenomenon. In fact, it has spawned a whole cottage industry of publishing—books and Web sites that praise and parrot it, and Christian books and Web sites that refute its claims.

Why is it so popular? Author Dan Brown is a talented storyteller who knows how to appeal to a variety of people—murder-mystery fans, lovers of romance novels, history buffs, religious skeptics, conspiracy theorists, radical feminists, intelligentsia attracted to "alternative" Christianities and even art enthusiasts who may be wondering if Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci really did put secret clues in his paintings.

The Da Vinci Code is riding current waves in our culture: revelations of scandals in the Catholic Church and other churches; the growing interest in apocryphal and gnostic writings claiming to be the genuine accounts of the life of Jesus; the "spirituality is good but religion is bad" mind-set; the feminization of Western society; the rage for New Age; biblical illiteracy; and while criticizing most religions is politically incorrect, it's open season on Christianity.

And, of course, sex sells—so we should anticipate a sexual angle in a blockbuster novel. In The Da Vinci Code it's the portrayal of Jesus as having engaged in a physical relationship and the call for restoration of the "sacred feminine," sex rituals and the worship of goddesses.

The plot

The current-day portion of the plot takes place over 24 hours, mostly in Paris, London and Scotland. It has plenty of surprising clues to pursue, cryptic messages to interpret and people to identify.

In the movie, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, an expert in religious symbols (played by American actor Tom Hanks), is paired up with Sophie Neveu, a detective specializing in analyzing codes and other cryptic messages (played by French star Audrey Tautou), to help solve the mystery of the bizarre murder of Jacques Saunière, the curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris. All together there are five murders in the story.

They discover that Saunière was murdered because he was a grand master of the Priory of Sion, supposedly a secret society formed to protect the "truth" that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, planning for her to lead His Church after His death.

According to this secret knowledge, Mary was pregnant with Jesus' child when He was crucified, and in France a whole royal line of their descendants survived to modern times. Instead of a literal cup or chalice, the legendary "Holy Grail" was Mary Magdalene herself, the "vessel" who held the blood of Jesus in her womb by carrying His child.

Supposedly the Priory of Sion has hidden the bones of Mary Magdalene together with numerous documents "proving" this truth until the right time to reveal it to the world.

In the story, members of Opus Dei (Latin for "Work of God"), a Catholic priestly order, are part of a conspiracy that will stop at nothing, including assassination, to prevent this "truth" from being revealed—because it would not only disastrously undermine the patriarchal Catholic Church, which has suppressed women, but would also refute the very foundation of Christianity.

How? By demonstrating that Jesus Christ, though a great teacher, was a mere mortal and fallible man—and that there was no miraculous virgin birth, no perfect life and no resurrection from the dead.

Can we separate fact from fiction?

Much space in The Da Vinci Code is devoted to "history" being explained by its three leading characters—Robert, Sophie and Holy Grail fanatic Leigh Teabing.

But it's a "history" that exists largely in the imagination of the biased author Dan Brown and the coauthors of one of his major sources, the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail — Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (the first two of whom unsuccessfully sued Brown for incorporating their ideas into his book).

A Christian who has proved the veracity of the Bible will judge books by the Bible, not the Bible by books. Although translations sometimes introduce minor errors in understanding, the original Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are absolutely true and trustworthy. In Jesus' prayer to God, He said, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

This is not something we need to accept only on blind faith. If you sincerely want to know truth, you can learn many proofs that God exists and that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Timothy 3:16). Simply request or download our free booklets Jesus Christ: The Real Story, Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist? and Is the Bible True? and prove these matters for yourself.

Both biblical and secular history expose many flagrant fallacies in The Da Vinci Code. You can learn about many specific errors in such books as Cracking Da Vinci's Code by James Garlow and Peter Jones, Breaking the Da Vinci Code by Darrell Bock and The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers by Josh McDowell. You can also find many helpful resources on the Internet.

But the title of this article is significant in that there are not just two perspectives to consider—the Bible vs. The Da Vinci Code. The perspective of most Christian churches is far different from that of the Bible and the way of life of the original Christians.

Any mixture of truth and error is error

A major tragedy is that, rather than diligently reading the Bible for themselves, most people assume that the teachings and practices usually presented as "Christian" accurately reflect biblical teaching. As a result, they often get false impressions of what the Bible says. Some become skeptical, assume the Bible has no real authority and decide it is not worth reading. Please, to know the real truth, read the Book!

