Decoding the Da Vinci Code

Historical Reality vs. Murder Mystery Mythology

A novel is a novel, and novelists succeed through the skillful exercise of the imagination. However, the The Da Vinci Code novel imagines the best of American scholarship (Harvard) and the finest of British scholarship (Oxford) agreeing on what are presented as “facts” regarding the origin of the Christian faith.

This one hour lecture was originally delivered at Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA in April 2004. It succinctly reviews the origins of the four Biblical Gospels, the formation of the Canon, the council of Nicea, the role of Constantine and the emergence of the Gnostic gospels in the 3rd to 5th centuries. It then compares established historical facts with the imagination of the novelist that created the mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code.

In the 16th century Theodore Beza of Switzerland wrote, "The Bible is an anvil that has broken many hammers." This lecture reviews the facts of the "anvil" that are important for any fair evaluation of the claims of the various characters in the novel.