Letter to Dan Brown
Tice Jenkins
4/16/18
The Da Vinci Code Letter
Christ & the Church
Dear Dan Brown,
Hello, I am Tice Jenkins, a student in Lincoln, NE and more importantly a Christian. I write to you on this day to talk about your book and your claims toward ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ Throughout your book, you commonly tend to mix up your fiction writing with what is true in history. I would like to say that I really enjoyed reading your fiction writings and I think they are very interesting through the creativeness that your bring to it as an author. Relating it now with ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ I would not agree with the different ideas you make, with which you portray it as true history when what you claim is not all true. I will be clarifying these three ideas that I believe you have incorrect in history. The different gospels that Christians believe and clarifying that the way you state we got our gospels are false. Who or what the Priory of Sion truly is. Finally, Mary Magdalene with who she was and how she fits into history.
This was very interesting in how you made up this false claim, in other words I thought it was very clever of you to make this up. You state that the church knew of more than 80 gospels, but only chose four of them. The Nag Hammadi Library (published in 1977) is considered one of, if not the best resource on biblical and extra-biblical history. This library lists a total of 45 titles, and not all of them were gospels, AllAboutGod website states. This comes to conclusion that at best there were 60 works and a strong majority of them were not gospel accounts. The reason why the gospels were chosen and put in the bible because they were inspired by God through the writers. The historical evidence is based on what the main idea of history actually happened. The side stories may vary, but it all comes down to the fact that the 4 different gospels have the same big idea. That’s what shows the credibility of the gospels.
The Priory of Sion you portray is a lot different to what historians say this group truly was. You, Dan Brown, states that the Priory of Sion was established solely to protect the secret bloodline of Jesus Christ. You also claim that this group created the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were warrior monks that went to Solomon’s temple searching through the ruins looking for the documents of Jesus’ bloodline. According to David Witmer, he states in history, “When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, the Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion was founded in Jerusalem by Godefroy de Bouillon. The Abbey (and not “Priory”) continued to exist until 1291, when the advancing Muslims destroyed it. The few surviving monks fled to Sicily, where their community was extinguished the 14th century. In 1956, an occultic group borrowed the name to promote the legend of a holy bloodline.” This being said, this history portrays your claim as false, the Priory of Sion was a group, but they were not exactly when and what you stated in your novel and the movie. There isn’t any historical connection between the “Priory of Sion” and the Templars, Witmer states. The knights actually were there to protect pilgrims coming to and from the holy city. With this information it proves that your claim of the Priory of Sion is false and doesn’t connect to history.
Lastly your last misconfusion is Mary Magdalene and what role she played during Jesus’ time. There is no evidence of Mary Magdalene having a child with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I state this because in the gospels it doesn’t say anything about this news that would be huge in the Christian faith. The 4 gospels have been proven being historically accurate because they all have their side stories, but the main idea of the whole book is the same. Paul L. Mauier states in a video about the Da Vinci Code saying that there are many documentations about the wildfire in Rome and they all have different stories on how the fire came to be. He states that it’s not about how the fire started, but the fact that all the documentations have the same idea of there being a fire. With this being said and there being no historical evidence of her having a child with Jesus this shows your claim is invalid. Some may argue about the picture by Da Vinci “slipping” Mary into the painting of The Last Supper, and it’s significance of Mary. This has no significance because it’s not even her in the picture. Most art historians agree that the Renaissance master simply painted a feminine John to distinguish him as the youngest disciple, Diane Apostolos-Cappandona argues (Cultural Historian at Georgetown University). With this evidence it shows that once again Dan, your claim is invalid
In conclusion, through research and historical evidence the majority of your claims are invalid. I bring this up because those who don’t know much about religious history could get on the wrong trail real quick listening to your claims. I ask that you stop with what you say is truth and look at it again with evidence. I ask that you don’t just use 20% of truth and the other 80% as false claims. Look for the truth through research before you cause confusion in our world to those who are attempting to find the truth.
Sincerely,
Tice Lee Jenkins
Sources:
One thought on “Letter to Dan Brown”
Excellent letter. You provide very strong points that really question the validity of the movie.