Breaking the Da Vinci Code: Answers to the Questions Everyones Asking

The authors use dubious theology and selective history to refute a fiction novel. Why are some gospels better than the others? The canonized gospels were not contemporary and written while there are names attached, the authorship is in question. Blind devotion to religion does not make one a theologin or historian. And neither author seems to know much more than what they have heard in sunday school or read in a modernized badly translated bible. The DaVinci Code offers readers glimpses of well-known and well-documented stories of christinaity and its origins. The origin is far more complicated than the sunday school tripe the authors of this book push.

As a conservative evangelical Christian, I was eager to read a scholarly refutation of The Da Vinci Code. Regretfully, this book was a dreadful disappointment. It was so poorly written and painfully simplistic. The contents were terribly disorganized and lacked any coherent structure. It is obvious that the publisher sought to capitalize on the success of the The Da Vinci Code by publishing this waste of paper. Readers, beware! Dont be fooled by the enticing description on the books cover! This book is a waste of ones time and money. I wish I could get my money back!

With over 40 million copies sold into 44 languages (as of May 2006), the Brown blockbuster has certainly made an impact. And the May 2006 film version simply adds to the books success. But the book is as controversial as it is popular. Indeed, while the book is a work of fiction, Brown claims it is based on fact. And given the importance of the subject matter - who Jesus was, what he taught, and how the church presented that - if his book is in fact riddled with errors and misinformation, then it deserves closer inspection. And that has happened. There have been a number of good critiques of The Da Vinci Code written by both Catholics and Protestants. Over a dozen book-length treatments come to mind. One of the earliest, and best, Protestant treatments is this book. Darrell Bock is a leading New Testament scholar and is well qualified to address this topic. He has written extensively elsewhere on some of the issues raised by Dan Brown. Thus this volume is a first-rate assessment of the many theological and historical errors found in Browns best-seller. Meaty chapters cover the key points of controversy: Did Jesus marry and have a child? Just who was Mary Magdalene? Are the Gnostic gospels on a par with the four canonical gospels? Did the early church suppress certain truths and writings about Jesus? Was the divinity of Jesus a later church construct? These and related questions are carefully answered by Bock. The nearly 200 pages of argument found here make a solid case that Brown has got it wrong big time. Moreover, Bock demonstrates that the central claims of Christianity remain trustwothy. Everyone who has read Brown should also read Bock. The falsehoods and foolishness of Brown are more than adequately dealt with by the intelligent and irenic pen of Bock. Five stars.

Bock is partly correct in his title - he does give answers, but not to the questions that everyone is asking about The Da Vinci Code. I found Bocks book to be an arduous read, not in the level of thinking, but rather in its presentation of the facts that counter the claims of Dan Browns worldwide best-seller The Da Vinci Code. Bock walks through seven identified codes that are, in essence, the key assumptions put forth by Brown in his book; and Bock systematically presents evidence to counter the claims of Brown and others who have questioned the divinity of Christ and the authenticity of the Scriptures. Bock is honest in his assessment of the churchs dismal failure to properly address a central figure in the conspiracy theory of Brown and others - Mary Magdalene was, indeed, a victim of a very poor smear campaign at the hands of the Catholic Church under Pope Gregory the Great in A.D. 591 who first taught that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Bock demonstrates that his area of expertise is truly New Testament scholarship and presents a dizzying array of texts and historical persons to bolster this position that Mary Magdalene was not the lover or wife of Jesus Christ. Bock then walks through dozens of other proofs countering each code until he arrives at his conclusion - that the challenge to Christianity that The Da Vinci Code presents is the same, tired, old and easily-refuted claims of the Gnostics from two thousand years ago only packaged in a best-selling murder mystery this time around! Breaking The Da Vinci Code is an informative book, but not necessarily an easy read. You can tell that Dr. Bock is a New Testament seminary professor - you honestly feel that you are ready for an exam by the end of the book. The problem with the book is that, I dont believe, it prepares a Christian to really engage in a conversation with the average person who has either read the book or will see the movie and has questions - the book is almost too much information and it presents it in a way that makes the reader work too hard to understand it. I think there are better books for the average lay Christian looking to prepare himself to engage in a friendly conversation; but the book is well researched and at least under 200 pages, unlike several of the anti-Da Vinci books on the market.

