The Da Vinci Code is making headlines in the US now with the imminent release of the movie version starring Tom Hanks. Many people here have picked up on all the hoopla and are discussing the “questions raised” about Jesus (especially unsubstantiated allegations that he was married to Mary Magdalene) and the Bible. The Bible being questioned? So what’s new!! The book by Dan Brown has been out for a number of years now, and has been a bestseller. I myself bought it when it first came out in England in paperback. Of course, I bought it in the fiction section – where it was being promoted for what it is, fiction! And as a fast paced drama/mystery to follow the clues to break the code! I didn’t buy it to learn about Jesus or to check if my Christian faith was misplaced. For my religious learning I had browsed through the non-fiction, reference and religion sections of the bookstore and bought a couple of serious books to delve more deeply into that. But undoubtedly the chatter in Cayman and, more so, in the US is becoming quite frenzied.

In the US a number of Christian Denominations, Churches, and others are coming out with books, seminars, telecasts, etc., to refute the anti-Biblical allegations in the book/movie, especially the spin (more than actual quotations, which are kept selective) put on some of the Gnostic ‘gospels’ that never made it into the Bible (and were mainly written much later than the books included in the New Testament, without the first hand knowledge required for those). They are making the best of the opportunity afforded by all the reawakened interest generated by the upcoming release of the movie and the huge pr budget being used to promote it. Christianity Today quotes Tom Hanks as saying the movie is helping the churches do what they should be doing, because of the new interest to learn about Jesus by those who have become intrigued by the musings and allegations in the book. From one of their articles, I found this website by a Presbyterian Minister with Bachelors and Masters degrees as well as his Doctorate all from Harvard University – obviously no ones fool! - http://www.markdroberts.com. It is well worth a read, whether you’re interested in the Da Vinci Code or not.

Dr. Roberts has an ongoing series of commentaries on the allegations in the book which seek to discredit aspects of the Bible. Some are particularly interesting for his knowledge of the Gnostic Gospels and analysis of what even they did not say that Da Vinci Code wants to imply (again, remember it’s just fiction – a thriller!). Other parts of his writings on Bible passages more familiar to those of us who are not students of Gnosticism are also very helpful if anyone needs to defend the accuracy of the Bible, like the following commentary on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane from Mark 14: 32-52:

“I want to add that the inclusion of this scene from the Garden of Gethsemane in the Gospels (it appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke) testifies to the historical reliability of the biblical gospels. By the time that Christians were collecting Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the mid-second century A.D., they believed Jesus to be divine. Yet they did not edit out Gethsemane, even though it shows Jesus to be, not only distressed, agitated, and grieved, but even trying to get out of dying on the cross. Surely this creates a measure of uneasiness for anyone who believes that Jesus is God the Son, the One who will be identified as the second member of the Trinity. Taking this scene out of the gospels makes Jesus appear consistently resolute in his plan to die on the cross, and it also helps the disciples to look better as well. Delete Gethsemane and you have a less human Jesus and a less embarrassing bunch of core disciples. Yet the orthodox Christians did not remove this scene. Their commitment to the truth allows us to see Jesus "behind the curtain," as it were, in a time of deep distress and vocational reticence.” – The Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts.

Such critical reasoning has been emphasised by Christian scholars for centuries (the brilliant C S Lewis did so rather dramatically and, in recent times, award winning investigative journalist Lee Strobel in his “The Case for Christ” also found he could not ignore the truth of the evidence – neither started out to be a Believer).  

[Since 1991, Dr. Roberts has been the Senior Pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church in Irvine, California (a city in Orange County about forty miles south of Los Angeles) and  before that  as Pastor of Education of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

Dr. Roberts studied at Harvard University, receiving a B.A. in Philosophy, an M.A. in the Study of Religion, and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins. He teaches classes in New Testament for Fuller Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary.]