Don't Swallow the 'Da Vinci Code' Nonsense!

Dan Brown's book, The DaVinci Code and the 2006 movie based on that novel are wildly inaccurate and quite nonsensical views of "the historical facts" which even atheists and agnostics do not take seriously. The inaccuracies are too widespread to tackle here but just to randomly tackle three of them:

• The 4th century Council of Nicaea did not take a vote to decide upon the divinity of Jesus. That was already established by the New Testament writings and by the early 'church fathers.' But the council wished to establish what was normative because of the influence of heretics. Also the council did not only narrowly decide in favour of Jesus being divine (the Son of God), as has been suggested, but decided by a vote of 316 against 2 that the divinity of Jesus was indeed an essential of Christianity.
  
  
• The New Testament formation was not in genuine doubt at the time of this council and almost two hundred years prior to this there was already little serious doubt as to which books were normative for Christian use!
  
  
• The idea that there was peace and harmony everywhere within the Roman Empire until the arguments of Christianity came along to shatter the peace is so completely unhistorical that it is actually laughable! On the contrary, the influence of Christianity after it became an official Roman religion in the 4th century AD was deeply profound as former hideous cruelties and injustices became softened. The place of women is a very good example of this; Women were seen as having few rights in the pagan Roman Empire, especially among the lower class, but Christianity greatly increased the honour and importance of women. No good historian doubts this since the historical evidence is very plain.

These are just some of the wild inaccuracies which flow from the book and film. Here are links to several excellent sources which refute the Da Vinci Code claims in much more detail:

The 'Mona Lisa.'

The Truth About Da Vinci

Not InDavincible

Dismantling the Da Vinci Code

Was There a Da Vinci Conspiracy?

Da Vinci Code Nonsense

The Da Vinci Code; Gnosticism and Conspiracy Theories


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