Please forgive me.

You are probably thinking, "Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code, and its spin-offs are everywhere, the bookstores, newspapers, television, theaters, and now I even find an article about it in a magazine dedicated to missions!"

And I know how that feels.

I was recently in the U.S. and discovered that, at least for the time, B. Daltons, Waldenbooks, Barnes and Noble and many others have ceased to be bookstores and are now Da Vinci Gimmick Stores. Brown's various books in various editions and covers are surrounded with Da Vinci dictionaries, Da Vinci card and board games, "Explaining the Da Vinci Code" books, even an Atlas of the Da Vinci Code! I searched in vain for an "Exhaustive Concordance of Da Vinci", but surely it's in the making. There are also the myriad of copycat books about the Templar knights, The Priory of Sion and Mary Magdalene. Even stuffy biographies of Leonardo have been spiffed up with enigmatic-looking new covers and offered at an increased price. And then there is the new "Unauthorized Biography of Dan Brown"...

I wish only to make three simple observations about the logic behind Brown's (for the moment) ubiquitous theories, but let me start by admitting that I am only two/thirds qualified to comment.

I thought perhaps I should read this book after a young believer told me that possibly the extra-Biblical events in the movie The Passion actually happened and may appear in the "other gospels, the ones that Constantine left out." He was shocked to hear that this old saw was without historic basis. How could it not be true? After all, it was in The Da Vinci Code! Later, questions in evangelistic Bible studies strengthened the idea. Finally, seeing that the book is number one in sales in Latin America solidified my decision to read it.

I wasn't able to keep that decision, however.

I found myself so frustrated by Brown's convoluted logic, unfounded assertions and blatantly poor scholarship that I threw the book in the garbage can when I was only two-thirds through.

Here, then, are my two-thirds qualified observations. Dan Brown, in his book The Da Vinci Code, made (at least) three glaring logical errors:

1. Brown contends that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that such a marriage proves conclusively that Jesus is not God.

Jesus Christ was not married to Mary or anyone else. Not only is there no reference or even hint of this in the Bible (Brown would say these have been removed) but there is not a single shred of historical evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. Not even the gnostic Jesus-stories (pseudo-gospels like the Gospel of Judas, written two to four hundred years after Christ's resurrection), say they were married.

But forget that.

Consider what Brown is saying: Jesus was obviously not God if He was married because... Because what? Though no one who believes the Bible or studies history seriously buys into this marriage story, all Christians can genuinely ask, What is the evil in marriage that Brown concludes would negate Christ's claims? This supposition shows us more about Brown's idea of marriage than it does about Christ, the Bible or the truth.

Brown is apparently unaware that one of the reasons Christians know Jesus did not marry Mary Magdalene is that He is soon to be married! His Bride is anxiously looking forward to the great wedding feast, and Jesus Christ looks forward also to that day, the day when He, the promised Messiah of Israel, God in the flesh, will be married in the most important marriage ceremony of all history! Marriage, according to the Scripture, is honourable, and this future marriage obviously does not negate Christ's claims.

2. Brown's second key supposition leaves us spiraling: First we hear that the proof that Jesus is not God is that He married Mary Magdalene. Then we are told that Mary Magdalene, by virtue of her marriage to Jesus, becomes a goddess! This transposition is made complete when we discover that she not only ascends from everyday Jewish girl to goddess by marrying (a "non-divine") Jesus, but is now somehow in the line of goddesses, along with Astarte, Isis, Diana and Venus!

3. Finally, Brown tells us that the truth about the goddess Mary Magdalene has been suppressed all these centuries by the Roman Catholic Church because they are opposed to professing Christians worshipping a woman! In fact, Brown argues, they have been on the forefront of fighting all forms of worship of a woman, even criminalizing it as witchcraft.

Does anybody see a contradiction here?

The Roman Catholic Church says that Mary (not Magdalene but the mother of Jesus) is the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven. They teach she was born without sin, ascended into heaven without dying, is co-redeemer, co-mediator, the mediator of all grace and our advocate before God. They teach that she prays for us, should be prayed to, is to be worshipped and can take us to heaven. Does this sound like a church that opposes goddess worship?

CONCLUSION:
There is nothing new (and too little true) in Dan Brown's book. Combining rumor, fraud and conspiracy theory from sources as reputable as the Flat Earth Society, he has forged a thriller that has captured attention and filled his pockets. When challenged about the myriad of factual, historical, logical or even geographical errors in his books, Brown has responded that, after all, it is just a novel.

Nothing in this novel will change the truth of the Gospel and in five years time it will be all but forgotten. You will see Da Vinci board games in garage sales by next summer.

We do, however, have an opportunity that we should take. Dan Brown and Tom Hanks have put the name of Jesus in the mouth of the man on the street. Have you considered holding a Bible study at work or in your neighborhood about The True Jesus? Take people the Original Source Documents to find out who this Jesus is.

This is the real way to break the Da Vinci Code.