( Movie Image by Getty Images via Daylife)

Ron Howard’s new movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s 2000 novel Angels and Demons just came out this week. This is the long waited sequel to The Da Vinci Code. This time the work is exploring themes of science verses religion with Christianity and particularly Catholicism in the cross-hares.

Westminster Theological Seminary has already launched a Web site www.thetruthaboutangelsanddemons.com designed to look at all the claims made in the film and answer questions raised in response to the work. Particularly to deal with impressions given in the book and in the movie that there is some kind of on-going struggle between science and religion that at some point will be totally resolved scientifically.

The purpose of the site is to delineate between fact and fiction.            *Top

Related Posts?:

1. -“It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Coming”

Many recent writers, particularly Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code, have insisted that the ‘divinity of Jesus Christ’ was a later teaching that was formulated by Constantine and later Christian leaders in the 4th century.

The late 2nd-3rd century structure had an elaborate mosaic floor that contained motifs of fish, and had 3 inscriptions. The most important:

“the God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”

Recently a film crew was granted access to the site in order to produce a documentary–The Life of Jesus–due to air on Australian television in April 2009 and later to be released on DVD.

Response: The early Christian structure is important because it proves that the divinity of Jesus was taught much earlier than some have contended. Some have speculated that it was not taught in the church until the 4th century during the reign of Constantine, that it was a fabrication of the Council of Nicea (325).

However, most Christian Bible scholars and theologians find that the Divinity of Jesus is clearly taught in the New Testament writings of the 1st century and not a later development.            *Top 

This is an excellent book for dealing with the myriad of historical problems presented in the novel by Dan Brown.  In Part One, Dr. Paul Maier points out all the major historical/religious problems and challenges made in The Da Vinci Code.  It is particularly helpful in citing the page numbers where the claim was made in the novel.  Of all the books I have looked at on this subject, this is the best summary of the issues, and the easiest to access.  In Part Two, the ‘Bible Answer man’ Hank Hanegraaff, presents a more detailed documentation of the major issues raised by the novel, and keys in on the reliability of the New Testament documents themselves.  The Da Vinci Code novel challenged Christianity in a variety of ways, and this book meets that challenge and more.

*Top

     The long awaited ‘block-buster’ movie is finally here, but is it really deserving of the title, or is it a ‘bust’, or maybe something in between?  Maybe it is just ‘good’ or ‘very good’.  The 40 million best-seller book created an impossible task for the movie director, writers & stars.  Is it really possible to satisfy all the fans of the book and stay true to the original story line, without further alienating millions of Christians, who view the work as an attack on their faith & their God?  No, not really!

     The book was fast-paced and full of suspense.  The movie is prodding, predictable, and indecisive, with no real resolution.  The book is full of ancient codes & cryptic symbols which must be solved along the way.  The movie just floats from one site to the next with very little effort.  The characters in the book are multi-dimensional & full of surprises, while the character development in the movie is quite minimal.  The representatives of the Church are the bad guys, of coarse.  The movie really tells us nothing about Robert Langdon, and there is no relationship developing between Robert and Sophie Neveu.  The movie gives you very little reason to care for any of these people.  One interesting contrast in the movie however, is Leigh Teabing’s insufferably long diatribe against Christianity, with Robert Langdon’s half-hearted anemic defense of the Church.  This was really not in the book, but probably some sort of tiny ‘bone’ thrown for the benefit of Christian critics.

     In the end, there is no real convincing climax, only an improbable possibility shown, in order to come to some sort of resolution.  If you had never read the book, the movie might be good, even very good.  The one really good thing about the movie, you were able to actually see all the sights portrayed in the book, and that was awesome. 

     If you are a serious Christian like myself, the movie is ‘over the top’ offensive in Teabing’s incredibly long attack, you just want to scream- “no, no, no way! – That is not correct! Not even close!”  If you are a Catholic Christian, be prepared, because in the ‘Da Vinci Code’ world view, all evil emanates from The Church.  The most developed characters in the movie, are the ‘killer’ monk & his Bishop.  The movie actually succeeds in being more ‘anti-Christian’ than I ever expected it to be.  This was a surprise.  When you read the book, you can put it down and scream a little, and come back to it several days later. But with the movie, you are subjected to all the negative propaganda in 2 1/2 hours.  It manages to present, or mention nearly all of the “Top Ten- False claims made in the Book”, that I cited in a previous article (See: my article on my Home Page).

