Scholarly Smackdown: Is 'The Da Vinci Code' Anti-Christian?

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Our earliest Christian records--the letters of Paul--report on the death of Jesus, his burial, his resurrection, his appearances. See

and

. These records survived not because someone threw out conflicting documents but because the initial followers of Jesus recognized within them reliable and truthful accounts--inspired accounts--on the life of Jesus, his divine sonship, and his ongoing life as the risen Lord.

Christianity without a divine Christ is like the Red Cross without a supply of blood: Both can give you a cookie and a glass of milk, but cannot give you life.

Skeptics doubting Jesus' divinity, his resurrection, and other foundational insights into the life of Jesus surfaced within a few years after the first Easter. In Philippi, Paul writes, "He always had the nature of God" (2:6, Good News Bible). Famously, John's Gospel begins with, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God" (1:1). Bible experts connect this part of John's Gospel with an attack on the divinity of Jesus that arose from some disgruntled followers of the other religious leaders of the day.

Dr. Theiring, you claim the popularity of "The Da Vinci Code" goes beyond good marketing and good story-telling, and that readers, in effect, have sensed "truth." This is certainly one explanatory hypothesis for the success of the book, but one that would have to be tested. But another, equally valid hypothesis is that the book is a good read, serving up a delicious brew of murder, adventure, sexuality, romance, conspiracy, and religion. We also need to factor in the truth that the greatly diminished Bible literacy in the West makes easy targets out of readers who cannot accurately sort through truth claims about the Bible.

The notion that the "Da Vinci Code" book and film are major cultural events is credible. Why not? Both are works with artistic merit and cultural cachet. But so was Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." To position "Da Vinci" as Reformation-like is to diminish the importance of the Reformation and to inflate the power of a novel and a film.

Dear Dr. Hodgson,

I'm glad you raised the question of the resurrection, because that matter is far more important than whether Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. I think we are now in a situation where Christianity is faced with two alternatives:

1) Jesus was a normal human being, albeit a heroic one, who was governed by sex and death like the rest of us.

2) Jesus was a divine being, through whom Christianity was revealed, his divinity proved by the resurrection and supporting miracles. If these claims are not true, Christianity collapses.

Continued on page 5: Dan Brown is an accidental Luther. »