[edit]Fact or fiction
Although the book is readily identifiable as a thriller—a work of fiction—and not as a historical tome, Brown does preface his novel with a page he calls "Fact" and has published a page at his website,[1] which repeats some disputed claims. Although Brown's website makes use of words such as "alleged," "rumored," and "seem to be," some critics consider the qualifiers misleading.
Much of the controversy caused by the book stems from the fact that the novel, as a work of fiction, asserts opinions on debates that have not been resolved as facts. To the layperson, the book's claims cause considerable confusion as to where the truth lies. Multiple tourist attractions in Europe have had to post signs and release other information emphasizing that the descriptions in Brown's book about their locations are wrong — such as to state that there is no secret chamber under the floor in a particular chapel, or that a particular building was not built by a secret society.[2]
In the earlier publicity for the novel, Dan Brown made repeated assertions that, while the novel is a work of fiction, the historical information in it is all accurate and well-researched. For example:
| “ | Martin Savidge: When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline? Dan Brown: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is … all that is fiction, of course, is that there's a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.[3] | ” |
and
| “ | Matt Lauer: How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred? Dan Brown: Absolutely all of it. Obviously, there are—Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact.[4] | ” |
These claims in the book and by the author, combined with the presentation of religious opinions that some regard as offensive, have caused a great deal of debate and partisan material to erupt. This confusion has overlapped into real politics. For example, a front-page article in The Independent on May 10, 2006 stated that Ruth Kelly, a senior British Government Minister, was questioned about her affiliations: "Ms Kelly's early days as Education Secretary were dogged with questions about her religion, and her membership of the conservative Opus Deiorganization which features in the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code."[5]
[edit]Religious disputes
There have been widespread criticisms of the book reflecting antiquated Protestant slanders against Catholicism, such as on the BBC's Sunday program on July 24, 2005.
[edit]Mary Magdalene
The novel asserts that Mary Magdalene was of the Tribe of Benjamin, but historians dispute this claim, and there is no mention of this in the Bible or in other ancient sources.[6][7] The fact thatMagdala was located in northern Palestine, whereas the tribe of Benjamin resided in the south, weighs against it.[8]
In chapter 58 it is suggested that the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene created a "potent political union with the potential of making a legitimate claim to the throne."[9] This idea comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynastic relations within ancient Israel: While the first King of Israel and Judah, according to 1st Samuel, was indeed Saul of the tribe of Benjamin, both he and his son and heir, Jonathan, were killed at Mt. Gilboa by the Philistines (1st Samuel 31). After Saul, the kingship passed to David of the tribe of Judah, and the kingship of the southern kingdom of Judah remained within the house of David until the Babylonian Captivity. In the northern kingdom of Israel, a new dynasty was established by Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim after the death of David's son, Solomon (1 Kings 14). While the northern kingdom passed through several dynasties, never again did the tribe of Benjamin hold the kingship in either Israel or Judah. If either of the genealogies of Matthew 1 or Luke 3 is to be believed, Jesus would already have had a claim to the throne of Israel through his ties to the house of David (see Genealogy of Jesus); a marriage with one of the tribe of Benjamin would not have strengthened this claim, as the original Benjamite king, Saul, who, though he left direct heirs through his son Jonathan (1 Chronicles 9:40-44), did not found a monarchy with dynastic claims, nor would these claims pass down to Mary Magdalene, as such claims would pass through the firstborn son.[citation needed] This is also at odds with traditional interpretations of a passage from the Gospel of John, where Jesus claims that his kingdom "is not of this world" - usually interpreted to mean a non-political one.[8]
Characters in the book also claim that Mary Magdalene was labeled a prostitute by the Church.[10] In a sermon, Pope Gregory I did make a connection between figures mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, chapters 7 and 8, one of whom is Mary Magdalene, described as a victim ofdemonic possession: "Mary who is called Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were gone forth" (Luke 8:2). Gregory equated her with Mary of Bethany and an unnamed female "sinner." Later, Mary was also equated with the "woman taken in adultery" in the Gospel of John, increasingly connecting Mary with sexual sins.
