The Great Cover-Up

Excerpted with permission from Breaking the Da Vinci Code by Darrell L. Bock, copyright 2004 Nelson Books.

As one who specializes in New Testament studies, I have been asked repeatedly about various elements in this novel since its release. My first encounter with the issues raised by the novel came in the summer of 2003 when a reporter for Beliefnet asked me if I could discuss with her the question of whether Jesus had been married and the significance of Mary Magdalene to the church. She was writing a piece evaluating and discussing the theories tied to Mary. I did the interview and spent an hour or so with her on the phone diving into various aspects of the issue.

At the time, I thought she was asking an odd set of questions, but we never know what will show up as a point of discussion in the public square.

But the same questions never went away. Next came a set of queries from a friend working in New Testament at another school as I was preparing to participate in a seminar series on Jesus that he was sponsoring at his church. He asked me to be prepared to answer questions about Jesus and The DaVinci Code. I emailed him that I did not know much about the novel, just some of the things it was claiming. Within a week of that email exchange came an invitation from ABCNews to discuss the biblical basis for the novel's views, as well as a subsequent invitation to write a counterpoint commentary piece for the network news web site.

It was time to read the book in order to put my remarks in its context and not just in the context of what I knew about the Bible. During that reading, I decided there was something more that people needed to be made aware of and appreciate about the roots of the novel.

I did the ABC interview, wrote the counterpoint piece, and agreed to do a few Sunday school classes on the book to help people sort out the claims. At the same time friends, colleagues and even relatives started to ask me about the issues in the book. Some of those questions reflected a sense that maybe the novel was saying something true and maybe we needed to take a fresh look at the faith. After all, could four million readers be wrong?

The Da Vinci Code use the words of [wealthy historian and Holy Grail fanatic Leigh] Teabing to give an assessment of what might be called the Great Cover-Up: "Leonardo is not the only one who has been trying to tell the world the truth about the Holy Grail. The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." In the novel's subsequent listing of these historical works after this quotation, Holy Blood, Holy Grail is given the prime place. That work is described in the novel as the "best-known tome" and an "international best-seller."

Continued on page 2: »