More on the Da Vinci Code

Scott McKnight on his Jesus Creed blog has an outline of a talk he did on the Da Vinci code. He makes an excellent point: the Da Vinci Code's central factor is that Jesus was married:

Everything in the DVC rests on one fact: Jesus was married.

1. To disprove this, one must have proof to assert it.
2. Statistics: since all Jewish males were married, Jesus was.
3. The Gnostic Gospels indicate this.
4. Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married.

First, Christians are not afraid of marriage.

Second, when we would expect a wife to appear, she does not: at Crucifixion (mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, John told to take care of Mary, the mother); 1 Cor 9:5: Paul could easily have appealed to Jesus.

Third, Christians told the truth about Jesus’ life: Mark 6:3; Mary as a sotah become na’ap; Joseph as a disgraced tsadiq.

Fourth, Jesus’ teachings about celibacy could well indicate personal life: Matthew 19:10-12; Mark 9:42-48

Fifth, the Gnostic Gospels are (1) late and (2) do not say Jesus was married.

Sixth, had the Magdalene been married, she would have been called “wife of Jesus” and not “from Magdala”.

Another excellent article is by Nancy Calvet-Koyzis 'Re-sexualizing the Magdalene: Dan Brown’s Misuse of Early Christian Documents in The Da Vinci Code ':

In his overwhelmingly popular novel, The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown states that he describes all documents “accurately” when he asserts the theory that Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship with Jesus, was married to him and bore his children. In this article I will examine the sources for Brown’s ideas and compare them to the actual documents–particularly the Gnostic gospels –that he claims to have carefully described. I will argue that Brown not only misrepresents the documents that he claimed to have used but that he actually replicates the errors of the early church by concentrating on Mary’s sexual status rather than upon her status as the apostle to the apostles.