While Catholic and Orthodox tradition in the past defended these integrations in contrast to other Christian traditions,[11] these claims are now rejected by the majority of biblical scholars, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.[12][13] Also, Gregory I's teaching about Mary Magdalene, though popular throughout much of the Church's history, was never formally integrated into Catholic dogma; nor was he speaking ex cathedraat the time, so his speech is not seen as infallible.[8] Whatever weight is given to this tradition, however, there is no evidence that it was used to defame Mary, who was considered a saint to whose honor churches were built; moreover, she is respected as a witness to Christ's resurrection as written in the Gospels.[8] The change from adultery into prostitution arises from Mary's role as patron saint of repentant sinful women.[14]
Mary Magdalene is revered as a saint in France; a cave in the Sainte-Baume mountains of Provence, where she is believed to have lived,[15]is a popular pilgrimage site, and a famous church dedicated to her (known as l'Église de la Madeleine) is in the heart of Paris, near the Place de la Concorde and not very far from the Louvre.
[edit]Alleged marriage to Jesus
The story claims the "Holy Grail" is not a chalice but a bloodline sprung from the marital union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This idea is not original to Brown; it was previously hypothesized by others, including Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in their non-fiction 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Many textual and historical scholars have characterized this claim as without evidence.[16] The Church Fathers, while admittedly making claims years after Jesus had died, were unanimous in their belief that Jesus was celibate.[17]
While the book is correct that it was a cultural norm for Jewish males (especially rabbis) to be married, there were exceptions to the rule, like the Essenes (see the documents of the Dead Sea scrolls). Investigative journalist and author Karl Hammer points out various other celibate Jews, like John the Baptist in his book The Secret of the Sacred Panel. As portrayed in the canonical Gospels, Jesus was not a rabbi in the traditional sense of the Jewish office it would become after AD 70, but an informal teacher; the Gospel of Mark refers to him as "the carpenter."[18]
Women in the Gospels were usually identified with husbands or male relatives, especially if they shared their names with others. For example, there are many mentions of women called "Mary," all designated differently (any possible identification with each other nonwithstanding). There is Mary "the mother of Jesus," Mary Magdalene, Mary "the mother of James and Joses", Mary "[the mother] of James," "the other" Mary, Mary "the wife of Cl[e]opas" and Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Mary Magdalene stands out from most of the other Marys as she is not directly associated with any man. Mary "Magdalene" means "Mary of Magdala", just as Jesus "the Nazarene" means "Jesus of Nazareth." Some researchers have claimed that, if indeed she was married to Jesus, she should have been designated, following custom, Mary "the wife of Jesus" instead.[19] However, her special distinction as "the Magdalene" is taken by supporters of the Jesus/Mary bloodline theory (and other non-traditional Christians) as simply a sign of her "specialness" within the early church.[citation needed]
According to The Da Vinci Hoax, the use of the term "bride of Christ" for the Church in some of the letters of Paul (Ephesians 5:25-27, 2 Corinthians 11:2-3) and the Book of Revelation suggests that Jesus was not married.[8] The authors of that work also speculate that the recorded words of Jesus that "those people who can remain celibate, for the kingdom of heaven's sake should do so" (Matt. 19:12) were made in response to criticisms of his own celibacy.[8] The title "bride of Christ" (or Christ as "Nymphios") is also used allegorically for the well-known legends on Catherine of Alexandria.
In the novel, the Gospel of Philip refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus' "companion", and says Aramaic scholars know that this means "wife." However, James M. Robinson, an authority on the gnostic gospels, has pointed out that "companion" was not necessarily a sex-related term. Also, "the Gospel of Philip is in Coptic, translated from Greek, so there is no word in the text for Aramaic scholars to consider. The Gospel of Philip depicts Mary as Jesus's koinonos, a Greek term indicating a 'close friend', 'companion' or, potentially, a lover. However, in context of Gnostic beliefs, Gnostic writings use Mary to illustrate a disciple's spiritual relationship with Jesus, making any physical relationship irrelevant.[8]
[edit]Mary in Leonardo's The Last Supper
_-_The_Last_Supper_(1495-1498).jpg)
Virtually all art historians dispute that Leonardo's famous The Last Supperdepicts Mary Magdalene beside Jesus.[20] The figure to the left of Christ, also wearing blue and red, is usually identified as John the Apostle, who is identified to be the disciple whom Jesus loved seated next to Jesus and who was customarily depicted in the Renaissance period as a beardless, often "effeminate" youth with very long hair.[21] The "femininity" of the figure can be attributed to Leonardo's artistic training in a workshop of theFlorentine School, which had a long tradition of often depicting young males as sweet, pretty, rather "effeminate" persons.[22] Some speculators, before and after Brown, have entertained the idea that John was depicted in this way to hint that he was Mary Magdalene, but this is decidedly a minority view.[23][24] In Leonardo's early sketches of the painting, the figure in question is actually labeled as John.[25]
Even so, the book points out the absence of the traditional chalice (the "Holy Grail") on the table in the painting as proof that Leonardo considered Mary Magdalene the "real" Grail. However, there is no established "tradition" of depicting a chalice in scenes of the Last Supper. Some paintings do depict a chalice, others cups or wine-glasses. Leonardo depicts unadorned glasses filled with red wine. It could be argued that Leonardo eschewed traditional iconography for contemporary realism.
