The Da Vinci Code has been on the New York Times Bestseller List since its release in April 2003. In less than 2 years it has become a bestseller in 150 countries and one of the most widely read books of our time.
Author Dan Brown has done what many authors only dream of doing. He has written a book "everyone" is talking about. All over the world people are discussing his upscale murder mystery that teases readers with provocative theories about history, religion, and the arts.
This novel, however, is more than a page-turning murder mystery. The Da Vinci Code is a conspiracy theory that leaves many readers wondering whether everything they have believed about Christ and the Bible is wrong.
A reviewer from Book Sense says, "This is one of those rare books that comes along and makes you question everything you thought you knew about religion, art, and what you were taught in school. It’s fast-paced, enthralling, and simply impossible to put down."
The Da Vinci Code begins with a lengthy list of acknowledgments and then a "fact page" designed to leave the impression that the novel is based on careful research of little-known facts.
One of the book’s main characters is Robert Langdon, a fictional Harvard professor of religious symbology. Claiming years of research, the professor maintains that for 1,700 years, the church has been covering up the real truth about Jesus. His views are later echoed by a fictional British royal historian referred to as Sir Leigh Teabing who says things like, "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false"
What many readers fail to keep in mind is that The Da Vinci Code is fiction. Worse yet, the story rests not on careful research, but on a documented fraud passed off as truth. The idea that Leonardo was a member of The Priory of Sion is based on a document proven by a French court of law to be a forgery and a hoax.
The Da Vinci Code’s "alternative view of history" also falsely states that Jesus was not regarded as a God until the fourth century when the Roman emperor Constantine decided it was in his own political interests to unite the empire by giving Jesus "an impenetrable cloak of divinity" .
The Da Vinci Code claims that some of the documents Constantine tried to destroy managed to survive in scrolls found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These scrolls allegedly "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda—to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base"..sigh..I think Dan Brown really went out of his mind..man..lolz
Anyway, on the basis of such research, scholars assure us that our Bible is a highly reliable representation of the original manuscripts. In The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable, F. F. Bruce writes, "To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none: ‘The interval then between the data of original composition and the earliest extant evidence become so small to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scripture have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established’ "
Backed by such evidence, the Bible also remains the all-time bestselling and most widely read book in the world. Challengers come and go. What remain are the words of those who were willing to die for their claim that they personally witnessed the miraculous life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. One of those witnesses wrote, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).
I would really encourage everyone, young or old, Believers or non-believers to watch the movie this May at your nearest Cinema..Coz it’ll be an eye opener for everyone at the same time..out of our curiosity we would wanna know more n more bout God, end up we’ll find there’s nothing more real than this God alone.
-peaze-