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| Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Book > Faith & Fiction: The Fallacy of the Da Vinci Code and the Facts of Christianity by Robert M. Solomon Reviewer : Aaron Lee"God [has] an interest in preserving the truth, for the truth [has] to do with His self-revelation in Jesus, and our salvation… the real facts of orthodox Christianity stand up to scrutiny." - Bishop Robert M. Solomon, from the closing chapter of "Faith & Fiction*" A friend of mine told me a lady in his church recently informed her priest that she no longer wished to be baptised, despite having requested and undergone a pre-baptism course. A young believer, she told her priest that her faith had been badly shaken after reading Dan Brown's fictional thriller "The Da Vinci Code" (the DVC). I am not sure how many people have found themselves in the same situation as the lady I mentioned above. But, more than three years after the DVC first climbed the best-sellers' lists, it continues to be in the limelight. It has been recently made into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, and has generated the kind of media hype we have recently seen with Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". More importantly, it has provided a continuing opportunity for us to have conversations with pre-believing friends, family members and colleagues about Jesus Christ and Christianity. Dr. Robert Solomon, Bishop of the Methodist Church in Singapore, has responded to the DVC phenomenon by writing an elegant and concise book. In his preface, he emphasises that Dan Brown's book revives old lies and makes unsubstantiated claims based on unreliable sources. He goes on to warn that since many ordinary Christians know little about church history, there is a real risk that they will be confused or readily believe the falsehood that is presented in the DVC as fact: "the early heresies, Church Councils, Church Fathers and creeds are largely unknown areas of knowledge... ask a Christian how the New Testament was formed and chances are he does not know". This is the context for Dr. Solomon's writing this book and publicly speaking on the DVC on many occasions. Dr. Solomon starts off by succinctly setting out the dozen or so key claims made by Brown in the DVC - claims that purport to strike at the very foundation of Christianity and allege a vast and historical "conspiracy" on the part of the Catholic Church. These allegations are helpfully categorised into two main issues - the reliability of the Bible, and the divinity of Christ. The other claims relating to the 'Holy Grail', the secret society called the "Priory of Sion", the secret codes supposedly embedded in Leonardo da Vinci's artworks, and even the supposed marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, are all addressed in relation to these two issues. Dr. Solomon also examines Brown's resources and, like many others reviewers, he comes away disappointed with Brown's weak scholarship and unscrupulous disregard for the truth. Many of the books which Brown has relied upon in his 'research' are identified as seriously inadequate and unreliable. In fact, it is shown that many of the claims in the DVC merely regurgitate conspiracy theories recently revived by neo-Gnostic writers like Elaine Pagels and the preposterous trinity of Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (joint authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail'). More importantly, Dr. Solomon points out that these books-- and the documents they are based on-- are unable to withstand the same kind of academic and historical scrutiny that the New Testament books have undergone in the past 1,800 years. In the next part of his book Dr. Solomon examines the claim that the New Testament is unreliable and the result of a deliberate attempt by the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine and a group of bishops to shape Christianity for political gain. There is a concise explanation of how the Old Testament came to comprise a recognised body of authoritative books by the time Jesus taught in the synagogues. Dr. Solomon goes on to explicate the process by which the New Testament books were inspired, written, circulated and recognised as authoritative even before 325 A.D. (when the bishops gathered in Nicaea for the first ecumenical council). History clearly shows that the New Testament books were written before the so-called 'gnostic' or secret texts that Brown erroneously cites as evidence of an alternative version of Christ's life and teachings. Hence, bible scholars agree that the Nicaea Council did not arbitrarily and deliberately select some books for the canon and omit others (as Brown claims), but rather that the conviction and widespread practice of the church in regarding certain books as divinely inspired, was officially confirmed in the fourth century. Dr. Solomon quotes the renowned New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger as saying that "the New Testament canon is not an authoritative list of books, but a list of authoritative books". This is illuminating to a Christian who has not previously thought of the New Testament canon in this way. Dr. Solomon rounds off this part of his book by summarising some of the main unorthodox teachings such as Marcionism and Montanism that emerged in the early days of the church - useful information for the seeker who wishes to know the origins of some of the heresies that persist in various forms to this day. The next part of Solomon's book addresses the second key issue raised by the DVC - that the early Christians regarded Jesus Christ as merely human, and that the doctrine of Christ's divinity was due to the powerful manipulations of certain people in the church. Dr. Solomon takes us through an overview of the evidence that Christ's divinity was an integral part of the church's teachings from the very beginning-- starting with the recorded statements Jesus made about Himself, in conjunction with the many miracles He performed, and even in the face of violent opposition from people who accused Him of equating Himself with God. The divinity of Christ is therefore a teaching introduced and claimed by Jesus Himself, not a subsequent invention of the church. In the New Testament, Jesus is called God (theos) seven times, including the account of doubting Thomas confessing Christ as Lord in John 20:27-29. Dr. Solomon goes on to discuss the events at the Council of Nicaea, which was convened to address the heresy of Arianism, a teaching that called into question the divinity of Jesus. The Council drafted and adopted the Nicene Creed, which formalised the key tenets of Christian belief and made clear that there was no place for the Arian heresy. Interestingly, it is pointed out that the vast majority of the bishops present at the Council bore marks of persecution - a testimony to the fact that they were unlikely to be men who took the politically expedient path as claimed in the DVC. Dr. Solomon concludes by saying that in fact, the entire scripture (including the Old Testament) teaches the divinity of Christ, and that the disciples, being eyewitnesses to Christ's work, death and resurrection, consistently taught this doctrine from the beginning. Hence, while Dan Brown is entitled to his personal belief that Christ is not God, his assertion that Jesus' disciples and the early church shared this belief simply cannot be supported. Indeed, the well-established historical record points to the opposite view. What I find especially commendable in Faith & Fiction is that it does not shy away from admitting that the paradox of Christ's identity as both God and man is not easy to understand. However Dr. Solomon shows that this doctrine was revealed in scripture and taught by the Christ's apostles. Crucially, this doctrine has been faithfully passed down over many years, during which time it has been investigated by minds more exacting than Dan Brown's and stood up to scrutiny. Before reading this book, I had heard Bishop Solomon speak on various subjects and I knew him as a gifted communicator with the ability to elucidate difficult issues. Written in clear and accessible prose, Faith & Fiction exposes the problems with the ideas, both the glaring and the subtle, contained in the DVC. Dr. Solomon's book responds to the DVC phenomenon with assurance and challenges us, as followers of the one true God, to know what we believe and why. The theologian Albert Mohler quoted GK Chesterton in reminding us that orthodoxy is not only true; it is infinitely more interesting than heresy. It is alive and compelling and life-changing. Heresies come and go by fashion, but the truth is unchanged and unchangeable. The Christian lady I mentioned at the start of this article agreed to be counselled further on the issues raised by the DVC. It is my hope that she, as well as other Christians who are confused by the spurious messages in the DVC, will come to see that our faith is based on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ. Dr. Solomon's timely book can be a valuable signpost to point them and all of us, to the past and present Jesus that we know, believe and confess as our Lord. *Faith & Fiction: The Fallacy of the Da Vinci Code and the Facts of Christianity by Robert M. Solomon, Genesis Books (2006) People may die for lies that they believe to be truths. But why would someone die for the sake of something he knows to be a lie?
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