An interview with Paul Barnett. Originally published in Australian Presbyterian (August 2005). Reproduced by permission.
Dr Paul Barnett is the former Anglican bishop of North Sydney, Australia, and is currently a teaching fellow at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a part-time lecturer at Moore Theological College and the Presbyterian Theological Centre, Sydney.
Dr Barnett completed his PhD at the University of London on New Testament background studies and has been a prolific author of a variety of Bible commentaries and books on New Testament history. He has distinguished himself over a long career as a first-rate scholar with a particular interest in classics and first-century Greco-Roman history. He is the author of several books, including Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, Jesus and the Logic of History, Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity, Bethlehem to Patmos, Is the New Testament History?, A Commentary on 1 Corinthians (Focus), 2 Corinthians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament series, and his most recent book, The Birth of Christianity—The First Twenty Years.
Dr Barnett lives in Epping, Sydney, with his wife, Anita.
PH: Paul, Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code, has been No. 1 on the New York Times‘ bestsellers list for the last two years. It is now in forty different translations. How do you account for all the excitement about the book?
PB: It’s not hard to account for Dan Brown’s success as a novelist. He’s a master at writing a gripping airport novel that is a riveting, fast-moving kind of story. The plot is filled with intrigue and suspense-filled moments, and is bound together by a romantic interest between the two main characters. From a literary point of view, that gives it a certain advantage.
However, I am not convinced that we can account for its overwhelming success simply on the basis of its literary qualities or dramatic plot. I mean, there are dozens of other books in the same genre with the same kind of qualities. Books based on conspiracy theories seem to have a great appeal to modern readers. I certainly think people are captivated by stories that involve conspiracies. In fact, I suspect that there will always be a small section of the community that will be fascinated by them. Whenever I listen to late-night radio programs there always seems to be listeners who ring in about their ideas on the latest conspiracy. But again, conspiracy theory alone is insufficient to explain the wide appeal of the book.
PH: So what do you think is the deeper reason for the book’s appeal?
PB: My suspicion is that The Da Vinci Code is a brilliantly crafted attack on Christianity itself. In one sense, it could be interpreted as a very cleverly contrived assault on the Roman Catholic Church. I think that much is clear. As I understand it, this is also a major thrust behind Dan Brown’s other best-seller, Angels & Demons.
My impression, though, is that at an even deeper level, Dan Brown is attacking Christianity itself, not just the Roman Church. He’s certainly questioning the reliability and authority of the Bible. He does that by implying that the whole of the New Testament is a massive cover-up. At the deepest level, he is really denying the resurrection of Christ because fundamental to the whole theme of the book is that there is a marriage between the not-executed and not-risen Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. And then there is the issue of their alleged offspring, a daughter called Sarah, and the Holy Grail. So the book constitutes a serious assault on the historical foundations of the New Testament and Christianity itself. I am sure that’s one of the reasons for the interest that has been generated in the book.
PH: One reviewer has said that The Da Vinci Code is essentially a 454-page diatribe against Christianity and Roman Catholicism in particular. Is that really a fair assessment?
PB: It’s a reasonably accurate one but I would question the use of the word, ‘diatribe’. A ‘diatribe’ is a term with a special meaning. A ‘diatribe’ represents a very overt attack on something. The cleverness of The Da Vinci Code is that it’s not an overt attack; it’s a concealed, indirect assault. The real attack lies beneath a gripping story. It is certainly a massive assault on the Roman Catholic Church.
As I have been reflecting recently on Brown’s success with the book, the thought occurred to me that its publication coincided with the release of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion, which was a great success in raising people’s awareness of the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Dan Brown’s book came out around the same time. If, as Paul says, “our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers and principalities”, then it’s possible to see this book as a strong spiritual counter-attack by the forces of darkness. Gibson’s film was very confronting. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the evil one would seek to confuse as many people as possible when everyone is talking so openly about Jesus, both in the lead-up to the film and following on from it. Again, I think there’s another reason behind its popularity—many people want to believe it. They are running from the light and Brown provides them with some apparently convincing excuses to reject Christianity.
