Some of you were wondering about the Da Vinci Code.  This is a long 
read, but if you want documentation and a read by somebody who does 
his research, read this article by David Cloud.

Text of forwarded message follows:

>----- Original Message ----- From: "FBIS News Service" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>THE DA VINCI CODE MYTH
>
>May 14, 2006 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service,
>P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143,
>[log in to unmask]; for instructions about subscribing and
>unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at
>the end of the article) -
>
>The Da Vinci Code, which is a bold attack upon the Christian faith,
>has taken the world by storm. The book, first published in March
>2003, has sold more than 40 million copies, and the Sony Pictures
>movie starring Tom Hanks, scheduled for release on May 19, 2006, is
>expected to be a blockbuster. The book has received rave reviews in
>hundreds of newspapers and journals. It is so popular that Da Vinci
>Code tours are now conducted to the various sites that are mentioned
>in the book, such as the Louvre Museum and St. Sulpice Church in
>Paris and Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. I fly about 75,000 miles a year
>these days and on practically every flight I take, I see someone
>reading The Da Vinci Code.
>
>Woven integrally into the storyline of this fast-paced novel is a
>wild-eyed theory that Jesus was a mere man who married Mary Magdalene
>and had a child by her; she was not only his wife but the chief
>apostle and the recipient of the "truth" about goddess religion and
>the "sacred feminine." One of the main characters in the Da Vinci
>Code says: "Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the
>future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene" (p. 248).
>After Jesus' death Mary Magdalene and the child fled to Europe and
>married into a bloodline that still exists. Mary Magdalene and her
>bloodline are presented as the very "Holy Grail" of ancient folk lore
>(the quest for the Holy Grail first appeared in a 12th-century
>novel). Brown's novel alleges that the Roman Catholic Church invented
>the doctrine of Jesus Christ's deity in the fourth century,
>suppressed the "truth" about Mary Magdalene, and has covered up this
>truth throughout the centuries. The suppressed "truth" was maintained
>from generation to generation by a secret society known as the Priory
>of Sion that had some famous members, including Isaac Newton and
>Leonardo Da Vinci. These people passed along the "truth" by means of
>secret codes, the most famous of which is the alleged symbolism in Da
>Vinci's painting The Last Supper. According to Brown, the disciple
>sitting to the right of Jesus in this painting is not the apostle
>John but Mary Magdalene.
>
>Though the Da Vinci Code is a novel, it purports to be based upon
>historical facts. In an introductory note Brown writes that "all
>descriptions of documents and secret rituals are accurate." On an ABC
>News special Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci (Nov. 3, 2003), Brown said
>that he believes the book's thesis. In an interview on Good Morning
>America that same day he said that if he were to write a nonfiction
>piece on these things he would change nothing about what he claimed
>in the novel (Darrell Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, p. 3).
>
>Bible-believing Christians will not be deceived by The Da Vinci Code,
>but it has created confusion in the minds of many. A pastor's wife
>told me recently that a relative enthusiastically exclaimed to her
>after reading the book, "Now I know for a fact that the Bible isn't
>true." A survey taken in Canada in 2005 found that 32% of those who
>had read the Da Vinci Code believed its story line ("Canadian Readers
>Believe Da Vinci Code," The Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2005).
>
>The Da Vinci Code is a unique opportunity to witness to people about
>the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A Zogby International poll that was taken
>in the first week of March 2006 found that after either reading or
>hearing about the Da Vinci Code, 44% of those surveyed said they were
>more likely to seek the truth by studying the Bible ("Most Americans
>Believe Bible over 'Da Vinci' Polls Shows," Baptist Press, March 8,
>2006).
>
>It is a good opportunity to explain to Da Vinci Code readers that
>while the Roman Catholic Church has taught many false things, it did
>not invent the New Testament account of Jesus Christ, and to
>challenge them to study the New Testament for themselves and to
>consider the claims of the Gospel.
