"The Da Vinci Code Uncovered" Series: The Truth About Jesus And Mary

This is my third talk in our 4 Sunday series called “The Da Vinci Code Uncovered”.

Let’s do a quick review...

I told you I liked the book and movie, but my problem is that Dan Brown tries to blur the line between truth and fiction when he begins the book stating, "FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secrets in this novel are accurate."

So far in this series I told you that Dan Brown locked into our obsessions with secrets when he wrote “The Da Vinci Code”.

Not only that, Dan Brown uses an “appeal to authority” technique in his book and in the movie. Instead of just writing a non-fiction book and saying, “Here’s what I discovered…” He creates a fictional book and a fictional historian to say everything he wants to say.

By doing this, he makes his fictional facts more instantly believable because he knows we accept what authorities tell us as true a lot of time without argument – even make-believe authorities!

Through this series we’re uncovering the real historical secrets about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and The Bible.

In this series, we’re uncovering 3 main truths: the truth about the Bible (is it trustworthy?) - which we looked at in the first 2 talks, the truth about Jesus (was he married, did he have kids, did he claim to be divine or was that made up later), and the truth about Mary Magdalene (who was she, the Holy Grail, etc.).

The first week we started looking at the truth about the Bible.

The “Facts” Fictional Historian Teabing Gives:

He says the 4 stories we have about Jesus aren’t the earliest ones. He said there were 80 gospels! He also said Constantine picked the ones he wanted and suppressed the rest. We learned that in reality there were only around 20 books that were really “gospels” – stories about Jesus. We saw that these books didn’t all exist at the same time. Some were written earlier and some were written hundreds of years later.

We also said that the easiest way to know which ones are true is the same way any historian can tell which documents about an event are closest to the truth: the ones closest to the event are the ones that are true.

We saw that the documents that Dan Brown quotes from and likes the best are the ones that are written 100s of years later. They are also against the God of the Old Testament, think matter (the body & sex) is evil, and are focused on secret truth.

No one ever tried to suppress these books! They’ve always been known and talked about. They just were never accepted by the church.

But in the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown tries to get us to believe that these documents are more reliable than the ones in the Bible or at least AS reliable!

Otherwise the whole premise of his book falls apart! Last Sunday, we saw the process that brought the Bible we have in our hands today was the normal and correct way ANY historical event is recorded.

1. First it is witnessed.
2. Then people tell each other what happened.
3. Eventually people write down what happened.

We saw that the stories about Jesus began to be written down just decades after he was alive.

This was still when the eyewitnesses were alive so they could say if these things were true or not. Also the gospel started in area where it was all supposed to have happened.

There’s no way it would’ve spread if it wasn’t true!

Dan Brown has Teabing say some pretty wacky things, but one of the craziest is when Teabing say that Jesus was made divine later by Constantine! We see that Jesus claimed to be God from the very beginning. That’s why he was persecuted.

We also saw that Constantine had NOTHING to do with choosing the books of the Bible and that they were already basically chosen before he came along.

We see they were chosen based on practical and spiritual reasons NOT for political reasons like Teabing tries to say. Then we saw that what books we have in the Bible were chosen in a pretty common sense way. To be cosidered God word, that had to pass these 3 tests (and a few others)….

1. Had to be written by eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection or someone close to them
2. Had to be orthodox – not contradict Old Testament or what Apostles already taught
3. Had to be accepted in all the churches We saw that these rules protected any one church from too much influence.

The process also showed that they weren’t just choosing any book. They really wanted to make sure they had God’s word!

We saw that when you put the writings of the Bible against any other ancient document (that isn’t questioned) that it proves it’s as reliable and even more than they are!

Today were going to look at what Dan Brown has Teabing say about Mary
Magdalene & Jesus.

Teabing says that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had children. "The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record." (Page 245) He uses different things to prove this…

One thing he doesn’t use to prove it is any scriptures from our current Bible!

Why? The New Testament is silent about this and it doesn’t even indirectly refer to this.

What does Teabing use to prove that they were married?

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The Da Vinci Code Uncovered Series: "How Did We Get Our Bible?"

