The Davinci Crock

Before I even begin to deconstruct Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, I think it is very appropriate to explain my perspective. I attended Catholic schooling for my first nine years of education. The school I attended taught the Catholic faith in a very conservative and orthodox manner. I still do practice the Catholic faith, but at the current time, I am very impressionable with it comes to my faith and beliefs. My first impression after reading The DaVinci Code was that Brown is very blasphemous towards the Catholic Church. Before the novel even begins, Brown states, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate,” which can be very misleading, making the reader think that the descriptions of the Catholic Church are also very accurate.

Throughout the book, on numerous occasions, Brown talks about how Jesus could have been married to Mary Magdalene, and possibly could even have fathered a child. In one instance Teabing says, “ the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of historical record. Jesus as a married man makes more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor” (245). This goes against many of the Catholic teachings and traditions that say that Jesus was single and chaste the entirely of his life. The Bible says, “Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well” (1 Corinthians 7:37).

It is even more preposterous when Brown asserts that Mary Magdalene could have been one of the twelve original disciples. “The Last Supper is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman?,” Brown writes (243). Historically, The Last Supper was Jesus’ last meal with his twelve Apostles. Brown is saying that one Jesus’ twelve apostles may have been a woman. To begin with I would have to guess when Brown uses the word “disciples”, he really means “apostles”. The word “disciple,” in the Bible, literally means follower of Jesus. Under that definition, Jesus has had and still has an uncountable number of disciples. The Apostles were the twelve mean that followed Jesus during his lifetime and helped him teach his message. I think Brown was trying to say that Mary Magdalene could have been one of the twelve apostles. Even so the Bible says that the twelve original apostles were men. “And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Joseph called Barsabas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James” (Acts 1:13). As one can see, this list does not include Mary Magdalene, and all the names listed are men’s names. Judas later hangs himself and is replaced by Matthius, another male.

In chapter fifty-five, Brown talks about how the Catholic Church was only after power when naming Jesus Christ as the Messiah. His character Teabing says, “It was all about power, Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from his original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power” (233). It is true that the Catholic Church is a very powerful organization, but this power does not come from naming some common man as a Messiah. Regardless if Jesus Christ was the Messiah or not, the Catholic Chuch truly believes the He is the true Messiah. This can be seen in the following Bible passage, “And saith unto him,