Another explanation concerns the biblical scene Leonardo intended to depict. Scholars have suggested that the text the artist had in mind was John 13:21, where Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him. The scene depicted therefore shows the disciples reactions to Jesus' words and the figure of John can be seen leaning over to confer with Peter, seated further to his right.[8] Furthermore, in the Gospel of John, Jesus does not institute the Eucharist (identifying bread and wine with his own body and blood) at the last supper and may have led the artist to think that the inclusion of a chalice was not necessary as it was not spoken of in his chosen passage of scripture.[8]
It has been claimed that the painting does appear to contain a conventional chalice — on a shelf above the head of the leftmost Apostle.[26]This detail was made visible due to the restoration of the painting. However most art historians consider this to depict decorative panelling on a door, as in close up it is seen to extend downwards as a vertically symmetrical pattern.[27]
[edit]Jesus in Church teaching
According to the story, prior to AD 325, Jesus's followers considered him no more than a "mortal prophet," and it was only EmperorConstantine's politicking and a close vote at the First Council of Nicaea that made Christianity view him as divine. Various authors dispute this, showing that sources prior to the council, such as the Church Fathers held Jesus to be divine.[28][29] The central question at the Council was whether Jesus was homoousios, "of one substance" with God the Father, or whether instead Jesus was the first created being, inferior to the Father, but still superior to all other beings (see Arianism). The vote at the Council was overwhelming against Arius (there is some debate over the actual number of voting Bishops, anywhere from 200 to 318) rather than being "close", as the book claims.[30]
[edit]Portrayal of Gnostic Christianity
The novel claims Constantine wanted Christianity to unify the Roman Empire but thought it would appeal to pagans only if it featured ademigod similar to pagan heroes, so he destroyed the Gnostic Gospels that said Jesus was a human prophet and promoted the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which portray Jesus as divine.[31]
Historically, however, Gnostic Christianity did not portray Jesus as merely human. In fact, the Gnostic Jesus was less human than the Jesus of orthodox Christianity. While orthodox Christianity generally considered Christ both divine and human, many Gnostic sects considered Christ purely divine, his human body being a mere illusion (see Docetism). Many Gnostics saw matter as evil, and believed that a divine spirit would never have taken on a material body.[32][33][34] Some varieties of Gnosticism went so far as to hold that the God of the Jews is only ademiurge who has trapped humanity in a fleshly prison; and that Christ is an emanation of the true God, sent to free humanity from that bondage to the flesh. (See Marcionism, Aeon, Archon).
[edit]The sacred feminine
Characters in the book claim Christianity has suppressed the sacred feminine, the representation of the earth or mother Goddess's mystic power that's often linked to symbols of fertility and reproduction. Brown primarily discusses Venus and Isis.
Early Christian devotion to female martyrs (such as Perpetua and Felicity) and the apocryphal writings about figures like St. Thecla seem to indicate that women did play a role in the early Church, far more than either Brown or some modern critics of Christianity acknowledge[7]though historical evidence does not suggest men and women shared all roles of office.[8] The Catholic and Orthodox Churches particularly venerate the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, but the book deems this a desexualised aspect of femininity that suppresses the sacred feminine. Brown echoes scholars such as Joseph Campbell in saying this image of Mary derives from Isis and her child Horus.[35] Others[8]counter that the "Mother and Child" symbol, as a universal part of the general human experience, can be found in other faiths; so Christianity did not copy this element from Egyptian mythology.