>
>The following are some of the important questions that the Da Vinci
>Code raises:
>
>WAS JESUS MARRIED TO MARY MAGDALENE AND DID THEY HAVE CHILDREN?
>
>The idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children is
>not only contrary to the Bible but is contrary even to the testimony
>of the gnostic gospels of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. There is not the
>slightest evidence of such a thing.
>
>First let's consider what the Bible says about Mary Magdalene. She is
>mentioned in nine passages, most of which are in reference to
>Christ's death and resurrection. She was healed of demon possession
>and was a part of the entourage of women that sometimes accompanied
>Jesus (Luke 8:1-3). She was present at the cross (Mat. 27:55-56; Mark
>15:40-41; John 19:25). She was at the tomb when Jesus was placed in
>it (Mat. 27:61). She returned to the tomb after Jesus' resurrection
>and was the first to see the resurrected Christ (Mat. 28:1; Mk.
>16:1-10; Lk. 24:10; Jn. 20:1-18). In the Bible Mary Magdalene is
>never mentioned as having any special relationship to Jesus other
>than as a disciple.
>
>Even theological modernists today admit that the four Gospels were
>written during the lifetime of the apostles. Paul was a former enemy
>of the Christian faith and after his conversion he wrote epistles to
>the young churches only two and three decades after the events
>described in the Gospels, when many of the eyewitnesses of the
>resurrection were still alive, and he supported their testimony with
>his own. For example, he wrote the following in the first epistle to
>Corinth:
>
>"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
>unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which
>also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you,
>unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of
>all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
>according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose
>again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen
>of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five
>hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this
>present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of
>James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me
>also, as of one born out of due time" (1 Cor. 15:1-8).
>
>Paul's epistle to Corinth was written in the middle of the first
>century, almost 300 years before Constantine and the Nicene Council.
>
>History tells us that the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
>John) were accepted as authentic right away by the churches. We have
>a partial list of New Testament books that were accepted as
>authoritative that dates to the second century and its lists the
>traditional four Gospels. From the second century we also have
>quotations from Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Tatian, proving that the
>four Gospels were in existence and that most Christians accepted them
>as authoritative. Irenaeus wrote against the false teachers of that
>day and in his work Refutation of all Heresies he lists all four
>Gospels and warned that heretics were trying to pervert the doctrine
>of Jesus Christ.
>
>This is irrefutable historical evidence of the historicity of the
>four Gospels. The Da Vinci Code claims that it was not until the
>fourth century that Jesus was depicted as the divine, virgin born,
>resurrected Christ, but this is pure nonsense. This testimony dates
>to the very beginning of the churches in the first half of the first
>century.
>
>The historicity and authority of the four Gospels is also evidenced
>by the Old Testament, which was completed 400 years before Jesus was
>born. The Old Testament writers delivered amazing prophesies that
>described every aspect of Jesus' life long before He came into the
>world. His birthplace was named in Micah 5:2. His virgin birth was
>described in Isaiah 7:14. His sinless life, in Isaiah 53:9; His
>miracles, in Isaiah 35:5; His wonderful speech, in Isaiah 50:4; His
>rejection by the Jewish nation, in Isaiah 53:2; His crucifixion, in
>Psalm 22:16; His burial in a rich man's tomb, in Isaiah 53:9; and His
>resurrection on the third day, in Psalm 16.
>
>The historicity of the New Testament is unimpeachable. Its writers
>suffered and died for their eyewitness testimony that Jesus was the
>only Lord and Saviour and that He had risen from the dead, which
>would have been a ridiculous thing to do had it been a fable.
