The Da Vinci Code & the Bible

We’re looking at some of the issues raised by the book and the movie, The Da Vinci Code, by author Dan Brown. The book and movie open in the Louvre with a murder, which promptly gives rise to the mystery. In the words of one reviewer: "Seems the deceased, a.k.a. the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, literally held a key that opens a box that leads to a cylinder that contains a riddle that points to documents that contain information that will change human history by putting a newer spin on the New Testament. Happily, in the agony of his dying moments, he's left behind clues decipherable only to Robert the symbologist (Tom Hanks) and Sophie the cryptologist (Audrey Tautou). Unhappily, they're also the prime suspects in the homicide, at least in the eyes of that dour French cop with the five o'clock shadow (Jean Reno).

" This situation leads to a pattern of behaviour that pretty much continues through the entire flick: Pause to solve a clue, run like crazy from the cop; solve another clue, run even faster. But not just from the cop."

There's also a self-flagellating albino killer-monk lurking about, who belongs to that ultra-devout group called Opus Dei.

It is the character, Leigh Teabing, and his amen partner, Robert Langdon, who make statements that are most provocative to Christians, like these:

• The doctrine of the Deity of Christ was injected into Christian theology by Constantine to bolster the power of the Roman Empire, a political necessity drove the process more than theological- – the Council of Nicaea, 325 AD.
• The canon of the Bible - with the current 66 books - was forced on the church by Constantine
• There are other Christian documents that deserve equal footing with the 66 books of the Bible. Some deserve even more attention (like the Gnostic Gospels)

READ from Da Vinci Code – page 253-254

So, we can ask the question, "can we really trust the Bible?"

I believe we can trust the Bible for these reasons...

Scripture

Psalm 119 (TNIV)
9 How can those who are young keep their way pure? By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

17 Be good to your servant while I live, that I may obey your word.
18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

2 Timothy 2:14-16 (TNIV)
14 Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.

1. The Bible is inspired by God. Inspiration.

"Inspired" is sometimes translated, "God breathed." God led human authors to write in their own personal style, using resources available to them, so that what was written was God’s Word.

2 Timothy 3:14-17 (TNIV)
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people a may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2. The Bible was collected by God’s people, with God’s guidance. Canon (rule)

By the time of Jesus, there was a canon in place – the Old Testament books were generally accepted by the Jews and by Jesus. The early Christians accepted the books of the Old Testament as God’s Word to them. The teachings of Jesus were held at the same level of inspiration and authority as the words of Moses. The apostles began to write books and the early church held some of their writings on a par with the Old Testament – equal in authority.

By the end of the second century, many Christian and religious writings were circulating –
There were biographies of Jesus, called Gospels. You know Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. But there were probably others that were lost forever. As the decades went by, other gospels were written – the Gospel of Thomas, written in Thomas’s name, about a century after the deaths of the apostles (including Thomas). The Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene were referred to in the Da Vinci Code. The last three are often called Gnostic Gospels, so named because they presented Jesus as fully divine, but only in the appearance of a man – not a real man. The Gnostics believed you needed a special, al knowledge to be reconciled to God.

There were letters, written by Christian leaders to specific churches giving advice and teaching Christian doctrines.
There were apologies – or defense of the faith, written by intellectual Christian leaders to defend the Christian faith against some of the wild charges made against them. Some of those charges led to persecution, so these apologies were useful.
Martyrologies – accounts of persecution and martyring of the people of God.

Commentaries were also circulating – interpretations of sacred texts.

Antiheretical Tractates – to counter the false teaching that was going on in many churches. Galatians is a letter (epistle) but also serves to speak against the heresy of legalism.

We do not have much information on how the books came to be collected that we now call the New Testament. But we get glimpses of what books were considered Scripture by reading some of the worship materials that were used – to see which books were read in worship services along with the Jewish Scriptures.

Some Christian leaders published lists of sacred books. These lists did not always agree. But most lists included 22 of the 27 books we now call the New Testament. In other words, there wasn’t much dispute over the four gospels or the letters of Paul. There were only five books that were often disputed: James (theology), Hebrews (authorship), Revelation.

Disputed Books:
Epistle to the Hebrews
Epistle of James
Second and Third Epistle of John
Second Epistle of Peter
Epistle of Jude
Revelation of John
Also ran: Shepherd of Hermas
Apocalypse of Peter
Epistle of Barnabas
Epistle of Clement

For more information on the process of forming the canon, go to Bible-Researcher.com

Never Had a Chance: The Nag Hammadi Library - referred to in The Da Vinci Code, was discovered in 1945 buried in a large stone jar in the desert outside the modern Egyptian city of Nag Hammadi. It is a collection of religious and philosophic texts gathered and translated into Coptic by fourth-century Gnostic Christians. Da Vinci Code refers to the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The entire library of 45 books has been translated into English. These books were not considered canonical (Scripture) by mainstream Christians. Why? Because the authenticity of these books was in doubt, they came at least a century later than the four gospels, they contained theology that was considered heterodox - outside the boundaries of orthodox Christian teaching. These books had a different theology than that of Jesus and the Apostles. So, they were not considered to be on teh same level as Scripture by mainstream Christianity.

