Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code
Good Evening. A Puritan’s Mind brings you the old timeradio program The Wild Boar News Podcast from Sunny SouthFlorida.
Welcome, I’m Dr. Matthew McMahon.
The movie “The Da Vinci Code” directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen was recently released. It grossed almost as much in the opening weekend as the last Star Wars movie which tells you that Americans love fantasy. This, however, is not saying much for the movie itself since the last three of Lucas’ Star Wars prequels were a sore disappointment. “The Da Vinci Code” movie is a take off from the fictional novel written by Dan Brown thatsold over 40 million copies.
Its purpose, simply, to deny the deity of Jesus Christ in the form of intrigue and entertainment. The devil knows that most Americans don’t read their Bible’s, and that indoctrination is much more powerful by way of the media for mushy minds than sitting down to read for eight hours. Those Americans that have not read Dan Brown’s book will no doubt get the cliff noteversion in Ron Howard’s film.
Thankfully, the movie is bombing according to the critics. Out of 100 critics, 6 think the movie is worth seeing. 94 think it is a waste of time. “A jumbled joyless affair that neither entertains nor enlightens.” Another said, “No its not as bad as you’ve heard – its worse.” Another said,“Frankly it’s a stinker.”
In the movie is pressed the concept that the great sting of the ages is that Christ was only human, and married to Mary Magdalene. This, the secret society of the Priory of Sion says is, “the dark con of man.”
One of the main tenants of the movie, and the book for that matter, is that prior to the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. no one believed that Jesus was divine. It was there that Constantine inaugurated the divinity of Christ and had the New Testament documents rewritten. However, the thousands upon thousands of early church documents and manuscripts of the Gospels and New Testament letters, written in the first century, and the copies we have through the second and third centuries, demonstrate Christ as divine. The movie would have you believe that the early Christians believed Jesus was only a mortal. As Tom Hanks character said, very clearly, “Jesus was just a man.” Yet, even if one were to take the writings of the early church father themselves, and pull from them the Scriptures of the New Testament, one would find all but 12 verses of the canon stated succinctly and clearly. From the very beginning, Christians worshiped Jesus as God. Even the church Fathers—all of whom wrote before the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.—affirmed that Christ was God. This is found in the writings of Ignatius (writing in 105 A.D.), Clement (150), Justin Martyr (160), Irenaeus (180), Tertullian (200), Origen (225), Novatian (235), Cyprian (250), Methodius (290), Lactantius (304), and Arnobius (305).
Constantine did not divinitize Christ. As a matter of fact, the Nicean Creed was actually penned in a vague light because the controversy over Arianism was not going to be completely settled for another 50 years. Thus, we know, that if Arius could ascribe to his interpretation of the Nicean Creed believing with Dan Brown that Christ was just a created being, then obviously the poor historical understanding Brown has of history has trickled over and been copied into Ron Howard’s poorer version of the Da Vinci Code. If Constantine had a document penned that allowed for an Arian interpretation, then Brown’s bogus claims are simply a worse sort of dark con.
The movie depicts The Priory of Sion as created in 1099 by the Knights Templar. They are the ones who coined the phrase “the dark con of man” referring to this Christological cover up. However, The Priory of Sion was created in 1956 by a French anti-Semite con man, Pierre Plantard. In 1975, documents were found in the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris that allegedly proved the Priory is as old as 1099, and that Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton and other luminaries secretly presided over it. These documents, however, were proved to be fakes. Since the dark con was a recent con, then Brown has been conned, and his con was copied by Ron. In affect, these men are taking America on ride equivalent to a historical and theological acid trip begun in 1975 by Plantard. The movie winds up being, the dark con of Ron instead.
This is Dr. Matthew McMahon signing off.
