Censored?: A Closer Look at the Da Vinci Code

Censored?: a closer look at the Da Vinci Code

Is it blasphemy? Is it truth? After Dan Brown published his fictional novel, The Da Vinci Code the Catholic church of Lebanon declared it "insulting" and banned it. The Government enforced the ban, but this raises an important question. If truth maintains itself to be self evident, then why does it have to be censored? The qualifications of censorship are not easily defined because the criteria is highly subjective. In Brown's novel, he states that the work of fiction that is based on facts. How much of it is really fact? How much is fiction? A critical examination of Brown's work will reveal if this censored work is not true.

In The Da Vinci Code, the two important claims is that Jesus' divinity was "decided " by the pagan Emperor Constantine for political reasons and that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene .

Brown raises the claim that Emperor Constantine was a pagan ruler who used Christianity to his political advantage and rewrote the Bible to exclude information about Jesus' involvement with Mary Magdalene. According to Brown, this was allegedly because Christianty was becoming a rapidly growing religion and he wanted the support of the majority even though he didn't actually believe in Christianity. (Brown) This claim is not valid, because during the rule of Constantine, the number of Christians were small and Constantine would not have politically benefited from a Christian conversion. Eusebias, a fourth-century church historian, describes his conversion as a result from a vision that Constintine had of a gold cross before his victory in battle. After his victory, he declared that he would serve the Christian God. (Eusebias) Although he continued to practice paganism, he did not politically manipulate the Christian religion as Brown describes. Brown also states that the Emperor ordered the council of Nicea to decide on if Jesus was divine or not. This is also invalid. The Council of Nicea was actually ordained to explain the different forms of God as Son and Father being the same but in a different form. Jesus' divinity was already established among Christians in the text of the New Testament long before the Council of Nicea.

Brown claims that that Mary Magdelene and Jesus were allegedly married. This is based on the Gospel of Philip:"Companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than the disiples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. This disciples were offended at this" (Price p214) Brown claims that the term "companion" is derived from the Armaic word "spouse", but Ehrman reminds us that the Gospel of Philip was written in Coptic and the word "companion" is associated with close friends and family. In the novel, Brown also says that "According to Jewish costum, celibacy was condemned, and the obligation