In 367 CE, Athanasias wrote his annual letter to the churches in Egypt under his care and listed the same 27 books we now accept. The Council of Chalcedon confirmed for the entire church the canon as we now have it in the 66 books of the Bible. (Note: the Catholic Church made the apocryphal books part of their canon later - after the Protestant Reformation.)

You can buy a book with an English translation of these books edited by James M Robinson, but why bother when you can read them free online? Good luck! They are pretty esoteric.

3. The Bible was copied, translated and distributed with sufficient accuracy so we can be sure we are reading God’s Word. Transmission.

Author, Dan Brown, did get a few things right. There are problems with New Testament manuscripts:

1) Lost documents
The original documents were copied and distributed to various churches and individuals, then copied and distributed more widely. Eventually, the original documents were lost or destroyed – we don’t have them anymore. That’s not a problem, as long as you have plenty of reliable copies. And there were plenty of reliable copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc. so the churches in the early centuries could be certain they were reading the same words and thoughts the original authors wrote, even if they were not reading the original documents.

There is a problem for us though – most of the second generation copies were eventually lost too, and the third generation, etc. Those old manuscripts we have are often incomplete or difficult to read because of deterioration over time. So, we might ask, how can we be sure that what we are reading are actually the inspired words that were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke…

2) Additional problem – the documents were hand-copied.
So there is some room for error to creep in. Some of the scribes were professionals - they were trained, supervised and tended to be more accurate - but many scribes in the first century were amateurs. Inadvertent errors were made in the copying of manuscripts – a word or a line that was left out or a misspelling. But some changes were introduced into the manuscripts on purpose – for theological reasons. So, they were not errors, but they frustrate our efforts to reconstruct the original words of the original authors.

So, scholars needed a way to reconstruct the original manuscripts – as best they could – from the manuscript copies available to them. The methods they developed became the science of Textual Criticism.

The job of textual critics is to collect various texts of a particular Scripture and compare them in the attempt to reconstruct the original document. So the oldest texts are preferred.
Various pieces of the Scriptures were distributed wherever Christians traveled, resulting in manuscripts being found all over the world. In each place, sections of Scripture continued being copied. As you can imagine, if the originating piece of Scripture contained an error, all resulting copies in that area of the world would include the same error. When the church began taking seriously the need to discern between which pieces were authentic and which were not, a set of criteria was developed. By comparing manuscripts from various parts of the world, these scientists were actually able to get a clearer picture of the original documents written by the original authors. The more manuscripts they had from various regions, the more likely they could reconstruct the original text.

“These fifty-seven hundred include everything from the smallest fragments of manuscripts—the size of a credit card—to very large and magnificent productions, preserved in their entirety. Some of them contain only one book of the New Testament; others contain a small collection (for example, the four Gospels, or the letters of Paul); a very few contain the entrie New Testament. There are, in addition, many manuscripts of the various early versions (= translations) of the New Testament.” (papyri, like P52, which has a verse from John 18, early second century).

- Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: the Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, p. 88.

Some of principles of textual criticism are (when variant readings for a verse are found in different manuscripts):

• Older readings, manuscripts, or groups are to be preferred.
• The reading is to be preferred that best conforms to the usual style of the author and to that author's material in other passages.
• The reading is less likely to be original that shows a disposition to smooth away difficulties (another way of stating that the harder reading is preferable).
  - Westcott & Hort, from www.Bible-Researcher.com

For more information on textual criticism of the New Testament, this is a handy website: Bible-Researcher.com

Manuscript evidence for the New Testament

Caesar’s Gallic War was written around 58-50 BCE. Today, we have 10 useful manuscripts, the oldest of which was copied aproximately 900 years after the original was written.

Tacitus’s Histories was written around 100 CE. Today we have only 2 manuscripts, the oldes of which was copied in the 9th century - that's a gap of 700 years.

Aristotle wrote during 384-322 BCE. We have many manuscripts to compare to help us get back to the origial: 49 in all. The oldest was copied about 1100 A.D.  (1400 year gap)

Homer’s Iliad, written 900 BCE., we have 643 manuscripts, the oldest of which was copied around 400 BCE (500 year gap)

Compare with the New Testament, written by the end of the 1st century CE. Today we have 5700 manuscripts, cataloged and available for use by textual critics. The oldest are dated about 100 years after the originals were written!

For more, see Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.

You can trust the Bible when…
…You Read It!

God inspired the writings.
God preserved the writings.
God opens our eyes today to read and know God’s will for us.

So, let us read and pray Psalm 119:18:
"Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law."

Read Part 2: Can We Trust (people like us to correctly use) the Bible?

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