Christian documents and traditions tend to stress the virtues of chaste womanhood in keeping with general Christian encouragement of chastity for both genders. The Gnostics expressed anti-female views (for example, in the Gospel of Thomas's famous ending verse where Jesus says he will make Mary into a male to make her worthy to enter the Kingdom)[8][36] and accepted the distinctly Greek notion of male and female being two degrees of human being rather than two types, with "man" (masculine) being the norm or "natural" state of humanity.[37]
[edit]Goddess worship
[edit]Israelites
While a character in the book claims early Israelites worshipped the goddess Shekinah as Yahweh's equal, in fact, the term Shekinah (derived from Hebrew for "dwelling") does not appear in early Judaism at all, but later Talmudic Judaism used it to refer to the God's "dwelling" or presence among his people. The term describes a spiritual radiance.[38] Critics argue that this comes from a distorted understanding ofKabbalah, which speaks of God as having "male" and "female" attributes in the Sephirot.[8]
Dan Brown may be confusing Shekinah with Asherah, a Semitic mother goddess. Some Biblical archaeologists have suggested that until the 6th century BC the Jewish people had household shrines, or at least figurines, of Asherah, which are strikingly common in the archaeological remains; many of these seem to make clear that Asherah was seen as Yahweh's (i.e. God's) wife.[39]
The book also suggests the term Jehovah is an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name of Eve,Havah. YHWH (sometimes rendered Yahweh) is an ancient name while Jehovah is a medieval coinage created by inserting the vowels ofAdonai into Yahweh.[40]
[edit]Pagan influences on Christianity
In Chapter 55, it is stated, "The pre-Christian God [Mithras and Eronus]...were buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in four scores and three days...The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh." While scholars have traced many pre-Christian influences to the story of Christ, there is no support for these particular claims.
[edit]Medieval Christian history
The allegation that "the Church burned at the stake five million women" as witches has been a problem for many critics because data do not exist to permit an estimate. Reports have ranged from between the extremely high figures of 9 million and extremely low figures of mere hundreds, both of which have been vigorously challenged. More considered estimates range between 40,000 and 60,000 (of which 20 percent were men). Death sentences were mostly imposed by secular courts, while religious courts usually gave out non-lethal penalties likeexcommunication (and pardoned those who confessed and repented). One of the most virulent witch-hunter books, the Malleus Maleficarum, was actually rejected by clerical scholars and its authors censured by the Inquisition. The German Jesuit Friedrich von Spee wrote the Cautio Criminalis, a book that condemned the witch trials and torture in general.[41]
[edit]The Bible
The book's claim of the Gospels being systematically edited after the First Council of Nicaea is false, because of the impossible task of tracking down thousands of copies going around the Christian world (there was no "master registry" of Gospel manuscripts). The attitude that Brown has towards pre-Nicean Christians is that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless." There are multiple passages in the New Testament that may be interpreted to mean that Jesus considered himself divine and was held to be thus by his followers.[8] For example, the Gospel of John has the Apostle Thomas say "My Lord and my God" in Jesus's presence, and Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 8:6: "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ." The official Church canon was not decreed by Constantine; indeed, debate about the inclusion of the Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books continued after his time. The Council of Nicaea did not debate the canonical books, but about the relationship between Jesus and God. Constantine had very limited say in the Council.
The book also claims that the Gnostic Gospels (e.g. the Gospels of Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalene, and the recently rediscovered Judas) are far older, less corrupted, and more accurate than the four included in the Bible. With the possible exception of Thomas, the other Gospels date from the 2nd century through the 4th century, while the canonical four are thought by most scholars to date from the 1st century or early 2nd century.[42] Gnostic Gospels also do not focus more on Jesus' humanity. The other Gospels we are aware of, for the most part, treat Jesus as more otherworldly and lack the humanizing detail of the Biblical accounts.[8] The assertion of "more than eighty gospels" written, with only the familiar four chosen as canonical, greatly exaggerates the number of Gnostic Gospels written.[8][19] There were indeed many Gnostic writings, but only a few claimed to be Gospels. Some of these so-called Gospels are only so called by some writers today. To these writers is also attributable the false identification of the writer of the Gnostic Gospel of Mary as Mary Magdalene. It is in fact not claimed within the work or by historical tradition that Mary Magdalene wrote that short work.