>
>Not only do the New Testament Gospels and Epistles refute the idea
>that Jesus was married, so do the gnostic gospels that Dan Brown
>refers to in his novel. These alleged gospels were written in the
>second to the fourth centuries and present a different gospel and a
>different Christ than the New Testament writings, but even these
>gnostic gospels do not depict Mary as the wife of Jesus. The very
>best evidence of such a thing is found in the Gospel of Philip, which
>dates to the third century, but it is flimsy to say the last. It says
>Jesus "loved her [Mary] more than the disciples [and used to] kiss
>her on her [the rest of this passage has not survived]." Even if we
>were to accept the authority of this gnostic gospel (and we do not)
>it says nothing about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene and
>bearing children by her. Authorities on gnostic gospels believe the
>passage is referring to a spiritual relationship and not a physical
>one. Even the liberal Harvard Professor Karen King does not believe
>it refers to a physical relationship. Another gnostic gospel, the
>Gospel of Mary Magdala, which dates to the second century, presents
>Mary Magdalene as the recipient of divine revelation but it says
>nothing about her being the wife of Jesus.
>
>There simply is no trace of evidence from the early centuries for
>this wild-eyed theory. It is a figment of someone's overactive,
>demon-inspired imagination.
>
>WAS JESUS FIRST DECLARED DIVINITY IN THE 4TH CENTURY IN THE DAYS OF
>CONSTANTINE?
>
>According to the Da Vinci Code, Jesus was not proclaimed as Deity
>until the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., three hundred years after He
>lived, but this theory is as ridiculous and non-historic as the one
>that says Jesus was married.
>
>The Council of Nicea was called by the Emperor Constantine to settle
>a doctrinal controversy that was raging. A church leader named Arius
>from Alexandria, Egypt, was teaching that Jesus was not God, and this
>doctrine had spread to many churches. Egypt was a hotbed of
>theological heresies and the home of most of the gnostic gospels. The
>Council voted to reject Arius' doctrine. The important point to
>understand about this Council for our purposes is that it did not
>invent doctrine; it merely affirmed the doctrine that had been held
>as orthodox by most churches since Pentecost. Constantine, by the
>way, was not a regenerate Christian; he worshipped the sun and was
>only a Christian nominally.
>
>The fact is that Jesus was worshipped as God by Christians from the
>very beginning. The four Gospels, which were written in the first
>century, present Him as God. The Gospel of John, for example,
>presents Him as the eternal Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and
>the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The Pauline
>Epistles, written in the middle of the first century, also present
>Jesus as God. For example, in Philippians 2:6 Paul writes of Jesus,
>"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal
>with God."
>
>WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SO-CALLED GOSPELS?
>
>According to the Da Vinci Code, the Gospels in our Bibles were only
>four among 80 competing ones that circulated among the Christians and
>that were considered for inclusion in the New Testament and they were
>not proclaimed divinely inspired and canonized until the fourth
>century in the days of Constantine (Da Vinci Code, p. 231).
>
>In fact, as we have already seen, the four Gospels were considered
>authentic and apostolic from the very beginning of the churches. We
>have second century quotations from church leaders who defended the
>four Gospels against heretical writings. Irenaeus wrote, "It is not
>possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than
>they are" (Against Heresies, 3:11.8). He defended the four Gospels
>because they were written either by the apostles (Matthew and John)
>or by men directly associated with the apostles (Mark and Luke).
>
>As for the other "gospels," there were not many of them and they were
>never given serious consideration for inclusion in the canon of the
>New Testament Scripture. The Nag Hammadi Library, consisting of 45
>early gnostic writings discovered in the Egyptian desert in 1945 and
>published in English in 1977, contains only five works known as
>gospels: the gospel of Truth, the gospel of Thomas, the gospel
>according to Philip, the gospel of the Egyptians, and the gospel of
>Mary Magdalene. We also know about the gospel of Nicodemus, the
>gospel of Peter, and the gospel of Judas, which was recently
>translated and published.