This is my second talk in my 4 Sunday series called “The Da Vinci Code Uncovered”.

My first talk in this series was called, “Seek The REAL Truth”.

I told you I liked the book and movie, but my problem is that Dan Brown tries to blur the line between truth and fiction when he begins the book stating, "FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secrets in this novel are accurate."

I talked with you last Sunday about our obsession with secrets that starts back when we’re kids and I said that Dan Brown locked into our obsessions with secrets when he wrote “The Da Vinci Code”.

He doesn’t just tap our obsession with secrets. Dan Brown uses an “appeal to authority” technique in his book and in the movie. Instead of just writing a non-fiction book and saying, “Here’s what I discovered…” He creates a fictional book and a fictional historian to say everything he wants to say.

By doing this, he makes his fictional facts more instantly believable because he knows we accept what authorities tell us as true a lot of time without argument – even make believe authorities!

People who read the book and see the movie need to remember that the facts stated by Dan Brown's fictional historian, Leigh Teabing, are not coming from an ACTUAL expert.

They are coming from the research of Dan Brown and his wife Blythe. The words of Teabing are in reality the words of a former English teacher and an art history buff!

Through this series we’ll uncover the real historical secrets about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and The Bible. In this series, we’re uncovering 3 main truths: the truth about the Bible (is it trustworthy?), the truth about Jesus (was he married, did he have kids, did he claim to be divine or was that made up later), and the truth about Mary Magdalene (who was she, the Holy Grail, etc.).

The first week we started looking at the truth about the Bible.

The “Facts” Fictional Historian Teabing Gives:

He says the 4 stories we have about Jesus aren’t the earliest ones. He said there were 80 gospels!

He also said Constantine picked the ones he wanted and suppressed the rest. We learned that in reality there were only around 20 books that were really “gospels” – stories about Jesus.

We saw that these books didn’t all exist at the same time. Some were written earlier and some were written hundreds of years later. We also said that the easiest way to know which ones are true is the same way any historian can tell which documents about an event are closest to the truth: the ones closest to the event are the ones that are true.

We saw that the documents that Dan Brown quotes from and likes the best are the ones that are written 100s of years later.

They are also against the God of the Old Testament, think matter (the body & sex) is evil, and are focused on secret truth.

No one ever tried to suppress these books! They’ve always been known and talked about. They just were never accepted by the church.

But in the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown tries to get us to believe that these documents are more reliable than the ones in the Bible or at least AS reliable!

He does this because he has to make them believable or most of what he’s trying to say is true can’t be real even in a fictional world!

Today, we’re going to talk some more about the truth of the Bible and also start looking at some of the truth about Jesus.

In the movie Teabing says, “The Bible did not come by facsimile."

• Did Constantine pick out the ones that are in our Bible? Was Jesus’ divinity made up later?
• How were the books in the Bible chosen?

Listen to what Peter, one of the disciples - an eyewitness - said for why they shared these stories...

2 Peter 1:12-21
¹²I plan to keep on reminding you of these things—even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth. ¹³Yes, I believe I should keep on reminding you of these things as long as I live. ¹⁴But the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that my days here on earth are numbered and I am soon to die. ^{F5 15}So I will work hard to make these things clear to you. I want you to remember them long after I am gone.

¹⁶For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. We have seen his majestic splendor with our own eyes. ¹⁷And he received honor and glory from God the Father when God's glorious, majestic voice called down from heaven, "This is my beloved Son; I am fully pleased with him." ¹⁸We ourselves heard the voice when we were there with him on the holy mountain.

¹⁹Because of that, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. Pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a light shining in a dark place—until the day Christ appears and his brilliant light shines in your hearts. ²⁰Above all, you must understand that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves ²¹or because they wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak from God.

Peter and the other disciples had seen amazing things when they were with Jesus and it made them believe more than ever the prophecies about Jesus that he fulfilled.

They’re purpose in writing the story of Jesus is so that others would know the truth. v. 12 They’re being like ancient reporters capturing an amazing event, so that other people would know what happened.

So, how did we get the gospels that we have in our Bible? Let's look...

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