The assertions that the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947 (not the 1950s as Brown predicates), contain lost or hidden Gospels is also false. The scrolls contain books of the Hebrew Scriptures, apocryphal and pseudepigraphic books, and manuals used by the Jewish Essenecommunity at Qumran. No definite Christian documents—orthodox, Gnostic, or otherwise—have ever been found at this site (but see 7Q5).[8]
[edit]Opus Dei
The depiction of Opus Dei as a monastic order which is the Pope's "personal prelature" is inaccurate. In fact, there are no monks in Opus Dei, which has primarily lay membership and whose celibate lay members are called numeraries. But it may be explained by the fact thatSilas is referred to as a monk mostly by the protagonists, Langdon and Neveu, who are shown to have little knowledge of Opus Dei. The word numerary is used to refer to Silas, by actual Opus Dei members such as the person at Opus Dei centre in London.
Moreover, Opus Dei encourages its lay members to avoid practices that are perceived as fundamentalist to the outside world. The termpersonal prelature does not refer to a special relationship to the Pope; it means an institution in which the jurisdiction of the prelate is not linked to a territory but over persons, wherever they be.[8]
Silas, the murderous "Opus Dei monk", uses a cilice and flagellates himself. Some members of Opus Dei do practice voluntary mortification of the flesh, as has been a Christian tradition since at least St. Anthony in the 3rd century and has also been practised by Mother Teresa,Padre Pio, and slain archbishop Óscar Romero. Saint Thomas More and Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England both wore hairshirts in the Tudor era.[43] Critics charge Brown of greatly sensationalizing the practice of such mortifications and exaggerating the extent of their practice.
Critics have accused the book of depicting the society as misogynistic, a claim which the society's defenders say has no basis in reality, because half of the leadership positions in Opus Dei are held by women.[43][44]
Defenders also say that the novel's allegations of dealings between John Paul II and the society concerning the Vatican Bank also have no basis in reality. Allegedly due to these dealings, Opus Dei's founder was declared a Saint just 20 years after his death. In real life, Josemaría Escrivá was canonized 27 years after his death; admittedly faster than some others—but this is attributed to streamlining of the whole process and John Paul II's decision to make Escriva's sanctity and message known.[43]
In the novel, the head of Opus Dei travels alone and makes momentous decisions on his own. In real life, the head of Opus Dei is usually accompanied by two other priests called custodes or guardians. Decision making in Opus Dei is "collegial": i.e., the head has only one vote.[43]
[edit]Historical disputes
[edit]Leonardo da Vinci
The contention that the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo as a self-portrait has been dismissed, as the female subject's historical identity has been discovered to be Lisa del Giocondo, a point that was confirmed in 2005.[45] (However, this was unknown to be a certainty prior toThe Da Vinci Code's publishing and despite Lillian Schwartz of Bell Labs, and Digby Quested of the Maudsley Hospital in London having usedmorphing techniques to argue that the resemblance to Leonardo's alleged self-portrait is striking.) As for the claim that the title Mona Lisa is a coded reference to the Egyptian gods Amon and Isis, this title was not applied to the painting until the nineteenth century. Mona is a contraction of "madonna" (meaning 'my lady' or 'madam'); Lisa is proven to be derived from Lisa del Giocondo.
The Last Supper was a commission and was the wall of a dining room in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy.[46] The notion of the Last Supper showing Mary Magdalene instead of John on the right of Jesus, and the connected claim of the absence of the chalice from the painting, are disputed for a few reasons, which have already been covered above.
