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The Da Vinci Code:

A house of cards that collapsed

Whos fooling who?The Da Vinci Code is without question a thrillingnovel. Unexpected codes and tremendous actionpulls the reader along. Has Western civilizationbeen fooled by a gigantic church cover-upoperation for 2000 years?

The Da Vinci Code addresses important issuesregarding religion, power, feminism, history andtruth. It is positive that such issues are beinginvestigated. However, a thriller novel filled withundocumented suggestions and made-upsources is of no use for those who want newinsight and reliable knowledge.

In The Da Vinci Code it is being stated that thebooks theory and allegations are based onresearch done by known historians. The novelthereby passes itself off as being scientificallybased when it most certainly is not. The fact isthat it would be hard to find even one serioushistorian willing to verify the historicalconstructions and theories ofThe Da Vinci Code.This pertains to all scholars, be they atheist,agnostics, Christians and others.

Dan Brown has a vivid imagination and writesthrilling books. As a guide in the Western worldhistory as well as in church history, he isunreliable. This text will explain why.

Ace = Priory of Sion?The story in The Da Vinci Code is built aroundthe secret Priory of Sion and the documents thatare supposedly being hidden by this priory. ThePriory of Sion a European secret societyfounded in 1099 is a real organization.(Statement on the FACT page in front ofThe DaVinci Code)

The truth is that the books claims regarding thePriory of Sion are pure fiction. The priory wasnever in existence before it was established as apaper-organization by the Frenchman PierrePlantard in 1956. He is the person who made upthe entire history of the priory. In the 1960sPlantard tried to create a myth about himself asthe last Grand Master of his invented priory. He

produced false documents and actually fooledthe authors ofHoly Blood, Holy Grail, the book inwhich Dan Brown found many of the theoriesthat he uses in The Da Vinci Code. Plantardsfraud was exposed in the 1980s. Wheninterrogated under oath by the police in 1993, headmitted that the whole thing was a hoax. Onwww.priory-of-sion.com you will find solidinformation regarding Pierre Plantard and hisimaginary Priory of Sion.

Secret documents?In 1975 Pariss Bibliothque Nationalediscovered parchments known as Les DossiersSecrets, identifying numerous members of thePriory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton,Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo daVinci. (Statement from the FACT page in front ofThe Da Vinci Code.)

The truth is this: Pierre Plantard and a couple offriends produced the collection of parchmentsknown as Les Dossiers Secrets. The falsedocuments were deposited in the archives of thelibrary. The deception was exposed, and

Plantard confessed the fraud.

The house of card collapsesWhen you realize that the Priory of Sion is aproduct of Plantards imagination and that LesDossiers Secrets is a forgery from the 1960s,the historical allegations stated in The Da VinciCode collapse like a house of cards. Leonardoda Vinci was never a leader of the Priory of Sion,because the priory did not exist. Therefore, hecould not have known about secret documentsregarding Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Theclaims ofThe Da Vinci Code regarding the Holy

Grail, gigantic chests containing documentsfrom the time of Jesus, secret codes in DaVincis paintings, etc., are pure fantasy andfiction. These claims could be consideredcreative elements in a fictional novel, but ashistoric information, they have absolutely novalue.

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King = Jesus?Jesus establishment as the Son of God wasofficially proposed and voted on by the Councilof Nicaea. () Until that moment in history,Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortalprophet a great and powerful man, but a man

nonetheless. A mortal. (Chapter 55, The DaVinci Code)

These and many other allegations in The DaVinci Code conflict with clear historical facts.Jesus was worshiped as the Son of God fromthe beginning of church history. There arenumerous documents and thousands ofquotations in the centuries before Constantinethat prove this. The statement that Christiansviewed Jesus as an ordinary human being up tothe Council of Nicaea in 325 AD is historicalfraudulence contrary to all facts.

The Da Vinci Code states that Constantinecommissioned and financed a new, revisedBible. The earlier gospels were outlawed,gathered up and burned (chapter 55). This is allfalse, as is so much else in the novel.Constantine had nothing to do with thediscussions about the content of the Bible, andhe never burnt or revised it. The truth is that wehave a number of Greek Bible manuscripts fromthe two centuries before Constantine. It is fromthese texts that our Bibles are translated notfrom imaginary revisions invented by Dan Brown.

The Da Vinci Code describes the Gnosticgospels (the gospel of Mary, of Philip, etc.) asbeing more trustworthy than the 4 gospels in theBible. This claim does not correspond withhistorical facts. Virtually all scholars are inagreement that the biblical gospels were writtenwhile people of Jesus own generation were stillalive. The Gnostic gospels were, on the otherhand, written 100-200 years after Jesus death.

