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Bart Ehrman,
Truth and fiction in The Da Vinci Code.
A historian reveals what we really know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and
Constantine (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004); xxiv + 207 pp., £11.99 hb (ISBN 0-19-518140-9), £6.99
pb (ISBN 0-19-530713-5).
With
the Da Vinci Code film on its way
this is a timely book for pastors because even more people will be getting in
touch with Dan Brown's fiction about Jesus, Mary and Constantine. How will they
be able to separate facts from fiction? New Testament scholar Ehrman admits to
liking The Da Vinci Code very much as a story but
he sets out to correct the factual inaccuracies and mistakes in the novel,
restricting himself to early Christianity and so omitting Leonardo Da Vinci,
the Vatican etc. On pages xiv-xv he lists ten grave factual errors and in the
rest of the introduction he explains how a critical historian works, which is
all about carefully handling the sparse sources.
- The first main part of the book is devoted to what we know about Constantine and his
handling of the Scriptures. The origins of the canon of the NT are discussed
and Ehrman presents the facts about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the books from Nag
Hammadi, as well as about the extra-canonical gospels which Brown pretends to
have used. Thus the Gospels of Thomas and Peter come to the fore. Time and
again it becomes evident that The Da Vinci Code contains much fantasy
and little fact. Despite Brown's claim that his descriptions of documents are
accurate, they are not.
- The second part focuses on the lives of Jesus and Mary. In two chapters Ehrman
offers a good reconstruction of what we know of Mary Magdalene and of the
situation of women in the first Christian centuries. Here the Gospels of Mary
and Philip are discussed. The other two chapters of this part argue that the
canonical gospels contain much about Jesus that isn't historical and go on to
describe what we do know. According to Ehrman's reconstruction Jesus was not
much more than an apocalyptic prophet. If that was all, one wonders how and why
Christianity began in the first place. Behind Ehrman's low view of the historical reliability of the gospels are assumptions
such as an underestimation of literacy in Galilee, a lack of
confidence in the reliability of oral transmission, and late datings of the
gospels.
Ehrman's
approach is to quote from the novel and to present corrections and
clarifications; in this way his book can serve as a companion to novel and
movie. At times his introductions become a bit repetitious but his style is
accessible so that many ordinary people can read this book. The tone is fair
and factual throughout. In the endnotes suggestions for further reading appear,
largely references to Ehrman's own books. In fact it seems that the present
book is largely a compilation of relevant parts from these books.
It
struck me that in the meantime at least three other books have appeared to
counter Dan Brown, each by evangelical New Testament specialists; I just list
them here:
- Darrell L. Bock, Breaking
the Da Vinci Code. Answers to the questions everybody's asking (Nashville: Nelson,
2004), 208 pp., £19.99, ISBN 0-2004- 905591-5.
- Michael Green, The
Books the Church suppressed. Fiction and truth in The Da Vinci Code (Grand
Rapids: Kregel, 2006), 192 pp., £7.99, ISBN
0-8254-6096-4.
- Ben Witherington, The
Gospel code: novel claims about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci (Downers Grove: IVP,
2004), 208 pp., £9.99, ISBN 0-8308-3267-X.
Rev Dr Pieter J. Lalleman
Spurgeon's College
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