How much truth is in The Da Vinci Code?

I just finished reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which has been a bestseller for forever and will soon be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks. So if you haven't heard much about it, you will soon.

I liked Brown's earlier book, Angels and Demons a whole lot better, but this one was very entertaining and very captivating in it's own right (Da Vinci is a sequel).

It makes some fairly explosive claims, in a very laid back "everyone know this, right?" manner. Among them: that Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene, that they had a child, that the early Christian church worshipped Mary Magdelen as a goddess, that Emperor Constantine (who wasn't even a Christian, but just picked it because it was more popular than Paganism at the time) basically just decreed that Jesus was Divine (until then, the whole church just thought he was a very great mortal prophet, the book claims) and "the biggest coverup in human history" ensued to make sure that everyone forgot about Jesus being married and having kids and just being a normal dude. Oh yeah, also, Jesus wanted to found the church upon the goddess Mary, but Peter got jealous and threatened her and she had to scurry away to France with her child, and then the scriptures were re-written to make it so that Peter was the one who was to found the church. And Constantine shrewdly decided what would be in the Bible in order to support all this.

Everyone knows this, right?

:-)

The scholarship on all this is very flimsy. I read it as fiction, but the way it is written those less skeptical will read it as fact. That is the saddest thing, how many people will read it and think, "Oh yeah. . . Christianity was just invented as a marketing ploy by Contantine when he wanted to unify his fractured Empire," and then move on and decide whether to eat at Wendy's or Taco Bell's for dinner.

For instance. The book says that for Jesus to be unmarried would have been unacceptable in his Jewish culture. Completely disregarding that Propets of God were allowed and even encouraged to remain celibate. (Moses was celibate after the burning bush experience, for instance, most of the Major Prophets were as well). What about the Essenes, the sect which counted John the Baptist as a member? They encouraged fasting, poverty and celibacy.

The book claims that Christianity basically ripped of the now unknown religion of Mithra. Of the god Mithra, it says,

The pre-Christian God Mithras – called the Son of God and the Light of the World – was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days.

Wow. Sounds pretty incredible, right? Only problem is. . . Mithra scholars themselves have said, ""The only domain in which we can ascertain in detail the extent to which Christianity imitated Mithraism is that of art." (MS -- Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975.) Mithra was never called the Son of God or the Light of the World. He never died. He wasn't buried and he wasn't resurrected. It's just made up!

There are many many examples of these slips of the truth. But one last one just for fun. According to the book, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls "in the 50's" (it was in 1947) was chock full of alernate Christian gospels that demonstrated just how much Contantine had altered what "true early Christianity" was all about. (Reading it, you kind of assume that these documents back up all of the whole Jesus marries Marry scenario). Truth is, the Dead Sea Scrolls don't contain any Christian scriptures at all. None! They weren't scrolls maintained by a Christian group, but a Jewish one. The one thing they did demonstrate: That the Jewish Testament the early Christian church maintained (the "Old" Testament) was basically identical to the Jewish Testament followed by this early Jewish settlement. I guess somehow Contantine missed changing those books?

If you want to know some of the key points and whether they are true, msnbc.com has a brief but interesting rundown.