The Da Vinci Code matter-of-factly states that Leonardo da Vinci was a "flamboyant homosexual." While there are clues about Leonardo's personal life that strongly suggest that he was homosexual, it is not conclusively known to be a fact, nor do scholars agree upon this. If Leonardo was homosexual, he must have been rather discreet and certainly not flamboyant. In any event it would have been dangerous to be "flamboyant", as homosexual sodomy was then usually punishable by death.[8]
The title of the book is inaccurate, since Leonardo da Vinci is properly referred to as "Leonardo" and not "Da Vinci", hence the book should rightly have been called The Leonardo Code.[47]
[edit]The Knights Templar
See also: Knights Templar legends
There are some who claim that the Templars were related to the Freemasons, or who depict the Templars as builders, guild-founders, and secret-bearers. The Templars were a military order, and did not themselves engage in building projects—except for castles—or found guilds for masons. The claim has been made that the Templars were largely illiterate men unlikely to know "sacred geometry," purportedly handed down from the pyramids' builders. Helen Nicholson points to membership information of the Templars and other documentary evidence that shows beyond all question that the purpose of the Templars was to defend the Holy Land, protect pilgrims visiting Jerusalem or other holy sites, defend Christendom against the Muslims, and to raise money for the paying and manning of castles in those war-torn regions in order to have bases from which to carry out sorties against the Saracens, to provide centres of authority and protection in regions where there was no central authority, and to provide a place of safety for Christians travelling far from home.[48]
The allegation that Pope Clement V burned the ashes of the Templars and threw them into the Tiber River in Rome is false. The last leaders of the Knights Templar were killed in France in 1314 by King Philip IV of France, being burned at the stake on a small island in the Seine. Pope Clement's administration was not in Rome, as he had moved the papal headquarters to Avignon.[8]
[edit]The Priory of Sion
Main article: The Priory of Sion in the Da Vinci Code
The Priory of Sion is portrayed as an ancient organization connected to goddess worship. However, the actual Priory of Sion was founded in 1956 by Pierre Plantard, Andre Bonhomme and others, and it was named after a mountain in France, not the biblical Mount Zion. Les Dossiers Secrets was a forgery created by Philippe de Cherisey for Plantard. Plantard, under oath, eventually admitted that the whole thing was fabricated.[49][50] There is evidence of a Templar-era monastic order by the name Abbey of Sion (not Priory), but there are no records of its continued existence beyond the 12th century, at which time the monks from the destroyed church belonging to the Abbey moved to Sicily. In 1617, those remaining monks became absorbed into the Jesuit Order. Some confusion may also be due to the use of the moniker (that is, alternate name) to describe the Rosicrucian brotherhood, who may have been the focus of earlier ideas about a secretive, long-lasting secret society.
[edit]The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail
Main article: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The legend of the Holy Grail alleged that a sacred relic (in many versions, either the cup used at the Last Supper, or the cup said to have been used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect blood of Christ - or both) existed, which would bring untold blessings to any pure knight who found it. The story appeared around the time of the Crusades and is featured in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In Old French, the Holy Grail was written as San Graal. However The Da Vinci Code, taking cues from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, interprets this as "Sang Real" and translated this as "royal blood". In early Grail romances, graal in fact denotes a large dish for fish, itself a Christian religious symbol, but clearly removed from the traditional cup. The idea of a cup seems to have developed quickly during the late 12th and early 13th centuries, influenced both by apocryphal religious stories, such as that of Joseph of Arimathea, and pagan stories involving magic containers that, for example, produced endless food (itself a useful parallel to the Christian belief of the 'Bread of Life' produced at the Last Supper). The cup therefore presented a convenient fusion, like many of the stories we now associate with the Quest for the Holy Grail and King Arthur, of (albeit apocryphal) Christian teachings, and pagan traditions.[8] There is no evidence that the Knights Templar found any such thing under the Temple.
[edit]Constantine's Baptism
The novel claims that the Emperor Constantine was baptised on his deathbed while too weak to protest. The truth was that he was leading an army to the Persian frontier in 337 and had planned to be baptised in the Jordan river en route,[51] as Christ was, but fell deathly ill at Nicomedia and was baptised by the local Arian bishop Eusebius.
[edit]France
Several claims about the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris are disputed. While there is a brass line running north-south through the church, it is not a part of the Paris Meridian, which passes about 100 metres east of it. The line is instead more of a gnomon or sundial/calendar, meant to mark the solstice and equinoxes. Further, there is no evidence that there was ever a temple of Isis on the site. This note has been on display in the church:
Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this [the line in the floor] is not a vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a Rose-Line. It does not coincide with the meridian traced through the middle of the Paris Observatory which serves as a reference for maps where longitudes are measured in degrees East or West of Paris. Please also note that the letters P and S in the small round windows at both ends of the transept refer to Peterand Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, and not an imaginary Priory of Sion.[52]
The reference to Paris having been founded by the Merovingians (Chapter 55) is false; in fact, the city was settled by Gauls by the 3rd century BC. The Romans, who knew it as Lutetia, captured it in 52 BC under Julius Caesar, and left substantial ruins in the city, including anamphitheater and public baths. The Merovingians did not rule in France until the 5th century AD, by which time Paris was at least 800 years old.[8] But it is true that Paris was largely abandoned by the start of the fifth century and was reestablished by the Merovingians.