Almost all of what is written in The Da VinciCode regarding the Gnostic gospels is wrong.According to the novel these documents speak

of Christs ministry in very human terms(chapter 55). The truth is exactly the opposite.The Gnostic gospels contain, for the most part,conversations between Jesus and the disciplesafter the resurrection and before the Ascension consequently a highly divine Jesus. Thesegospels contain almost nothing about Hisministry. The Gnostic gospels portray Jesus asan exalted and unapproachable teacher who isfar from ordinary peoples lives.

It is only in the 4 gospels of the Bible that we getto know a human Jesus who acts, eats, weeps,becomes angry and tired and who cares aboutthe weak and rejected. It is only in the gospels ofthe Bible that we meet Him as a trustworthy manand as a merciful Saviour.

Queen = Mary Magdalene?Jesus was the original feminist. He intended forthe future of His church to be in the hands ofMary Magdalene. (Chapter 58, The Da VinciCode)

The main characters in The Da Vinci Codeassert the following: 1. Jesus plan was to marryMary Magdalene and father children. 2. MaryMagdalene was appointed by Jesus as theleader of the church and as a goddess. 3. Shewas to be the icon for the sacred feminine inChristian theology and worship. 4. Ritualintercourse was a central element in Jesusteaching. Through intercourse (...) the mancould find spiritual wholeness and communionwith God. (The Da Vinci Code, chapter 74; seealso chapters 28 and 60.) According to The DaVinci Code, Jesus was not able to organize hisplanned sex-cult before his crucifixion. Apregnant Mary Magdalene had to flee to France.The child Sara was born there, and thedescendants later married into the French royalfamily.

According to The Da Vinci Code, the Priory ofSion is the guardian of thousands of pages ofsecret documents. These documents prove thereal plans of Jesus and Mary Magdalenes roleas the churchs leader and goddess. The churchhas suppressed all these secrets about MaryMagdalene for nearly 2000 years. Some day thedocuments will be made public.

All this may serve as a creative conspiracytheory for a fictional novel. However, as adescription of historical realities, it is nonsense.There is no historical evidence, and no sources.

It is pure speculation and a figment of theimagination. And as stated earlier, no Priory ofSion exists to guard these kinds of secrets

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Knight = Leonardo da Vinci?Leonardo da Vinci accepted hundreds oflucrative Vatican commissions and heincorporated in many of his Christian paintingshidden symbolism that was anything butChristian. (Chapter 8, The Da Vinci Code)

Many of the claims in The Da Vinci Coderegarding Leonardo da Vinci are withouthistorical basis. Da Vinci undertook only onecommission for the Vatican, not hundreds, astold in the book. And Leonardo was not a rebelagainst the church or its beliefs.

For instance, The Da Vinci Code tells thatLeonardo named the painting Mona Lisa basedon two Egyptian god-names. That is not thecase. The painting was only named 31 yearsafter the artists death.

Since the Priory of Sion did not exist, Da Vincihad no knowledge of all the alleged secrets thatDan Brown speculates about. The codes andsymbols that Dan Brown finds in his art are,therefore, only his own imaginative interpretationand without basis in Da Vincis life. Isnt it naveto believe that a novel writer has greater insightin Leonardo Da Vincis art than all art expertsduring the last centuries?

One example is the painting The Last Supper.Dan Brown asserts that the person to the right ofJesus is a woman. For 500 years everybody has

known that it is the youngest of the disciples John. At the time of Da Vinci it was common topaint very young men with feminine features.The Renaissance gives us many examples ofthis. And where is John, if Mary has taken hisplace? For many different reasons there can beonly one conclusion: Dan Brown is wrong aboutthe person sitting on Jesus right side.

Ten = Any more?The Da Vinci Code is an unusually creative andthrilling novel. But it is nothing more than that.The theories and speculations in the book dontturn into truths because the story takes place in

historical buildings. Those who interpret thespeculations in the book as historical realities willbe building their understanding of Westerncivilization and Christian history on legends,falsifications and non-existing sources.

Oskar Skarsaune is a well-known Norwegianprofessor of early Church history and an experton the theories and history behind The Da VinciCode. After publishing a book about the novel,he was asked by a journalist if most of thehistorical claims in Dan Browns novel areincorrect. He answered: I will put it evenstronger: Nothing of what Dan Brown claimsregarding historical events in the early church orin the medieval times is correct. Nothing.

DocumentationDo you want more information or more thoroughdocumentation? Visit the following websites:1)www.leaderu.com/focus/davincicode.html2)www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code3)www.priory-of-sion.com

This text has no copyright. It can be freelycopied, translated and distributed in any form

without permission. It is written by Bjrn AreDavidsen and ivind Benestad,Benestad@bigfoot.com. The former is the authorof a Norwegian book called Da Vinci Decodedand has led 60 seminars and meetings about thenovel during the last couple of years.

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