*Top 

1.  ‘Sex Ritualism’ played a major part in early Jewish & Christian worship. (p.309)

     There is no factual basis for this claim.  In fact, the people who surrounded ancient Israel all had religions which had some form of sexual ritualism, but the ancient Hebrew faith had numerous teachings and prophetic pronouncements against their people participating in those ‘false’ religions.  The early Christians lived among the Greeks & Romans who had numerous ’sexual’ cults, temple ‘prostitute’ priestesses, and city-wide official orgies.  The early Christians were expected to reject those practices when they converted to Christianity. 

2.  The ‘Sacred Feminine’ was part of the early Jewish & early Christian faith.

     Again, totally false.  The early Hebrew religion was monotheistic, they believed in only one God.  The early Christians were a continuation of the Hebrew faith.  There was never a ‘godess’ in either religion, although the surrounding cultures were dominated by matriarchal paganism.  

3.  The Jewish sacred name of God–YHWH, is derived from the name ‘Jehovah’, a combination of the masculine ‘Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, ‘Havah’. (p. 309)

     Totally false.  YHWH, is derived from the Hebrew verb-’to be’.   

4.   Jesus was viewed as a prophet & just a man, before he was deified by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD by a close vote. (p. 233) 

     The four gospels that taught the ‘divinity’ of Jesus were written between 50-90 AD.  The NT epistles were written in the same time frame, and also taught that Jesus was divine.  All within the lifetime of the original observers of the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles.  Numerous writings of the early church Fathers (1st-4th century writings) also supported the divinity of Christ.  The Counsel of Nicea didn’t debate the divinity of Jesus, that was considered a given.  The Counsel was convened to come to an understanding about the ‘Eternity’ and eternal nature of Jesus.  The  final vote was 300-2, in favor of recognizing the co-eternal relationship between the Father & the Son. 

5.  Jesus married Mary Magdalene, it is a matter of historical record.  (p. 244)

     There is no record or early reference of Jesus marrying anyone.  The reference cited by Brown is the so-called ‘Gospel of Phillip’ an apocryphal gospel of the 3rd century, written 200 years after the fact.  Also, the ‘Gospel of Mary Magdalene’ is cited coming from the same time period.  No historical scholar would contend that there are any historical facts, of the 1st century, contained in these two late references.

6.  The New Testament is based upon fabrications & lies of the Church (p. 267,341,407). 

     It is the other way around, the church is based upon the teaching of the New Testament.  The authentic New Testament writings were written in the first century by the Apostles or those who were close to them. 

7.  Over 80 gospels were written, but only four were included in the Bible.  (p. 231)

     There were around thirty so-called ‘gospels’ written, however, only four were actually written in the first century by those who were Apostles or close to Apostles, & actual observers of the ministry of Jesus.  It was only those four, came to be recognized as authoritative by early Christians, and later were included in the New Testament.  The other ‘gospels’ were written in the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th centuries.

8.  Constantine upgraded Jesus to divine and tried to destroy thousands of documents which chronicled his life as a ‘mortal man’. (p. 234) He chose the New Testament books.

     Early Christians from the 1st century on believed in the deity & the humanity of Jesus.  Constantine did not originate any Christian teaching, nor did he attempt to destroy early Christian writings. Constantine had nothing to do with the composition of the New Testament.

 9.  The ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ were found in the 1950’s, containing writings which Constantine attempted to destroy. (p. 234)  The Vatican tried to suppress the release of these scrolls.  9p. 234)

     The ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ were found in 1947. They did not contain ‘Christian’ writings & the Vatican did not try to stop their publication.  They were Old Testament & early Jewish cultic writings.  

10.  The feminine looking person next to Jesus in Da Vinci’s Last supper was Mary Magdalene. 

     There is no basis in fact for this claim.  John the Apostle was close to Jesus & was characterized as quite young or effeminate in numerous paintings of that time period.

(major source:  ”The Da Vinci Code Fact or Fiction?, By Hank Hanegraaff & Paul L Maier.  ‘Da Vinci Code’ page references  were found in this book, pg. 2-40.) 

*Top