PH: Brown bases many of his claims on a number of other books which he refers to in The Da Vinci Code. Foremost among them is Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Is that a reliable and authoritative book for information on the New Testament?
PB: No, it’s not. Mind you, it’s a long time since I’ve looked at Baigent’s book. My impression is that Dan Brown’s book depends very heavily on the claims of Baigent’s earlier work. The simple fact is that without Holy Blood, Holy Grail, there would be no The Da Vinci Code. The problem with Holy Blood, Holy Grail is that it is based on dubious research and is entirely conjectural in the romantic connection that it makes between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There is certainly no suggestion anywhere in the New Testament that Jesus was married to Mary and that they had a daughter, Sarah. Further, the evidence is even more fanciful when Baigent contends that Sarah was taken to France and has some connection with the Merovingian dynasty. There is just no basis for this at all.
The whole idea of the Holy Grail—which many people think of as the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper but which Brown says is an allegory for the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene—is nothing more than a piece of medieval romance. There is no such thing as the Holy Grail; further, there is no historical evidence for it. Steven Spielberg is the person responsible for bringing the myth of the Holy Grail into popular culture today through his very successful Indiana Jones movies.
You may have seen a very humorous movie made by the BBC and aired on the ABC, of all places. It was produced by someone who actually investigated the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail etc, and, in a humorous way, exposed the whole thing as completely conjectural. The film also showed interviews of world experts on Leonardo da Vinci who exposed Brown’s claim that Leonardo’s portrait of Mona Lisa was in fact a self-portrait and contained a subtle message of androgyny. They discounted Brown’s claims as far-fetched theories which have no factual basis at all.
PH: Do you think that one of the reasons that the claims of The Da Vinci Code are taken so seriously is related to the literary structure of the book? The reader almost gets halfway into the book before Brown begins to introduce obviously false information about Christianity. What do you think?
PB: I think the genius of Brown’s book is that he is able to introduce errors in such an unsuspecting way. His technique is to get the reader to believe everything he says by saying at the very outset: “FACT: … All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate”. Then he writes in such a compelling way that he gets people hooked with the plot. It is only after he has taken the reader on a reasonably long journey into the story that he begins to peddle all his falsehoods. He has a very skilful technique in doing this. Whereas some books are an overt, frontal attack on Christianity, this book isn’t. That’s why I believe that it is extraordinarily dangerous.
However, I must say that I was consoled somewhat last week when, on ABC radio, Richard Glover and James Valentine did a very funny spoof on The Da Vinci Code. They were making a joke of Brown’s claim that Leonardo da Vinci thought that he was, in part, a woman. They tried to put it into a modern context by suggesting that Sir Donald Bradman was actually a woman and that ABC commentators tried to hide the fact by making background noises which were supposed to disguise the rustling of his dress as he was running between the wickets. They also suggested that Bradman was married to Harold Larwood, and that there had been a conspiracy between the cricket fraternity, Free Masonry and ABC commentators to keep this a secret. They went on to say that there is actually a secret door in the Bradman Museum in Bowral where one day the terrible truth about Don Bradman as a woman will be fully revealed. And what is more, they joked, if you look at a photograph of Sir Donald and remove his eyebrows and other touched-up features, you will actually find a female face. So these guys were having a ball laughing and joking about the ridiculous claims in The Da Vinci Code. They had obviously worked out what the The Da Vinci Code was—a nonsense. So I can only hope that there are more sensible people in the wider community who are equally discerning thinkers and are able to ask the right questions.
PH: Do you have any problem with the way that Doubleday Books and the media have presented it has a fact-based exposé of how the church has been hiding the real truth about Christianity?
PB: I think most people have lost confidence in the integrity of major publishing houses in terms of what they publish. By and large, they are not interested in publishing truth. The bottom-line for them is profit. That’s why they’re desperate for the sort of books that Dan Brown writes. He has been a real cash-cow for them.
PH: We all agree that Dan Brown can tell a good yarn. But is he reliable as an historian?
