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The Da Vinci Code, which has lately created such a
stir, collides with verifiable facts of ancient history. It
alleges, through a character introduced in chapter 55, that
certain Gnostic writings kept out of the New Testament would swing
truth on another tack, one that leaves an ancient royal bloodline
conveniently ensconced in Europe. This engaging theme works, but
only when we suspend judgement and read it as a farce.
Why? Because this view of the New Testament loses traction when
we realize that during the first years of the Church, the Apostles
of Christ never preached from it. They couldn't, because the New
Testament writings hadn't been compiled yet. Christianity, with
it's preaching of the resurrection of Christ, was taught
exclusively from the Old Testament during the first decades A.D.
by eyewitnesses who later put their accounts to writing (see Luke
chapter one for amplification).
The antiquity of the Old Testament is verified in
that it was translated into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt, circa 250
B.C. That early date puts its prophecies well out of reach of
potential Christian tampering (on which author Brown builds his
premise), or any possibility of Jewish tampering after the
dissemination of the text. This version of the Hebrew Bible,
called in our time the "Septuagint", was ensconced in
every synagogue of the Jewish diaspora by the time Christ walked
the earth. So when Paul
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alighted in Corinth, Berea, or Ephesus, he
simply called for the scrolls of Isaiah, Daniel, or the Psalms,
and preached from them the resurrection of Christ. Those who heard
were wise enough to know from the book of Daniel that the window
of time for the sufferings of Christ had come and gone, hence the
immediacy of their response to the Gospel.
Those who later compiled the apostles' writings
into our New Testament knew enough to reject Gnostic offerings
that didn't agree with the prophetic teaching of the Septuagint.
They knew, just as we do today, that the counterfeit postulates
the reality of the original.
"So what?", you say. "Who cares?
Isn't the Da Vinci Code just fiction?"
Yes, but so is Pilgrim's Progress and some of the
writings of C.S. Lewis. If truth can be presented in a parable,
then so can a lie. The Da Vinci Code's foundational premise is
weighed in the balance of history and found wanting. It's a well
written, heart-pounding thrilller that belongs on the same shelf
as the Gnostic writings from which it draws its cosmology. Its
value, as with those writings, lies mostly in what it reveals
about its author's heart.
-Arne Herstad
Revised 2-27-06
horse@ix.netcom.com
The
Chronicles of Arnia
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The
Chronicles of Arnia
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