The Da Vinci Code:
Foolish People Have Blasphemed Thy Name, O LORD!

Pastor David L. Brown, Ph.D.
March 12, 2006

The title of my message – The Da Vinci Code: Foolish People Have Blasphemed Thy Name, O LORD! – is taken from Psalms 74:18 "Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O LORD, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name."

I suppose the place to begin is to define the term blaspheme because it is a word seldom used in our modern English vocabulary. We get the word from the Greek word blasfhmew - blasphemeo (blas-fay-meh’-o) or the Latin word blasphemare. It means to speak evil of God or anything sacred. My 1828 Noah Webster’s Dictionary says, "Blasphemy is an indignity offered to God by words or writing." Let me define very simply how I am using the word. Blasphemy is slandering the triune God.

The wildly popular but blasphemous book titled The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, was on the New York Times bestsellers list for 56 weeks. To date more than 40 million copies, probably by now 50 million copies, have been sold. As I understand it, it has been translated into 44 different languages.

You might think who cares about a fiction novel! But wait just a minute: The author claims that though the book is a work of fiction, all of it is based on reality, "all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies – all of that is historical fact." (Today Show, NBC, interview with Matt Lauer, June 9, 2003). The truth is, right after the title page, in all capital letters, is a page titled –

FACTS: He says on this page, The Priory of Sion was organized in 1099 and is a real organization. He says parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets identify who were members of the Priory and include Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci. He makes allegations against Opus Dei, a Catholic organization and then says "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." Hence, people reading The Da Vinci Code assume that what they are reading is factual.

Here’s why that is alarming. Dan Brown says Christianity is based on a big lie. Christianity was founded on a cover-up, the biggest cover-up in history. The church has conspired for years to hide evidence that Jesus was a mere mortal. Brown’s novel clearly denies the deity of Jesus Christ and claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had sexual relationship and produced children, descendents who are alive yet today. It is claimed that Jesus Christ as God and the Trinity were not invented until the 4^th century. As far as Brown is concerned, The New Testament is based on fabrications. He believes that the "real," historical gospels, that tell the truth about Jesus, were destroyed in the 4^th century. What remained were the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which Christians have been reading for centuries. The book claims our New Testament Gospels are spurious and illegitimate. But, where doe Leonardo Da Vinci come into the picture? Brown alleges that Da Vinci imbedded clues in his art that, when discovered and correctly understood, would reveal the truth about Christ and His church. Among those blasphemous truths revealed in the book is that Jesus’ "real" church was to be founded on Mary Magdalene.

Dan Brown Da Vinci Code lies are getting a hearing world wide! TIME Magazine named Brown as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. If people knew their Bible’s, biblical doctrine and their history, I would not even be concerned about this book. However, people don’t. And, as you might imagine, Hollywood has now jumped on the bandwagon. Sony Pictures and Director Ron Howard (Opie Taylor on the Andy Griffith Show) have joined hands and produced a movie based on the book and thousands of worldly, undiscerning Christians will go to see it.

In this message, I want to expose some of the blasphemous lies advanced by the Da Vinci Code book and movie. Take your Bibles and turn them to 1 Timothy 4:1-2 & 16 "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 16 "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee."

I believe the real purpose of the book is to undermine the foundation of the biblical Christian faith and replace it with a counterfeit system.

Brown makes the assertion on the first page that "The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci."

To be sure, the Priory of Sion is at the very heart of Brown's story, and which, if it could be proven to be based on bogus history, it would undermine the entire infrastructure of Brown's theory. This organization is said to guard the secret of Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene. It is claimed to have been founded in Jerusalem in 1099 by a French King. The organization is said to be watching over Jesus and Mary Magdelene’s descendants, and waiting for the perfect time to reveal its secret to the world. Because of constant threat of danger from the Roman Catholic Church, the organization has allegedly hidden its message in literature, paintings, and even architecture such that only very learned people can decipher the meanings.

The fact is that the author and the book are "Speaking lies in hypocrisy." Historically, the Priory of Sion was founded in 1954 not 1099 by a French jail bird named Pierre Plantard, who spent time in jail for fraud. The Priory of Sion was a small social club formed for the purpose of calling for low–income housing in France. The organization dissolved in 1957, but Plantard held on to the name. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Plantard put together a number of bogus documents which "proved" the Jesus–Mary Magdalene theory, with French royalty being their descendants. Plantard claimed that he himself was one of the descendents of this couple. One of these bogus documents was the Dossiers Secrets. This document is nothing but a forgery penned in the 1960s by a French conman and deposited in the Paris library. While under oath, the judge asked Plantard about these documents about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and he admitted he made the whole thing up. An associate of Plantard's also conceded that Plantard made the whole thing up. All this has been thoroughly documented by several French books and a BBC special. My point is simply this. The Jesus – Mary Magdalene theory that is the premise of the whole book is FALSE, BOGUS, PHONY. This is well documented in the book Cracking The Da Vinci’s Code by Garlow and Jones published by Cook Communications.

In his book, Dan Brown attacks the inspiration, canonicity and preservation of the Holy Scriptures. He makes statements like these –

"The Bible is a product of man…not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it…."p. 231

"The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven." p. 231

"…the New Testament is false testimony." p. 341

"…the New Testament is based on fabrications." p. 341

What Brown writes about the Bible is a LIE! Turn with me to 2 Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" Note the phrase "inspiration of God." The Greek word means God-breathed. The Bible is not the product of man but it was breathed out by God. Turn with me to 2 Peter 1:20-21 "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

It is clear that the writers of the New Testament knew that what they were writing was inspired of God! Turn in your Bibles to -- 1 Corinthians 2:13-14 "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

It is Dan Brown’s work that is based on fabrications, NOT the Bible. A good deal of the New Testament is based on eye witness accounts. Consider 2 Peter 1:16-18 "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." Let’s add to that 1 John 1:1 "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;"

Dan Brown and Ron Howard like Belshazzar of old, have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Blasphemous Lies Claiming that Matthew, Mark, Luke & John Were The 4^th Century Additions of Constantine.

On page 231 we read, "… More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them." Brown says in his book that it was Constantine who chose the gospels that were to be included. "The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine the Great." p. 231.

This is another blasphemous lie. It is not true that the Four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—were 4th century inventions of Constantine and the Nicaean Council. The Four Gospels were written in AD 40-50 shortly after Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. The Early Church Fathers—

Papias (in AD 110) and Irenaeus (in AD 180)—mentioned them by name

and affirmed their Apostolic origins.

Dr. Ron Rhodes points this out – "There are also some 86,000 quotations of the New Testament from the early church fathers and several thousand Lectionaries (church–service books containing Scripture quotations used in the early centuries of Christianity). In fact, there are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single manuscript copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material written within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ."

This is just a small portion of the blasphemous lies in this book. The Bible is clear –

Ephesians 5:11 "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."

Romans 12:9 "…Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good."