The Da Vinci Codebreaker | James L. Garlow

James L. Garlow. The Da Vinci Codebreaker: An Easy-to-Use Fact Checker. Bethany House, 2006. 208 pp.

According to the New Testament, Mary Magdalene was a disciple of Jesus from whom he cast “seven demons”; she followed him throughout his ministry, witnessed the crucifixion, and, with two other female disciples, discovered the empty tomb.

The Da Vinci Code movie alleges “The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record” (245). In fact, there is not one scrap of evidence in any first-century record that implies a sexual or marital relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Additionally, even if Jesus had married – again, a proposition for which there is no reliable evidence – it wouldn’t be disastrous for Christian faith (as Dan Brown implies), for the Scriptures neither affirm nor deny that Jesus was married. In addition to being completely divine, Jesus was completely human (John 1:18; 1 John 4:2); if he’d had children, they would also have been completely human.

The Da Vinci Code notes “That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early church. The church needed to defame Mary Magdalene to cover up her dangerous secret [i.e., Mary’s role as the spouse of Jesus]” (244).

This is partly correct: she was probably not a prostitute. At the same time, there is also no evidence to suggest that anyone instituted a “smear campaign” to discredit her. A tradition arose in the third and fourth centuries that she was the sinful woman mentioned in Luke 7:36-50 and, perhaps, the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11; in 591, Pope Gregory I included this teaching in a sermon. Although such identifications were probably mistaken, they are far from a slander crusade launched to hide a dangerous secret.

Excerpted from The Da Vinci CodeBreaker: An Easy-to-Use Fact Checker by James L. Garlow with Timothy Paul Jones and April Williams. Copyright © 2006. Publisher: Bethany House.

Like this post? Subscribe to our feed .