Debunking the code: Comparing the portrayals of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene in Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code and in the Synoptic Gospels

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze the novel, The Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown in relation to the Synoptic Gospels. It focused on comparing and contrasting the characterization of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the novel The Da Vinci Code and the Bible. To do this a series of questions was asked: who is Jesus based on The Da Vinci Code and on the four Christian Gospels, who was Mary Magdalene as portrayed in the novel and in the Bible, and what are the similarities and differences in their depictions in both texts. The Theory of Deconstruction was used to draw the inferences and to take the text apart along the structural fault lines created by the ambiguities inherent in one or more of its key concepts or themes in order to reveal the equivocations or contradictions that make the text possible. After comparing and contrasting The Da Vinci Code and the Bible, it was found that the novel has presented deconstructed pictures of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Firstly, it presented the divinity of Jesus as the result of election by humans which was totally different from the way the Bible declares Jesus as the Son of God. Secondly, it told that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a daughter, but no record of this fact is found in the Synoptic Gospels. Finally, it depicted Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, but there is no explicit verse in the Bible that supports this claim. The Bible described her as a sinful woman and one of the witnesses of Christ’s death and resurrection, thus she was called by some scholars as the “First Evangelist."