Lee Strobel - Exploring the Da Vinci Code: Investigating the Issues Raised by the Book and Movie

Other Resources by Lee Strobel and Garry Poole

Discussing the Da Vinci Code
Experiencing the Passion of Jesus
Faith Under Fire 1, Faith and Jesus
(participants guide, DVD, and leaders guide)
Faith Under Fire 2, Faith and Facts
(participants guide, DVD, and leaders guide)
Faith Under Fire 3, Tough Faith Questions
(participants guide, DVD, and leaders guide)
Faith Under Fire 4, A New Kind of Faith
(participants guide, DVD, and leaders guide)

Other Resources by Lee Strobel

The Case for Christ
The Case for Christ audio
The Case for Christ Student Edition
(with Jane Vogel)
The Case for Christmas
The Case for a Creator
The Case for a Creator audio
The Case for a Creator Student Edition (with Jane Vogel)
The Case for Easter
The Case for Faith
The Case for Faith audio
The Case for Faith Student Edition (with Jane Vogel)
Gods Outrageous Claims
Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary
Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage (with Leslie Strobel) Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage audio
What Jesus Would Say

Other Resources by Garry Poole

The Complete Book of Questions
Seeker Small Groups
The Three Habits of Highly Contagious Christians

In the Tough Questions Series:
Dont All Religions Lead to God?
How Could God Allow Suffering and Evil?
How Does Anyone Know God Exists?
Why Become a Christian?
Tough Questions Leaders Guide (with Judson Poling)

ZONDERVAN

EXPLORING THE DA VINCI CODE
Copyright 2006 by Lee Strobel and Garry Poole

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition August 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86727-2

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27372-1

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

06 07 08 09 10 11 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Lee Strobel

Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel is the bestselling author of nearly twenty books, including the award-winners The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator. With a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School, he was a journalist at the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere, winning Illinois top honors for investigative reporting (shared with a team he led) and public ser vice journalism from United Press International. He and his wife live in California.

Garry Poole

Garry Poole, director of spiritual discovery at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, is a leading innovator of small groups designed to help spiritual seekers investigate Chris tian ity. His award-winning book Seeker Small Groups provides a blueprint for implementing this highly successful ministry. Garry also authored The Complete Book of Questions and the bestselling Tough Questions series. He and Lee Strobel wrote Experiencing the Passion of Jesus, named the 2005 Christian Book of the Year. Garry lives outside Chicago.

Actual conversation on an airplane over Iowa:

Passenger 1: Youre a Christian too? So am I. Thats great.

Passenger 2: Yeah, thats great. (pause)

Passenger 1: I just read The Da Vinci Code. Have you read it?

Passenger 2: Sure did.

Passenger 1: What percentage do you think is true? (pause)

Passenger 2: Oh, about 80 percent.

Dan Browns red-hot page-turner The Da Vinci Code has become a runaway bestseller and now a major motion picture directed by Ron Howard. Whats most intriguing, though, is not merely the astronomical sales figures its the effect the story is having on popular culture. By cleverly mixing fact with fiction, Brown has created a raging controversy over how many of the novels claims are rooted in reality.

USA Today said the book consists of historical fact with a contemporary storyline. Said Charles Taylor of the popular website salon.com: The most amazing thing about this novel is that its based on fact. Brown even begins his book under the heading FACT, telling his readers: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

If true, the books assertions are nothing less than breathtaking: Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God but was actually deified nearly three hundred years later by Emperor Constantine for his own nefarious purposes; Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who bore his child; Jesus wanted Mary Magdalene to lead his church, but she was forced out by power-hungry men and demonized as a prostitute; and the four Gospels in the Bible are essentially fabrications designed to seal this masculine power-grab for the rest of history.

Are readers being convinced? A survey by Decima Research, Inc. showed that one out of three Canadians who have read the book now believes there are descendants of Jesus walking among us today. And according to pollster George Barna, 53 percent of Americans whove read the book said it had been helpful in their personal spiritual growth and understanding. But are The DaVinci Codes stunning allegations actually supported by the historical evidence? Or are they as fanciful as the novels colorful characters?

To get answers, my colleague Garry Poole and I traveled to France to visit the Muse du Louvre, between the Seine River and the Rue de Rivoli, in the heart of Paris. This magnificent museum, once the luxurious Renaissance palace of Louis XIV, houses thousands of paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, and others, as well as such sculptures as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo.

The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of the Louvres fictional curator, Jacques Saunire, whose body is found thirty yards from Leonardo Da Vincis painting, Mona Lisa. Clever codes and clues lead Harvard professor

Robert Langdon (played by Academy Award winner Tom Hanks in the movie) and the curators granddaughter, Sophie Neveu (played by Audrey Tauton), on a whirlwind adventure of discovery.