PB: Once again, I can only refer your readers to the BBC documentary on The Da Vinci Code. You can get it in ABC shops. It’s worthwhile trying to get hold of. Although it’s written in a fairly humorous way, it’s extremely useful in providing us with the views of many experts from different universities who dispute Brown’s claims that his material is historical. Clearly, no single person can be an authoritative expert in all the fields that Brown depends upon for his conspiracy theory. However, I happen to know a fair bit about one of those fields, namely, Christian origins. I can assure your readers that in the area of Christian origins, he has made mistake after mistake after mistake. And other people who are recognized authorities in their fields say exactly the same thing.
PH: How do you account for the fact that there are so many admirers of Dan Brown as an historian? Do you think he is riding the current wave of revulsion against the Roman Catholic Church?
PB: It’s tempting to think that, isn’t it? But the death of Pope John Paul II and the world-wide interest in his funeral indicate that there is huge support for the papacy and Roman Catholicism. Although John Paul II was a radical conservative, his traditionalist views were hugely respected and he was extremely popular. It may be that Brown’s book represents a sectional revulsion against the Roman Catholic Church. Or perhaps it is more a secular revulsion to Christianity. I’m not convinced that this sense of revulsion is universal; I think Mel Gibson’s movie indicates that there is enough interest from the other side. But certainly Brown would speak for a substantial number of people who are disenchanted with the Roman Church.
PH: Is there an explanation for why so few people are actually questioning Brown’s historical accuracy?
PB: I would make two comments on this issue. I think the first reason why so few people are questioning Brown’s claims to historical accuracy is that he taps into such a dazzling array of different spheres of interest like the Priory of Sion, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. I think most of us feel very intimidated when he does this because we know so little about such wide areas of knowledge. We feel completely unqualified to challenge Brown’s assertions.
The other point I’d make is that Christians, for the most part, are really out-of-touch with the ideas that are influencing mainstream society. For the most part, Christians seem to be intellectually disengaged from a lot of modern thought. Generally speaking, we are not quick enough to know what is being said in the wider community.
PH: The Da Vinci Code contains some novel ideas on the status of Mary in the early Church and her relationship to the rest of the apostles. Is there any hint in the New Testament that Jesus chose her to be the leader of the early church instead of Peter, and that the early church expelled her because Peter felt upset by her authority and then started spreading all sorts of lies about her?
PB: No, there isn’t. Brown’s claims in The Da Vinci Code are largely rooted in the misinformation and legends that were taught about Mary amongst Gnostics in the first few centuries after the death of Jesus.
Gnosticism was a powerful philosophical movement that affected the early church. It appeared a couple of hundred years after New Testament times and became a major force in the Greco-Roman world. Gnosticism used a lot of the terminology from the Bible, and certainly identified key figures from the New Testament like Mary and Peter. It had a number of core beliefs which involved the merging of male and female together into one asexual being which in turn, through some Gnostic process, was absorbed into God. Gnosticism was really a kind of proto-theism in many ways; it was a reaction against the patriarchal view of God. And Mary was considered the archetypal, predominant female. In Gnosticism, Mary is seen to be a consort with Christ, set over and against Peter. She is regarded as the first witness to the resurrection. So Mary becomes something of a hero—a cult-figure in Gnosticism. I guess this explains why Pope Gregory was so critical of Mary in the sixth century AD.
The influence of Gnosticism was quite widespread in the early centuries of the church and was rightly perceived to be a threat by Christians like Irenaeus, who regarded themselves as standing in the New Testament tradition. The orthodox tried to counter Gnosticism by producing the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds which stressed the historicity of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ.
If we go back into the New Testament era, we discover that Mary is never called ‘Mary Magdalene’; she was referred to as Mary of Magdala, which is a town midway between Capernaum and Tiberius, a fishing town.
According to Luke 8, she was one of a group of wealthy women who provided financial support for Jesus and his disciples. She is said to be one from whom seven spirits were cast out. We don’t know her age; it is quite possible she was an older person who was reasonably well-off. Further, there is no compelling reason to connect her with the woman in Luke 7 who anointed Jesus’ feet.
