Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, is a fascinating intellectual thriller. Based on the beststelling novel of the same name by Dan Brown, the story is part action, part mystery. Robert Langdon (Hanks), a professor who is in Paris for a conference, becomes swept up in a murder, religious intrigue, and a hunt for clues in the Louvre, the famous Paris museum. As he and Sophie Neveu (Tautou) escape from the Louvre and follow more clues, they meet Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) who tells them they're on the trail of one of the most ancient coverups ever perpetrated by the Church: the true nature of Jesus and the Holy Grail.

According to Teabing, the Grail secret is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and still has royal descendants today. And, Teabing says, the Church has been wrong all along about who Jesus really was. Jesus' marriage shows that he unsecured loans was a mere human being after all. No one believed Jesus was divine, Teabing says, until the Roman emperor Constantine, in order to bring peace to the Empire, called the council of Nicea in A.D. 325 in order to make Jesus the divine Son of God. Religious wars and witch hunts were perpetrated by the church to suppress the role of women in church leadership. As the action progresses, Robert, Sophie and Sir Teabing find out just how far the Church will go to hide its secrets.

Has the Church covered up the truth about Jesus? Dan Brown claims that it has. In an interview on NBC's Today show in 2003, Brown claimed, "Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies-all of that is historical fact." The secret societies, of course hid the truth about Jesus and his bloodline. But is this what really happened? Did Jesus really marry Mary Magdalene and have children? Was he a mere human being, or was he the divine Son of God? The answers to these questions are about more than mere intellectual curiosity. How we answer the question about who Jesus was can have a tremendous impact on us and change our lives forever.

It turns out that very little of The Da Vinci Code is based on history. For example:

• There isn't any evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene
• Jesus wasn't made divine by a politically bad credit loans motivated Constantine
• Christianity was never merged with pagan religious practices or deities
• The medieval crusades and witch hunts were not organized persecutions of women

Instead, it turns out that the New Testament is the most reliable history we have about Jesus and early Christianity, and it does say remarkable things about Jesus' words and deeds. Not only does it claim that Jesus was a wise teacher, and respected by many, it claims he did miracles and that he believed he was divine. It also claims that he was crucified, but then rose from the dead. The New Testament goes on to claim that Jesus can give us new life. And you can have new life through Jesus today. Check out the articles below to explore these topics about who Jesus was, and how he can impact our lives now.