>
>The reason that these alleged gospels were rejected by the early
>Christians was that they were not associated with the Lord's apostles
>and they taught doctrine that was contrary to the teaching of the
>apostles and that was even downright weird. The Gospel of Thomas
>contains an account of alleged miracles performed by Jesus when he
>was a child and depicts him as petulant and disobedient, so much so
>that Mary and Joseph's neighbors beg them to take him away. According
>to one gnostic gospel the child Jesus even kills a playmate and then
>raises him from the dead to avoid punishment. The Gospel of Judas
>presents Judas as the head disciple who received special revelation
>and who betrayed Jesus only because Jesus asked him to do so.
>According to Irenaeus, the Gospel of Judas was produced by the
>Egyptian Cainite Gnostics who claimed that Cain, Esau, the Sodomites,
>Korah, Judas, and other villains of biblical history were actually
>the enlightened heroes who valiantly kept the truth in a dark world.
>According to this cult, a god named Hystera created the world and
>another deity called "Sophia" allegedly assisted the aforementioned
>people (Refutation of All Heresies, book I, chapter 31,
>http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-58.htm#P6155_1380364).
>
>The Gnostics denied the God of the Old Testament, replacing Him in
>some cases with two gods: the Pleroma, who is an eternal, spiritual
>god and has no connection with the material world, and the Demiurge,
>who is an evil god that created the physical universe. According to
>the Gnostics, the objective of salvation was to understand the
>mystery about the universe and to be freed from the prison of
>materiality. This required coming to the secret gnosis or knowledge,
>and only some special members of the human race could ever expect to
>arrive at this knowledge.
>
>The Gnostic gospels denied the Jesus' of the New Testament in a
>variety of ways. Some divided the eternal Christ from the man Jesus.
>When the man Jesus died on the cross the Christ spirit was separated
>from him and was "glad and laughing above the cross" (Apocalypse of
>Peter, 81:4-24; Second Treatise of Great Seth, 56:6-19). He was
>allegedly laughing at the world's ignorance. Other Gnostics said
>Jesus was a phantom or apparition. The Acts of John, for example,
>claimed that Jesus did not leave footprints.
>
>It was not any sort of conspiracy that caused the Gnostic gospels to
>be rejected by the vast majority of Christians for the past 2,000
>years. It was the simple fact that when we leave the four Gospels and
>enter the world of Gnosticism, we enter a world of make believe and
>nonsense. The Gnostic gospels were mostly created in Egypt, where no
>apostles ministered and where no part of the New Testament was
>written. (For more about the Gnostic writings and the canonization of
>Scripture see our book Faith vs. the Modern Versions, available from
>Way of Life Literature.)
>
>COULD THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPRESS THE TRUTH FOR 2,000 YEARS?
>
>According to the Da Vinci Code, the Roman Catholic Church invented
>the doctrine that Jesus is God and has foisted this doctrine upon the
>world throughout church history. Is this possible?
>
>The Roman Catholic Church was most assuredly a powerful institution
>during much of church history, and it did try to control people's
>thinking and foist its dogmas upon all men; but there were always
>large numbers of churches and individuals that did not bow to its
>authority. We could mention the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the
>Lollards, and the Anabaptists, for example. These were groups of
>Christians living in Europe throughout the Dark Ages who opposed the
>Roman Catholic Church and its doctrine. Multitudes of these
>Christians were put to death by Rome; entire towns were destroyed in
>an attempt to destroy them; but Rome was never able to silence them
>entirely. It is ridiculous to believe that these churches, which
>called Rome the Harlot of Revelation 17 and the Pope the Antichrist,
>would accept any of Rome's lies even if it were true that Rome were
>trying to hide the truth about Christ. In contrast to the Priory of
>Sion and the Knights Templars of the Da Vinci Code, who kept their
>alleged secrets alive through secret codes, the separatist Christians
>published and distributed their writings and New Testament
>translations, plainly stating their doctrine in the language of the
>common man.