She is prominent in John 19 and 20, which is the only place she appears in John’s gospel. She is also referred to as one of the four women who come to the cross. She comes into prominence in John 20 with Joseph from Arimathea and Nicodemus who were all wealthy men, concerned that Jesus received a proper burial. The most likely explanation for the high profile of Joseph, Nicodemus and Mary in John’s gospel was the well-known historical basis of their practical concern that the Lord be honoured in burial. And then Mary is doubly honoured in that she is represented by John as the first human being to witness the risen Lord Jesus. Further, she is actually commissioned by Christ to get the message to some less-than-courageous male disciples. And, of course, some people have called her the apostle to the apostles, which in my opinion is overstating it a bit. But she is clearly honoured in John’s gospel.
However, to make a jump from these gospel references and to claim some romantic connection between the Lord and Mary is completely unwarranted. There is no historical basis for it at all. It’s reading sexuality into something that simply isn’t there.
PH: Is there any substance to The Da Vinci Code‘s claims that Mary of Madgala escaped to France and gave birth to a daughter?
PB: Absolutely not! Yet that is one of the central planks on which the whole plot of The Da Vinci Code is based. However, there is not a skerrick of evidence to substantiate any of it. The whole idea has been promoted by Michael Baigent in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but as I said before, Baigent and his fellow authors do not work as real historians.
PH: Dan Brown claims that the Christianity’s weekly holy day—the Lord’s Day—has pagan origins. He says Christianity honoured the Jewish Sabbath as a Saturday, but Constantine changed it to coincide with the pagan day of the Sun. Is that really the picture of the Lord’s Day that we have in the New Testament?
PB: No, Brown is wrong about early Christian history again. The New Testament makes it clear that the resurrection of Jesus took place on the first day of the week. All the gospels are very clear about this.
Further, it was on the first day of the week when the disciples were meeting in the upper room that the risen Lord came to them. Thomas was now present. Again, Jesus came to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus on the first day of the week. You will remember that he not only explained the meaning of the Scriptures to them, but he also revealed himself to them in the breaking of the bread.
These earliest meetings of Jesus with his disciples on the first day of the week were like a prototype of what became the Lord’s Day in the early church. The earliest Christians seemed to have gathered on the first day of the week because this was the day when Jesus first appeared to them. And all the indications are that the first day of the week was Sunday. This has been the unbroken practice of Christians for the last two thousand years and it goes all the way back to the first Easter Day.
PH: Is there consistent evidence for Lord’s Day observance in the rest of the New Testament?
PB: Yes, there certainly is. The first day wasn’t called Sunday because the Jews didn’t have names for the different days of the week. Naming each day was more of a pagan custom. In the New Testament, the days are always numbered, which was the Jewish practice. So, for example, we read of Christians gathering in Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. And Paul spoke to the people …” Again, in 1 Corinthians 16:2 we read, “On the first day of every week, each of you should set aside a sum of money …”—signifying, I think, the practice of taking up a collection at the early gatherings of believers. Then, of course, we have a direct reference to the Lord’s Day in the book of Revelation where John says, “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit …”. So I think it’s clear in the rest of the New Testament that the practice of Christians assembling on the first day of the week, or the Lord’s Day, was well-established.
PH: Dan Brown claims that the Bible was collated by a pagan Roman emperor, Constantine. He says that he was the head-priest of the Roman religion of Sun worship. Is that an accurate view of how the Bible was put together?
PB: No, again Dan Brown is wrong. What we call the ‘Old Testament’ was recognized as such in Jesus’ day. This means that the canon of the Old Testament was already closed. In other words, all the books of the Old Testament had already been determined.
The books of the New Testament were most likely written on an ‘as needed’ basis, and they were recognized by those who received them as being apostolic and authoritative. They were read in churches and, over a period of time, went through a sifting process by which the church came to a common position on which books had divine authority. Certain of these writings were regarded as canonical, along with the Old Testament, while others were treated as edifying but not authoritative for faith and practice.
As far as the New Testament is concerned, it had already begun to take shape by the end of the first century. This was almost two centuries before Constantine appeared on the scene. We also know that some of the early church fathers like Irenaeus (AD 180) and Origen (AD 230) had confirmed the four Gospels as canonical, and had drawn up lists of what New Testament books were regarded as authoritative in the churches. While this process may not have been finally completed and agreed upon until after Constantine’s reign, it is simply not true to say that Constantine was responsible for collating the New Testament or the Bible as a whole.
