During an interview, Mr. Scott Elliott, then a Bible scholar at the Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship, was asked to comment on the recent surge of public interest in early Christian writings and the popularity of books such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, which incorporates such writings with fiction. Mr. Elliott was at the time pursuing a PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity at the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University, Madison, NJ.

Q: What do we know about the life of Jesus from the New Testament Gospels?

Scott Elliott (SE): The Gospels, from a purely historical perspective, are not the most reliable sources. The Gospel writers were concerned not with history as we understand it, but with the “good news” of Jesus and his message. The history that interests them is that of God’s plan of salvation.

Certain aspects of Jesus’ earthly life, however, are evidenced in the Gospels. We know that he was Jewish. We know that he had some connection with the movement of John the Baptist, which links him with the Jewish prophetic tradition and thus suggests that Jesus understood his mission to be one of preparing people for the new age, the triumph of God, by calling them to repentance.

We know that Jesus conducted most of his ministry in the backwater region of Galilee during the rule of the Roman Empire. He was likely a teacher of wisdom who used parables as his primary method of instruction. He recruited disciples, was considered a healer or miracle-worker, and often associated with undesirables, those who found themselves on the margins of society.

Most importantly, we know that Jesus was crucified—a distinctly Roman form of cruel criminal punishment—as a Messianic pretender and a potential catalyst for political insurgency. It is almost certain that the Temple disturbance described in all four of the New Testament Gospels did, in fact, take place. Jesus’ contestation of (and claims to) authority and his popularity with the crowds posed a direct threat to the Jewish religious establishment and an implicit threat to the Roman political order, which had no tolerance for uprisings.

Q: What about the resurrection?

SE: That’s a matter of faith, not history. The Gospels claim that he rose from the dead. Matthew, Luke, and John attempt to “prove” his resurrection by providing stories of post-resurrection appearances. Mark, however, leaves readers to decide for themselves. They have to believe.

Q: Why did the early Church write Gospels?

SE: The earliest of the canonical Gospels (Mark) was written almost forty years after the events described therein. The earliest followers of Jesus did not feel the need for a written record because they believed Jesus would return almost immediately. For decades, the stories of Jesus—both those he told and those that were told about him—circulated orally. Eventually, however, it became clear that Jesus’ return would not be immediate. The first generation of believers began to grow old and to pass along the things Jesus said and did to second-generation Christians who subsequently wrote down what they had heard.

The early Church wrote the Gospels for many reasons. Each Gospel tells a different version of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They were written anonymously by different individuals to different communities, and each has its own theological concerns in view.

Mark writes to show the centrality of suffering to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. Matthew demonstrates how Jesus fit the profile of the Jewish Messiah as told in the Hebrew Scriptures. Luke’s presentation of Jesus shows the role Jesus plays in the history of God’s dealings with humankind. Luke’s second volume, Acts, continues the story with the Church as the main character. John’s Gospel portrays Jesus as the eternal Word of God, present with God at creation, and the perfect revelation of God to humankind.

The writers of the canonical Gospels wrote, in part, to make sense of their own circumstances. The writers, and the communities for which they wrote, were facing conflict and persecution. By making sense of Jesus’ own suffering and death, they also made sense of their own. The Gospels tell a story of vindication and ultimate triumph for Jesus and his followers, which provided readers with a sense of identity and self-definition.

Q: What can you tell us about the figure of Mary Magdalene?

SE: Mary of Magdala is one of six or seven different women named Mary mentioned in the New Testament. She appears in all four of the Gospels. We know nothing of her first encounter with Jesus. Nevertheless, she is a prominent figure, one of the most significant of the Galilean women who followed Jesus. She was a witness to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. She, along with other women, provided material support for Jesus and his disciples. Mark describes her in such a way as to make clear that she was a disciple of Jesus. Luke identifies her as the one responsible for telling the disciples about Jesus’ resurrection, although they didn’t believe her. The Fourth Gospel portrays Mary Magdalene going to the tomb alone and finding it empty, at which point she runs to tell Peter that someone has taken Jesus’ body. She later sees the risen Lord, and her story becomes one typifying faith in the resurrection.

It was not until the sixth century that Mary Magdalene came to be identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7, despite there being no historical evidence for such a connection.

Although Paul does not list her among other witnesses to the resurrection in his letter to the Corinthians, she becomes an important Easter figure in later literature from the second and third centuries, particularly that of the gnostic variety. The Gospel of Peter (second century and neither fully orthodox or gnostic) refers to Mary Magdalene as a “woman disciple of the Lord.” She also appears in the Pistis Sophia (early third century), where she is a questioner of Jesus, and in the Gospel of Philip.

