Debating 'Da Vinci'
With the arrival of the movie, criticism of the Dan Brown blockbuster heats up
New Testament origins. The secrets and lies perpetuated by the church, according to The Da Vinci Code characters, were transmitted through the least reliable of sources: the New Testament. Brown's British historian, Leigh Teabing, asserts midway through the book that "more than 80 Gospels were considered for the New Testament," but Constantine selected only four. The emperor "omitted those Gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those Gospels that made him godlike." Teabing concludes that the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnostic manuscripts from Nag Hammadi, Egypt, were "the earliest Christian records"--not the four Gospels.
Brown's critics have had a field day with those assertions. Writings from early church leaders, they observe, suggest that by the early second century--long before Constantine's time--a consensus was forming around the four Gospels and the writings of Paul as normative and authoritative Christian Scripture. Although unofficial lists of "accepted" writings began circulating among the churches by the late second century, a formal decree recognizing the Christian canon would not come until A.D. 405--long after Constantine's time. Constantine, in other words, had nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, Gnostic writings that portrayed Jesus as a "spirit person"--not truly human and, therefore, not capable of being crucified--found relatively few takers. Even though they had names like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Mary, according to most scholars, those texts date from the middle of the second century to the late third century--well past the lifetime of Jesus's disciples. What of the Dead Sea Scrolls? They are exclusively Jewish writings, scholars say. Not a single Christian text was found among them.
The marriage of Jesus. That Jesus was married and sired a child is easily the most sensational of The Da Vinci Code's claims. "It's a matter of historical record," Teabing baldly asserts at one point, "and Da Vinci was certainly aware of that fact." He goes on to argue that "social decorum" in Jesus's time "virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried," and he cites passages in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip that call Mary Magdalene "the companion" of Jesus--which "literally meant spouse," according to Teabing--and that say Jesus "used to kiss her often on her mouth."
The dubious authenticity of the Gospel of Philip aside, authors Olson and Miesel note that the Greek word for companion is the same used to denote a coworker, a business associate, or "a companion in faith." And in another Philip passage, they observe, "the risen Jesus imparts his secret mysteries to James by kissing him on the mouth ... It is a nonsexual, symbolic act."
As for Jewish marital customs ruling out Jesus's singleness, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus wrote that while most men at the time did marry, certain holy men were known to remain celibate. And there are biblical precedents in both the Old and New testaments, among them: the prophet Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and the apostle Paul. Far from being a "matter of historical record," as Brown's fictional Professor Teabing describes it, scholars say the marriage of Jesus has no support in history or in Scripture.
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