Where to Search for the Holy Grail

Reprinted from Cracking Da Vinci's Code with permission of Victor Books.

Dan Brown wants us to believe that the church has, throughout history, conducted a "smear campaign" to malign the character of Mary Magdalene. It is, according to Brown, part of the church's overall effort to remove the "goddess" from our worship. He shows this through a bizarre speculation into Da Vinci's Last Supper fresco, as well as wrong teachings about the church's portrayal of Mary Magdalene.

Robert Langdon and Leigh Teabing are teaching Sophie Neveu about the Holy Grail as they examine a reproduction of da Vinci's Last Supper in a book:

Sophie scanned the work eagerly. "Does this fresco tell us what the Grail really is?"

"Not what it is," Teabing whispered. "But rather who it is. The Holy Grail is not a thing. It is, in fact, a . person" (236).

Langdon and Teabing go on to explain to Sophie how Da Vinci, in his famous fresco, allegedly depicted Mary Magdalene as one of the disciples. From this, and other sources they quote, they deduce that Mary was Jesus' companion ("the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse," says Teabing) and the two had a child together. Thus, from this hypothesis it is presented that Mary herself is the Holy Grail, the recipient of the seed of Jesus. From this scenario, Brown weaves his code-the return of goddess worship into our culture.

Earlier, Professor Langdon tellingly contemplates: "A career hazard of symbologists was a tendency to extract hidden meaning from situations that had none." Unintentionally, this statement aptly describes the fantasies of The Da Vinci Code with regard to Mary Magdalene. Teabing explains to Sophie Neveu, "The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalen in order to cover up her dangerous secret-her role as the Holy Grail." Thus, the thinking follows, the church engineered a smear campaign to portray her as a prostitute. Langdon was right that "everyone loves a conspiracy." Brown, using discredited sources, tells a conspiracy tale like no other. Not only was Mary Magdalene Jesus' companion, but their relationship produced a child. And that bloodline lives today. Brown draws much of this conjecture from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The authors of this 1982 non-fiction book go even further in their depiction of Mary as the Grail.

According to Brown's Leigh Teabing, "the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record."

There is no credible historical record that Jesus was married. None. We will not even enter the debate as to whether Jesus was married or not. This is simply, from a biblical and historical perspective, a non-issue, despite even the patently false supposition that Jews in Jesus' time were somehow forbidden to remain unmarried.

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