A Greater Conspiracy Than The Da Vinci Code
By Adam C. English, Assistant Professor of Theology
Campbell University, Buies Creek, NC
Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003), boasts over 17 million copies in print. Ron Howard has agreed to direct a movie version. Rumor has it that Tom Hanks will star as the dashing and cerebral main character, Robert Langdon (not the actor I would have picked—I can’t get Forrest Gump out of my mind whenever I see Tom Hanks). The fast paced novel has created more than a spark of interest and controversy since its release in 2003. Currently, there are fifteen books, four DVDs, and countless articles that investigate, illuminate, decode, and rebut The Da Vinci Code. The buzz surrounding this novel arises from the conspiracy theory about the life and bloodline of Jesus that is central to the novel’s plot. Essentially, Dan Brown raises the question: What if Jesus had been married? What if his original ministry had been a team effort with his wife and what if his wife (Mary Magdalene) had been written out of the story by the early, male-dominated church? What if he had a child who survived him and who carried on his lineage into the present times?
In The Da Vinci Code, Brown lays out his version of church history where such a scenario becomes possible. Some of his theory is based on good history, some on bad history, some on legend, and some is pure fabrication. The trouble with conspiracy theories is that they are irrefutable, especially the sensational ones like Brown’s. You can’t argue with them. It doesn’t matter that they are not based on sufficient historical evidence. Conspiracy always trumps more plausible yet less imaginative explanations of events because a cover-up is always assumed by conspiracy theorists. For instance, you might ask a conspiracy buff, “Why is there no solid evidence for your particular version of the JFK assassination?” “Because the truth has been expunged by the FBI and CIA for political reasons.” Duh! Credible support for conspiracy theories does not need to exist because it is assumed that the “truth” has been buried, denied, and locked away by the powers that be. We should not expect to find evidence.
The Da Vinci Code’s premise about the early church’s attempt to “cover up” the “truth” about Jesus and his marriage to Mary Magdalene rightly bothers Christians because it cannot be refuted. Bible-believing Christians argue, “The Gospels never say Jesus was married or had a child,” to which the conspiracy theorist responds, “But you can’t trust what the Gospels say. They are a cover story invented by the early Christians.”
One response might be: If the Gospels do put up a front to hide a lie, why then did the Church include four of them in its Scriptures? Why not consolidate the accounts into one standardized biography? Wouldn’t that better insure homogeny of belief? Instead, early Christians forbade harmonizing the Gospels into a single life story. In A.D. 423, Theodoret, the bishop of Cyrrhus, condemned and burned about two hundred copies of Tatian’s Diatessaron—which was nothing more than a compilation of the stories and sayings of the four Gospels into a single narrative. Christians preferred the difficulties of having four separate accounts over a single, harmonized one.
However, there is still no point arguing with conspiracy theories, because the conspiracy trumps all. Instead, Christians should welcome conspiracy theories about Jesus. They can help us remember that the true faith is a conspiracy theory of the most outlandish kind. You think The Da Vinci Code spins a tall tale? Listen to this whopper! Christians claim that Jesus of Nazareth was no ordinary man: he was God’s own son! Yes, the very God who created the universe and who gives life to all, that same God had a son (and by no conventional means either!), and his name was Jesus. The conspiracies get thicker though, because Jesus was put to death by the authorities for a plot he had supposedly cooked up to overthrow them. Little did they know, Jesus’ conspiracy extended much further than Caesar or the Sanhedrin. Jesus did not just claim to be a new King of the Jews or a rival Roman Emperor. Jesus’ kingdom would be on a much greater scale—a new kingdom built not on nationality, ethnicity, walls, gold, or spears. This would be a kingdom not of this world and yet it would include all the peoples of the world.
The plot thickens when the Christians claim that Jesus’ death did not end his bid for a kingship. Jesus was raised from death. Here we find another level of conspiracy. The authorities first charged that the disciples stole the body and were spreading the story of the resurrection. But, ironically, the Gospels portray the disciples as being ignorant not only of the resurrection, but the fact that the body of Jesus was missing. The supposed conspirators were clueless. And when the women at the tomb hear of the resurrection, they seem just as surprised as the soldiers guarding the tomb, fleeing in terror and amazement and telling no one. Not exactly the response you would expect from those “in” on the real story.
All of this conspiring that goes into the good news about Jesus add up to one enormous conspiracy theory, which we call the Gospel: that God has conspired to save his creation in Jesus Christ. The Good News of Christ does not come as a pre-packed, run-of-the-mill factoid of history—it is controversial, inflammatory, and perhaps even absurd. The Gospel does not masquerade as mundane history; it claims to be the center of history, the pole propped under the sheet of all other historical events. The power of the Gospel story is in the implausibility of the plot: that the Creator would sacrifice his son to save what He created. And this we accept by faith, not by the historical reconstruction of likely events. The weakness of God’s story is stronger to save than all of our credible attempts to explain the story.
So, I say, bring on new theories about the life of Jesus. They only serve as appetizers to an even greater, more outlandish conspiracy concocted by God himself—the redemption and reunion of the world.