All of these later developments are rooted in the tradition from the canonical Gospels that the risen Lord appeared first to Mary Magdalene and other Galilean women. Some scholars have argued that her role was diminished in canonical literature because of the patriarchal structure of the early Church and that her prominence in gnostic literature preserves the earlier memory.

Q: The Gospel of Philip is mentioned in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Its message is quite central to the plot. What can you tell us about it?

SE: The suggestion made in Dan Brown’s novel that Mary Magdalene and Jesus had a more intimate relationship comes from a Gnostic text known as the Gospel of Philip. This mid- to late-third century Valentinian tractate was likely a catechetical text. It comments, for example, on rites of initiation and the meaning of sacred names, and offers alternative interpretations on biblical passages, particularly Genesis.

In it, the author refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ “companion” and “partner.” The text also says that Jesus kissed her more often than the other disciples, so much so that they ask Jesus why he loves her more than them.

The text’s emphasis on the value of sacraments, and the general distaste Gnostics had for any kind of literal reading or interpretation of texts, suggest that it is best to read these statements in a more spiritual light.

Q: What is the Gospel of Mary, and is it connected with Gnosticism?

SE: The Gospel of Mary is a Greek text written anonymously sometime in the second century, the longest and most complete version still in existence is a Coptic translation. It is the only existing gospel written in the name of a woman—Mary Magdalene.

The text tells the story of a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, including Mary Magdalene, after his resurrection. Along with other extra-canonical texts, the Gospel of Mary is sometimes considered a “gnostic” gospel because (i) the notion that the Son of Man exists within you, a metaphor of the ideal human being; (ii) the dualism between an outer, material order and an inner, spiritual order, (iii) the argument that sin comes from joining the spiritual order of the true self with the material order of the body and its deceptive passions, and (iv) the representation of salvation as the inner ascent of the soul to the Good, which has come to humanity to help them return to their proper spiritual origin, are all fundamental gnostic ideas.

Q: Would you use the book The Da Vinci Code in a college class or Sunday school setting?

SE: Perhaps. Books like The Da Vinci Code provide us with excellent opportunities for learning (e.g., about the Bible, the early Church, and our faith).

However, the claims that the novel makes about Jesus interest me less than the phenomenon of the book itself. In other words, why is it that a book of this sort can be written at this particular time in history and engender the sort of debate and reaction that it has?

The novel’s fascination with secrets is a symptom of our time. Twice, a character in the text states (perhaps ironically or as parody) that “everyone loves a conspiracy.” The description of the history of the Knights Templar, protecting the secret by quietly passing it from one generation to the next, has a somewhat paradoxical relationship to the book itself. In its effort to insert itself into this tradition, the novel thwarts the tradition by making the “secret” public. Interestingly, “secret knowledge” was something the Gnostics themselves sought after as well. But, at the end of the book, Sophie’s grandmother hints that the beauty of the secret is the secret itself, not its announcement.

Personally, I think some of this fascination with the secret stems from a loss of mystery in our society. Ironically, however, that loss of mystery has as much to do with ignorance on our part as with anything else. Many Christians don’t really know the Bible, or the history of Christianity, or even the theology of their own particular Church tradition. The mystery of faith—Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again—offers us much to explore.

Q: Is there any relationship between Gnosticism and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?

SE: Not really. The Da Vinci Code draws on a couple of gnostic texts, but the book is simply a work of fiction. There’s nothing gnostic about the legend of the Holy Grail. Moreover, the history and legends surrounding the figure of Mary Magdalene are not necessarily or consistently gnostic either, nor is Brown’s treatment of them. Ironically, the book is very non-gnostic insofar as it takes literally the words of gnostic texts which themselves resist literal interpretation and advocate for non-literal interpretation of other sacred texts.

Dan Brown has clearly done a great deal of research. That, in my opinion, is actually one of the strongest aspects of the book. The rich and complex blend of fact and fiction, history and myth, is what makes the story interesting and engaging. Over the course of that research, Brown has picked up on certain ideas that appeal to him on some level, not least of which must have been their literary potential. He has incorporated these ideas, historical fragments, etc. into his book in order to make a great story.

One fascinating idea the novel captured accurately is found in a remark by the character Professor Langdon, who suggests that the very definition of faith is accepting that which cannot be proven.

Didn’t the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews say as much nearly 2000 years ago?