The book states that at the explicit demand of French President François Mitterrand, the Louvre Pyramid in Paris was constructed with 666 panes of glass. According to GlassWeb, the pyramid contains 603 diamond-shaped and 70 triangular panes of glass, totalling 673.
[edit]Scientific disputes
Brown characterized the cycle of Venus as "trac[ing] a perfect pentagram across the ecliptic sky every four years", but Venus completes five cycles in eight years,[53][54] a fact well-known to the ancient Greeks and Mayans. This was changed to "eight years" in some later editions, such as the British paperback and at least the April 2003 printing of the US hardback.[55]
The notion that any particular person living today could be descended from only a small number of ancestors, such as Jesus and Mary, who lived millennia ago is statistically flawed. As Steve Olson, author of Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins, explained in an article in Nature, from a statistical perspective, "[i]f anyone living today is descended from Jesus, so are most of us on the planet."[56]
[edit]Allegations of plagiarism
Two lawsuits have been brought alleging plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code.[57] Both were unsuccessful.
On April 11, 2005, novelist Lewis Perdue sued Brown and his publisher Random House for plagiarizing his novels The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000), claiming "there are far too many parallels between my books and The Da Vinci Code for it to be an accident." On August 4, 2005, District Judge George B. Daniels granted a motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit, ruling that "a reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God. Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalized or otherwise unprotectable ideas." He affirmed that The Da Vinci Code does not infringe upon copyrights held by Perdue.[58]
In February 2006, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, took the UK publisher ofThe Da Vinci Code to court for breach of copyright, alleging plagiarism.[59] Some sources suggested the lawsuit was a publicity stunt[60]intended to boost sales of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (a boost which did in fact occur). However, the projected court costs of over 1 million pounds outweigh or at least substantially reduce the financial benefit of the lawsuit.[61]
Dan Brown repeatedly said in his defence that history cannot be plagiarised and therefore the accusations of the two authors were false. Leigh stated, "It's not that Dan Brown has lifted certain ideas because a number of people have done that before. It's rather that he's lifted the whole architecture - the whole jigsaw puzzle - and hung it on to the peg of a fictional thriller".[62] Dan Brown has admitted some of the ideas taken from Baigent and Leigh's work were indispensable to the book but stated that there were many other sources also behind it. However, he claimed that neither he nor his wife had read Baigent and Leigh's book when he produced his original "synopsis" of the novel.[63] Many readers have noticed, however, that Sir Leigh Teabing's surname happens to be an anagram of "Baigent", and his first name happens to be "Leigh."
On April 7, 2006, High Court judge Sir Peter Smith rejected the copyright-infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, and Random House won the court case.[64][65] However, in the published extracts of his judgement[66] the judge criticised the non-appearance ofBlythe Brown and the vagueness of Dan Brown's evidence saying "He has presented himself as being a deep and thorough researcher...evidence in this case demonstrates that as regards DVC [The Da Vinci Code] that is simply not correct with respect to historical lectures".[67]
The judge also included a code in his judgment. Throughout the judgment, apparently random letters are italicised and these form the message. The letters in the first paragraphs spell smithy code and the rest appear as follows "jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzv". This was subsequently decoded to read "Smithy Code Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought",[68] referring to the British admiral whom Judge Smith admires. As with the book, this secret message made use of Fibonacci numbers for its encoding.
[edit]Christian response
US Catholic bishops launched a website rebutting the key claims in the novel, concerned about what they perceived as errors and serious mis-statements in The Da Vinci Code.[69]
At a conference on April 28, 2006 Archbishop Angelo Amato, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican curialdepartment, specifically called for a boycott of the film version of The Da Vinci Code; he said the movie is "full of calumnies, offenses, and historical and theological errors."[70]
In contrast, some Catholic groups did not urge protests or boycotts but sought to use interest in this book and film as a means to educate Catholics and non-Catholics on what the Catholic Church teaches regarding Jesus Christ and the history of the Church.[71][72]
Also, many other Christians have looked to use the film as a tool for evangelism.[73] For instance, in Australia, the Anglican Church set up a website called "Challenging Da Vinci",[74] and sought to have trailers before the movie inviting patrons to visit the site. Numerous Anglican churches simultaneously held events discussing the claims of the book and film.
In India, home to 18 million Catholics (1.8% of the population), the Central Board of Film Certification gave the film an adult rating on condition that disclaimers saying it was a work of fiction were inserted at the beginning and end of the film.[75]
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