On a rainy May morning of 2005, a large gathering of people convened at Blackhawk Free Evangelical church in Madison to hear one of the foremost New Testament scholars, Ben Witherington III, give a talk about Dan Browns book The Da Vinci Code. Many including myself turned up to listen to the arguments against the claims being made in Browns fictional bestseller. Witheringtons delivery of the facts was superb as he proceeded to systematically destroy the supposedly factual claims made by Brown. Later on that morning, spurred on by Witheringtons brilliant refutation of Browns historical inaccuracies, I picked up a copy of Breaking The Da Vinci Code by New Testament scholar Darrell Bock. Eager as I was to find out what I could about Mary Magdalenes true identity, particularly in regards to the claim that she was married to Jesus, and to discover whether there really had been a major suppression by the church of other books outside of the canonical biblical Gospels and the Pauline letters, I began to read Bocks account. Bock begins his discussion of the facts by revealing to us the real identity of Mary and her relationship to Jesus. Otherwise known as Mary of Magdala (her name still contains her town of origin rather than a marital affiliation suggesting that she was not married), Mary was part of a larger group of women who followed Jesus during His ministry. In Luke (Chapter 8) we see her specifically mentioned as one of the female followers of Christ, the others being Susana and Joanna, the wife of Herods business manager. While it is admittedly odd that women would have been traveling with a man outside of wedlock, the argument that he must have been married because He was a rabbi is unsupported. As Bock points out Jesus was not technically-speaking a rabbi. Jesus disciples called him by this title because he was a teacher to them. But he was certainly not recognized as a rabbi by the Jewish authorities. In fact we see in the Gospel of Mark (Chapter 11, vs 27) how Jesus authority was severely challenged by the leaders of religious law. No specific link is made to an exclusive relationship between Mary and Jesus. In fact a passage in the Gospel of John (Chapter 20, vs 11-18) provides the only documented encounter of Jesus and Mary alone. Marys expression of surprise on seeing the resurrected Jesus is understandable given that she is not expecting him to be in any way alive. But what we do see here is Mary as a witness to the cross and resurrection- an apostle to the apostles as Bock refers to her, who was sent to reveal the resurrected Christ to the twelve disciples. Would it have been in any way un-Jewish for Jesus to remain single? There is some evidence for celibacy in some parts of the Jewish community during Jesus time. We now know for example that an ancient Jewish group of men called the Essenes thought of marriage as a way through which the sins of lust and adultery could set in. They therefore preferred not to be married, remaining pious to God through celibacy. Jesus even said that in certain cases it was better not to marry (Mathew Chapter 19, vs 10-12). It was therefore not un-Jewish not to be married. In one particular circumstance we even see Paul encouraging people to remain unmarried, as he himself was (1 Corinthians, Chapter 7, vs 8). There is no biblical or extra-biblical evidence that Jesus had a wife. There is no mention, for example, of a wife in the crucifixion accounts in any of the canonical Gospels. We also know that Jesus related to women in a way that fell outside the expected norms of the culture (John Chapter 12, vs 1-8; Luke Chapter 7, vs 36-50). Since He did not fall into these expected norms, why would He necessarily be married? Those eager to assert that Jesus was married to Mary bring their own evidence to bear. As Bock notes, the broken ancient texts of the Gospel of Phillip- a Gospel written a full 200 years after the time of Jesus- mention Jesus kissing Mary, although the location of kissing is never made clear. The same passage mentions Mary as companion (translated from the Greek word Koinonos) although this can either mean wife or religious companion. There is also a passage in the later Gospel of Mary that indicates that Mary was privy to special revelations from Jesus. But no indication of a familial relationship can be concluded. Since Mary, Jesus mother, was so heavily revered by the Catholic church, it seems unlikely that had Jesus been married, His wife could have disappeared without a historical trace. In short, there is every reason to believe that Jesus was single. So what about the claim made in The Da Vinci Code that there were over 80 Gospels, outside of the four in the Bible, that were conveniently discarded by the early church? Browns evidence in favor of this claim is based on the books contained in the Nag Hammadi library- a collection that, together with Gnostic scriptures, includes more than eighty texts. But Bock makes some very strong points against Brown noting in particular that most of the books in the Nag Hammadi collection