DaVinci Code and the Bible

Last night I was charged with leading our DVC small group. Here’s a snapshot of the notes. Go to the extended version of this post to get the FULL MONTY.

What’s at stake? If the world is convinced that the Bible is
not reliable, than the core beliefs of Christianity can be ignored.

1. Did

   Constantine

   influence the New Testament Canon?

2. Are the Gnostic documents discovered
        at Nag Hammadi historically accurate?
3. Who are Gnostics and what do they
        believe?

DaVinci Code and the Bible

What’s at stake? If the world is convinced that the Bible is
not reliable, than the core beliefs of Christianity can be ignored.

1. Did

   Constantine

   influence the New Testament Canon?

   1. Why was the council of Nicea called?

 i. When

Constantine

defeated Emperor Licinius in 323 AD he ended the persecutions against the
Christian church. Shortly afterwards Christians faced a trouble from within:
the Arian controversy began and threatened to divide the church. The problem
began in

Alexandria

, it started as
a debate between the bishop Alexander and the presbyter (pastor, or priest)
Arius. Arius proposed that if the Father begat the Son, the latter must have
had a beginning, that there was a time when he was not, and that his substance
was from nothing like the rest of creation. The Council of Nicea, a gathering
similar to the one described in Acts 15, condemned the beliefs of Arius and
wrote the first version of the now famous creed proclaiming that the Son was
"one in being with the Father" by use of the Greek word
"homoousius."

 ii. The Canon was not a major part of the meeting, if at
all. By this point, most of the NT Canon was agreed upon.

2. Were 80 texts truly considered at
         Nicea?

 i. No.

 ii. Though Gnostic texts were destroyed when Gnostic
beliefs were declared heretical, these other documents were not considered.

3. What was the result of the Council of
         Nicea?

 i. Many foundational documents

2. Are the Gnostic documents discovered
        at Nag Hammadi historically accurate?
   1. They
            are historically important.
   2. They
            do validate the beliefs that Irenaeus (130-202 AD) wrote about in
            “Against Heresy”
   3. Historically,
            none of the Gnostic gospels date to the times of Jesus.

 i. All written after AD 100 (All NT letters were written
by eye witnesses or completed by 100 AD)

 ii. All authorship is in question (Almost all NT books have
verifiable authors)

 iii. Most blatantly contradict OT (All NT Canon books align
with OT Canon)

 iv. Most were not written in a style similar to the NT.
(Non-narrative or letter format)

3. Who are Gnostics and what do they
        believe?
   1. Gnostic
            systems are typically marked by:

1. The notion of a remote, supreme and unknowable monadic divinity – this figure is known under a
variety of names, including ‘Pleroma‘ and ‘Bythos‘ (Greek ‘deep’);

2. The introduction by emanation of further divine beings,
which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from which they
proceeded; the progressive emanations are often conceived metaphorically as a
gradual and progressive distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about
an instability in the fabric of the divine nature;

3. The subsequent identification of the
Fall of Man as an occurrence within divinity itself, rather than as
occurring partially through human agency; this stage in the divine emanation is
usually enacted through the recurrent Gnostic figure of Sophia (Greek ‘Wisdom’), whose presence in a
wide variety of Gnostic texts is indicative of her central importance;

4. The introduction of a distinct creator god, who is
named as in the Platonist tradition demiurgos.
Evidence exists that the conception of the demiurge has
derivation from figures in Plato’s Timaeus and Republic.
In the former, the demiurge is the benevolent creator of the universe from
pre-existent matter, to whose limitations he is enthralled in creating the
cosmos; in the latter, the description of the leontomorphic ‘desire’ in Socrates‘ model
of the psyche
bears a strong resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the
shape of the lion.
Elsewhere this figure is called ‘Ialdabaoth‘, ‘Samael’ (Aramaic sæm?a-?el, ‘blind god’) or
‘Saklas’ (Syriac
sækla, ‘the foolish one’), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior
God, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly
malevolent.
The demiurge typically creates a group of coactors named ‘Archons‘, who
preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the
soul seeking ascent from it;

5. The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as
flawed or a production of ‘error’ but nevertheless as good as its constituent
material might allow. This world is typically an inferior simulacrum
of a higher-level reality or consciousness. The inferiority may be compared to
the technical inferiority of a painting, sculpture, or other handicraft
to the thing(s) those crafts are supposed to be a representation
of. In certain other cases it is also perceived as evil and constrictive, a
deliberate prison for its inhabitants;

6. The explanation of this state through the use of a
complex mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element ‘falls’ into
the material realm and lodges itself within certain human beings; from here, it
may be returned to the divine realm through a process of awakening. It may be
noted that the salvation of the individual thus mirrors a concurrent
restoration of the divine nature; a central Gnostic innovation was to elevate
individual redemption to the level of a cosmically significant event;

7. Knowledge of a specific kind as a central factor in
this process of restoration, achieved through the mediation of a redeemer
figure (Christ,
or, in other cases, Seth
or Sophia).

2. What do Gnostics believe about Jesus?

 i. They deny the Incarnation of Jesus

 ii. They believe he “took on” deity at his baptism and gave
it up before the resurrection.

1. This belief would make Brown’s argument for a married
Jesus impossible.

Nicene
Creed, Finalized 381 AD

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the
giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.