>
>In the 16th century the Protestant Reformation broke out in all of
>its fury and Rome lost even more of its ability to control the
>people's thinking. By the 17th century, Rome had lost much of its
>former empire. Entire nations had thrown off the yoke, including
>Germany and England, and America was on its way to becoming a bastion
>of free thinking and complete religious liberty.
>
>Rome was never able to entirely dominate the world's thinking, but
>none of the separatist Christians (and non-Christians) who resisted
>Rome from the 4th to the 17th centuries held anything like the views
>promoted in the Da Vinci Code. (For more about the separatist
>Christians and the battle for truth during the Dark Ages see the
>Advanced Bible Studies Series A History of the Churches from a
>Baptist Perspective, available from Way of Life Literature.)
>
>WHAT ABOUT DA VINCI'S PAINTING?
>
>According to the Da Vinci Code, Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting
>The Last Supper contains a secret code promoting the supremacy of
>Mary Magdalene. The novel gives two "evidences" for this view: First,
>there is a V shape between Jesus and the figure to His right, and
>this, we are told, is not merely because Da Vinci depicted Jesus and
>the figure to His right leaning away from each other and thus
>creating a natural and innocuous V shape but is a symbol for the
>feminine. Second, the figure to Jesus' right has a feminine
>appearance and must therefore be Mary and not John.
>
>In fact, no reputable art historian believes that these are secret
>symbols or that Mary Magdalene is depicted in this painting.
>
>Da Vinci and other homosexual artists of that day, including
>Michelangelo, often painted feminine men. Da Vinci's painting of John
>the Baptist, for example, depicts a very feminine man with curly hair
>befitting a woman and a strange sensual expression. It is commonly
>believed that Da Vinci was a homosexual. He lived with a younger male
>artist and surrounded himself with handsome young male models. His
>biographer, Michael White, wrote: "He was a homosexual vegetarian
>born out of wedlock who received very little formal education and was
>excluded by birthright from almost all professions. ... It is
>possible that up to this time [the time of his arrest] he had felt no
>real guilt about his homosexuality, that it had either been natural
>to him, or else he accepted it as part of his self-image; after all,
>there were certainly plenty of role models [in other Florentine
>painters] for him" (The First Scientist, 2000, pp. 7, 72).
>
>In fact, the Jesus depicted in Da Vinci's Last Supper is also 
>feminine looking.
>
>WHAT ABOUT THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR?
>
>According to the Da Vinci Code, the Knights Templar of the Dark Ages
>was an organization that attempted to maintain the secret of Mary
>Magdalene, but there is not a hint of evidence to support this. The
>Knights Templar was a monastic order founded in 12th century to
>protect Roman Catholic pilgrims on crusades to the Holy Land. The
>Order was accused of heresy and dissolved in 1311, but the charges
>were dropped in 1314 after no evidence of heresy was found. There is
>not a shred of evidence to connect the Knights Templar to the Holy
>Grail. Their wealth came from rich people they helped. They "invented
>international banking," establishing an ingenious system whereby
>someone could deposit money in one place and receive it another. King
>Philip destroyed the Knights Templar for the simple reason that he
>wanted their wealth.
>
>MANY OTHER MYTHS IN THE DA VINCI CODE
>
>The Discovery Channel special "The Real Da Vinci Code," August 13,
>2005, exposed the error of all of the alleged facts upon which the
>novel's theories are based. Tony Robinson, who hosted the special,
>concludes: "The Da Vinci Code casts a spell that causes people to
>fail to discern between fact and fiction."
>
>Following are some of the facts brought out in this documentary:
>
>The idea that the Holy Grail is a secret that Jesus was married and
>left a bloodline first appeared in Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by
>Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh (1982).
>
>Holy Blood and Holy Grail claims that the Priory of Sion was an
>organization that was founded in 1099 and that created the Knights
>Templar to maintain the secret Mary doctrine. Historians, though,
>have proven that this is a hoax and that the documents upon which it
>was based, such as a list of Grand Masters that includes the name of
>Leonardo Da Vinci, are forgeries. The Priory of Sion was actually a
>minor political organization set up in France in 1956 by a man named
>Plantard, who, in turn, denounced Holy Blood and Holy Grail's claim
>that he was a descendant of Jesus.