are not Gospels at all. The dates of these books range from 2nd to 3rd century AD- a few generations removed from the, foundations of the Christian faith. Importantly, there were major differences between the Gnostic teachings and those of traditional Christianity. Gnostics believed, for example, that they had some special access to mysterious revelations about God- revelations that were only available to a select group of insiders. For the Gnostics, only those insiders- intellectuals with a special knosis or understanding of God- could be saved. In contrast the biblical Gospels told of no such special select group. Gnostics also had a dual existence interpretation of God claiming that in addition to the supreme spiritual father of the heavens, there existed an evil maker of the physical world called the Demiurge. Gnostics saw God as, too transcendent to get his hands dirty with humanity. God did not mix with the material existence. Even for Jesus the Gnostic teachings made a distinction between the earthly and spiritual Jesus. Gnosticism claimed that the real Jesus could not have suffered on the cross; that in fact the real Jesus was too pure to suffer. Biblical scripture, in contrast, tells of God becoming flesh and blood to suffer for humanity. The images of Mary Magdalene clinging onto Jesus after His resurrection, His later appearance to the disciples and then to Thomas (John Chapter 20) reveal the physical nature of the biblical Jesus. Today there is a move by some to reconcile the Gnostic teachings with Christianity. Yet as already noted, both Gnosticism and Christianity are sufficiently different that they cannot be brought together under one faith. The church fathers were of the position that the canonical Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, with their teaching of sin, were the true Gospels because they preceded the Gnostic texts by at least one century. Because Gnosticism did not acknowledge the existence of God in the physical world, the Gnostic teachings were considered heretical by the early church. Recent reviews of this tension cite the early church as being an oppressor, afflicting believers with rigid creeds. Bock notes however that modern texts in support of the reconciliation of Gnosticism and traditional Christianity tend to be selective about the evidence they cite leaving out much of what is incompatible between them. In fact neither the church fathers nor the early Gnostics wanted to come together. They both recognized their differences in beliefs and did not desire a shared faith. Bock makes a very strong case against one of the other key claims of The Da Vinci Code- that the emperor Constantine assembled and commissioned a new Bible that embellished Christs Godly traits and omitted His human traits. One of Browns principle characters Teabing for example specified how it was. to promote the divinity of Jesus that specific books in the Bible were chosen. The claim is made that the emperor Constantine and the council of Nicea ignored an entire swath of documents by giving Jesus His greater divinity. In fact Constantine and the Nicene creed only affirmed what had already been the established view for centuries before Nicea. The four Gospels were part of that view. Jesus was considered as divine four centuries before the Nicene council convened. Even though the Gospels of Mark and Luke were not written by any of the twelve apostles they, together with Mathew and John, were written by authors who had direct contact with the apostles if not with Jesus. They were therefore considered more accurate representations of the Christian faith. But there were other reasons for choosing just four biblical Gospels. The 2nd Century church father Irenaeus, for example, saw it fitting that there should be only four Gospels so as to match up with the four cherubim on the ark of the covenant. The number four also corresponded to the number of covenants given by God to humanity- to Adam, to Noah after the flood, to Moses and to man for spiritual renovation. Reviewing the claims of The Da Vinci Code, we know that Jesus was not the feminist that the book portrays but the son of God who saw the value in every human being. Mary Magdalene was not, the Holy Grail with a trail of royal descendants from Jesus but an apostle to the apostles who had seen the resurrected Christ. There is no reason to think that the church was trying to give women a lower status since Jesus appearance to women affirms the value of women to God. Luke (Chapter 10, vs 38-42; Chapter 8, vs 1-3), Acts (Chapter 18, vs 24-26) and 1 Timothy (Chapter 3, vs11), all show women playing important discipleship roles in the church. Moreover these texts show no reluctance to document such roles. Bock has done a tremendous job of exposing the historical inaccuracies of The Da Vinci Code in the eight chapters of his book corroborating much of the discussion that Ben Witherington III set out on that rainy May day. He has systematically discredited the contentious material of Browns fictional best seller.