People are seldom deceived when teachings are totally false. Most deception occurs when error is mixed with enough truth to make it believable, so the counterfeit seems genuine. Such deception began when Satan befriended Eve and deceived her with half-truths. "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17) partly represented the confusion that results from mixing truth and error.

Deception also depends on the deceiver appearing to be harmless. The apostle Paul warned of "false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:13, Revised Standard Version).

Believe it or not, the beliefs of most churches are mixtures of biblical teachings and pagan traditions (see "Truthful Quotes From The Da Vinci Code"). No wonder the great mother Church is called "Babylon," since the Hebrew word for Babel or Babylon means "confusion" (Revelation 17:1-6; Genesis 11:9). And during the Reformation, when "daughter" churches were expunging many wrong practices and traditions, they did not reject nearly enough!

Certainly The Da Vinci Code mixes a paucity of truth with a plethora of error. Its introductory page makes this audacious claim: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." In fact, a large portion is anything but accurate. Since the author's history and physical facts include innumerable errors, how much less can he be trusted in describing complex theological issues!

However, some of its statements about numerous "Christian" teachings having originated in paganism are true. Note—none of the Bible originated in paganism, and the teachings of the earliest Christians did not originate in paganism, but pagan ideas and practices began to infiltrate the Church very early in its history.

Most erroneous theories circulating today are nothing new. The Da Vinci Code revives and popularizes long-debunked heresies. Religious history has myriad myths based on previous myths based on still previous myths.

Major errors in The Da Vinci Code

During Jesus Christ's earthly ministry, His example and teachings did more to elevate women to spiritual equality and respect than perhaps anyone else in history. The Gospels note repeatedly that women were among His most devoted followers.

It is true that oppression and suppression of women have been all too common from the beginning of time. But this novel proposes the opposite extreme—that women are spiritually superior because new life comes from their wombs and is nourished from their breasts. It suggests a return to matriarchal paganism with its ritualistic sex. It even supports the worship of goddesses—especially Mary Magdalene (see "Jesus and Mary Magdalene" ).

The Da Vinci Code makes many false and outrageous claims. Among them are:

• The world has made a huge mistake in rejecting Mother Earth in favor of Father God.

• The early Christians did not believe Jesus Christ was divine—only that He was merely a great preacher and prophet.

• After the supposed conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity, he invented the idea of the deity of Christ to achieve male dominance and the suppression of women.

• It was the Council of Nicaea, which Constantine convened in A.D. 325, that determined which books were to be included in the New Testament.

• This council rejected as many as 80 gnostic gospel accounts of Jesus to suppress the knowledge that Jesus was a feminist, merely mortal and had a sexual partner.

Please be aware that the Bible teaches that there are only two members of the divine God family—God the Father and Jesus Christ—and they are always referred to with the masculine gender. There are no goddesses. One must not make assumptions based on paganism, such as if there is a Father God there must also be a Mother Goddess.

As the apostle Paul explains, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). Neither Mary the mother of Jesus nor Mary Magdalene is a god or a mediator between God and men. Nor is any supposed "saint."

Conspiracies, conspiracies!

If you decide to read The Da Vinci Code or see the movie, it would be much better if you were well-grounded in the Bible rather than have your opinions about the Bible and Jesus Christ formed from this novel or film!

People are so intrigued by secret conspiracies that they imagine them, invest in them and exaggerate them. But this blinds them to the world's greatest conspiracy and cover-up—the one pulled off by "Satan, who deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). Jesus Christ called him "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Paul said it is "the god of this age [who] has blinded" everyone (2 Corinthians 4:4). John wrote that "the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19).

Satan doesn't care what you believe as long as it is not the truth. He would have you piece together your own god in whatever image you choose.

Satan has always wanted to destroy Jesus Christ and the truth that He taught. He influenced King Herod to try to kill Jesus when He was a child (Matthew 2:1-18). He tried to tempt Him to sin (Matthew 4:1-11). He tried many times to get Jesus killed and finally succeeded—with a Roman crucifixion no less. But Christ arose from the dead after three days and three nights, and later ascended to heaven where He rules at the right hand of God (1 Peter 3:21-22).

But Satan has never stopped trying to "suppress the truth" (Romans 1:18). He continually circulates countless counterfeits of biblical Christianity as well as innumerable other religions. But there is only one way to eternal life—through Jesus Christ and His revealed Word, the Bible (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).

The staff of The Good News hopes that the controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code will "work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). We hope it will motivate our readers to study the Bible and be prepared to help other people who are confused and disturbed by fictional pop-culture books and movies like The Da Vinci Code (1 Peter 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:15, 22-26). GN