>
>The Institute of Theological Research at King's College is not an
>institute as such but a sort of theological "think tank" and a member
>of the institute said, "We don't have a database of any kind
>whatsoever."
>
>There is no evidence from the history of the Cathars that they held
>any sort of Da Vinci Code doctrine.
>
>The Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland appears in the Da Vinci Code as a
>place where the Knights Templar hid their secrets. Built by William
>Sinclair in 1440, there is no evidence that it has ever been
>associated with the Da Vinci Code myth. Historian Robert Cooper
>testified, "As far as I am aware there is no connection between the
>Knights Templar and Rosslyn Chapel." The embroidery there that
>supposedly depicts Solomon's Temple actually depicts the Tabernacle
>in the wilderness, as any Bible student will recognize, and since it
>is based on the coat of arms depicted on the same embroidery it
>cannot be older than the 17th century and thus does not date from the
>time that the chapel was built and the time when the alleged secrets
>were hidden in it.
>
>The Da Vinci Code's theory that Mary Magdalene went to France with
>her child that was fathered by Jesus has no historic basis
>whatsoever. Margaret Starbird, who authored The Woman with the
>Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail, points to a legend
>in southern France that is re-enacted each year of a boat arriving
>with women and a girl. Starbird claims that the boat contained Mary
>Magdalene and her daughter by Jesus named Sarah, but in fact the
>locals claim that Sarah was the Egyptian servant of three Marys, Mary
>Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacobi, and not Mary's child.
>
>One of the authors of Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was asked by on
>the Discovery Channel documentary if he and his fellow authors had
>found any evidence that Jesus had a child. He replied, "None
>whatsoever. It was purely a hypothesis on our part."
>
>The things described in the Da Vinci Code in relation to St. Sulpice
>Church in Paris are so grossly inaccurate that the church distributes
>a paper listing them. For example, the candlesticks mentioned in the
>novel weigh about 200 pounds each and could not have been used as a
>weapon for one man to kill another.
>
>The same is true for the things mentioned in the Da Vinci Code in
>reference to Westminster Abbey in London. The abbey, one of London's
>top tourist attractions, has issued tour guides with information
>sheets to correct the factual errors that are stated in the novel.
>
>WHAT IF THE DA VINCI CODE IS TRUE?
>
>If the premise of this novel is true the Bible is a lie and the four
>Gospels are a myth; Jesus was not the virgin-born Son of God; He did
>not rise from the dead and did not ascend back to heaven.
>
>If the premise of this novel is true there is no Gospel and no hope.
>It would mean that Jesus Christ did not die and shed his blood on the
>cross for man's sin and did not rise again for the justification of
>those who believe.
>
>The reader has a clear choice between the Gospel of Jesus Christ as
>it is found in the New Testament and the teaching of the Da Vinci
>Code. If the Da Vinci Code is true, there is no gospel and no need of
>a gospel and it really doesn't matter what one believes because there
>is no lost condition and no Saviour. The Jesus of the Da Vinci Code
>was a mere man who taught a message of peace and unity and feminism
>and then died.
>
>On the other hand, if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, those who
>die without faith in Christ spend eternity in Hell. This was the
>testimony of the apostle John who sat at Jesus' right hand at the
>Last Supper:
>
>"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and
>this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that
>hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written
>unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know
>that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the
>Son of God" (1 John 5:11-13).
>
>I thank God that The Da Vinci Code is fiction and that I can testify
>with the apostle Paul:
>
>"For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am
>not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
>he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that
>day" (2 Timothy 1:12).
>
>"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom
>the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe
>not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
>image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
End of forwarded message text:

John