This book is really an essential. It covers everything from the theory of Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, to the Canonization of the Bible, to the Secret Gnostic Gospels. A must read for those who have read the Da Vinci Code

Bock focuses on the first 325 years after the death of Christ because that is Bocks expertise. He slowly and deliberately breaks what he calls codes of the Da Vinci Codes. He covers Who was Mary Magdalene, Was Jesus married, How were the New Testament Documents assembled, and other similar topics. He does a very credible job. However, the whole code theme was a little confusing. In the later chapters, he refered back to arguments in the earlier codes, for example, As we stated in Code 6. However, the codes were not really codes and they were not really memorable or breakable. The codes are just topics that he discussed and argued against Dan Browns assertions. Bock is really arguing against the scholars who study the Gnostic gospels and are proposing their own version of Christianity. Bock is arguing against that school of thought rather than the Da Vinci code in particular. His arguments are strong, but not that exciting. Although he proves his point, I dont think Dan Browns fans would be convinced. They would just say thats your version of history. I would think destroying all the bizarre myths Dan Brown spins around the Templars would be more convincing. The whole Priory of Sion is so ridiculous and based on such flimsy evidence I cant see how even Oliver Stone would believe it. In conclusion, the book presents reasoned arguments against many of the themes of the Da Vinci Code. The arguments are sound. The history is interesting to learn, but I dont think it is the best book to go to battle with in an argument with a Dan Brown enthusiast. The arguments are too subtle and I think they are better books out there for debunking The DaVinci Code.

I guess that we all went a little crazy in college in one way or another. Instead of radical partying, I took to reading gnostic gospels and other non-canonical early Christian writings. Thus, when I worked through The DaVinci Code, I found the history to be laughable. With the approach of the movie and surrounding hype, I started looking for a good book to recommend to my church members who had questions. Darrell Bocks book, Breaking the DaVinci Code, filled the bill nicely. While backed by comprehensive scholarship and a thorough understanding of early Christian literature, Bock made his discussion in such a way that any reasonably intelegent person should be able to grasp the relevant concepts. He includes a comprehensive glossary of relevant terms and a fairly good bibliography. His treatment of complex topics neither ignores the complexity nor assumes the complexity beyond the grasp of the reader. The only weakness of the book is that Bock narrowly focused on the issues raised by Brown, making it less useful once Brown has faded from public discussion. For now, it is a book that every Christian that is serious about appologetics should read.

Anyone who has read Dan Browns novel knows that he is presenting more than just well written fiction. In fact, I believe that The Da Vinci Code may be one of the biggest attacks on modern Christianity ever. But its also one of the weakest. Dan Browns arguments are absurd beyond belief. But because he has sold over 40 million copies, evangelical Christians and even some liberal scholars (i.e. Bart Ehrman) have felt compelled to refute Dan Browns erroneous claims. When I began to look into Dan Browns claims, I went to the nearest Christian bookstore to find scholarly material that refuted his novel. I was shocked to find literally 10 books refuting The Da Vinci Code. Which was I to choose? I had already read Hanegraaffs work and was somewhat disappointed at the lack of depth presented. And some of the other authors didnt seem to have the right credentials to answer Browns claims. It was then that stumbled across Darrell Bocks masterful work, Breaking the Da Vinci Code. He had impeccable credentials as well a lot of experience in writing on these issues. First, Ill start with the good. I enjoyed each and every chapter by Dr. Bock. My favorite chapter dealt with the Gnostic Gospels. I was surprised to find that most of Bocks arguments were historical rather than theological. This was a good thing as someone reading Bocks book might suspect a bias on his part. Not so with this work. Bock examined the Gnostic works in great detail, showing how little they had to do with historic Christianity. Now with the bad. I didnt think that Bock dealt with the truly important issues. While he thoroughly refuted Browns claims on Jesus marriage, the conspiracy at the council of Nicaea, and the canon of Scripture, I dont feel that Bock refuted Brown as well as he could have. What are the important issues? 1. Is the Bible corrupt? 2. Did Christians believe in the deity of Christ before Constantine? While Bock touched on these subjects, he should have written entire chapters dealing with textual critical issues and things of that nature. Perhaps Bock wanted to focus on the main topics of the Da Vinci Code? I do not know. But if that if that is your primary concern; whether or not Jesus was married, then Bocks work is the perfect choice. But if your primary concern is Biblical inerrancy and things of that sort, then look elsewhere. Overall, I enjoyed the historical nature of Breaking the Da Vinci Code and look forward to reading more of his books in the future.

A fairly well-written book, but spends too much time evangelizing and sermonizing. I wanted something more factual and simply a straightforward historical reference guide for the non-religious. Something that would simply make a comparison bewteen facts in history and claims fo Brown. Also, too long. And, in my opinion, too expensive. This book, I must say though, is better than the one by Garlow and Barnes. But Id try Abanes short volume The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code, especially for non-scholars out there. Abanes is a bestselling, cutting-edge author who writes more for the popular market, gets to the point, and has great documentation. And it retails for only $6.99 (JUST released).