PH: Brown also claims that the Christian Scriptures evolved through countless translations, editions and revisions. He says there has never been a definitive edition of the Bible. Is he right?
PB: No, he’s not. I believe the science of textual criticism would strongly refute his claims. We have some very early Christian texts such as Papyrus 45 and 46 in the Greek. These texts date from the middle-late second century, which is not much more than 100 years after Jesus. Early Christian writers like Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp come immediately after the end of the New Testament period. Between them all, they quote from or refer to every book in the New Testament. So in effect, all 27 books of the New Testament are received. And this occurs definitely by the time of Polycarp. In addition to that, there are copious quotations from New Testament books in the early Church Fathers. In fact, if you look at the early Church Fathers in the second century, it is said you could read almost the whole of the New Testament just by reading their quotations. So Brown, again, is making claims that are unhistorical.
PH: Do you have any comments on his claim that Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible which omitted those gospels that spoke of Jesus’ human traits so that he would appear more God-like? Did Constantine do anything to reconstruct the New Testament?
PB: I am not aware of any records that suggest that this took place. The early church was constantly on its guard against Gnosticism so I find it hard to understand how he could justify such a claim. The early Fathers, such as Irenaeus, reacted strongly against Gnosticism so there was a clear distinction from the beginning about what was orthodox and which of the Gospels were canonical. Brown is not being faithful with the facts.
PH: The Da Vinci Code claims that Judaism and Christianity are strongly patriarchal in their representations of society and social order. However, Brown insists that biblical religion at its earliest point had a feminine element to it which found expression in ritualistic sex in the temple. Any comments?
PB: There are two issues that need to be dealt with here. The first relates to his claim that somehow the Bible or Jewish tradition sanctions the notion of ritualistic sex. I think this is quite untrue. It is true that in the period after the conquest under Joshua, the people of Israel struggled with the attractions of Canaanite religion and its fertility rites. But nowhere in the Bible do we find any teaching that would sanction such practices. Instead, we find express warnings about the dangers of other religions and prohibitions on following any of their practices. This is certainly true in the time of the classical prophets and it is certainly reflected in the Jewish literature of the Mishnah and the Talmud. The simple fact is that the Jews had very strict ideas about sex and there was no latitude given to Canaanite sexual practices in the Bible.
The second issue has to do with Brown’s idea that Christianity is strongly patriarchal and biased against women. Even there though the Apostle Paul believed that a person’s sexuality had a bearing on their particular calling or form of service within the church, his views on sexuality were uncharacteristic of mainstream Judaism. For instance, Paul strongly encouraged women to learn the Bible and fully participate in Christian worship, although this would have been contrary to Jewish practice at that time. Again, it is very interesting as we read the New Testament to note the prominent role that women played in the development of the early Christian movement. So the idea that the New Testament is patriarchal and downplays the role of women is laughable in the light of Paul’s careful teaching and his divergence from centuries of Jewish tradition.
PH: Brown is possessed by the idea that the Roman Catholic Church seems intent on suppressing feminine aspects of Christianity, and is desperately trying to divinize Jesus. Is he right when he claims that the church didn’t decide until AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea that Jesus was divine?
PB: This is one of the most serious errors in Brown’s book. It is ridiculous to suggest that the church was in two minds about Jesus’ deity until the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. The New Testament is absolutely convinced that Jesus was Lord and God. We see Thomas on the second Sunday after the resurrection being confronted by the risen Jesus and worshiping him in exactly those terms: “My Lord, and my God”. We discover that the New Testament writers like Peter and Paul quote Old Testament texts that refer to Jehovah—Yahweh—but now actually identify Jesus with those texts. Again and again, we see Jesus being referred to as God. So we are not surprised to see the emergence of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity quite early on. Dan Brown’s idea that it wasn’t till centuries afterwards is not true.
PH: Brown claims that the official church has been involved in relentless suppression of women throughout the ages—women scholars, priestesses, mystics, nature lovers etc. Is there any truth in his claims? To what extent was the church responsible for witch-hunts?
PB: I’m happy to comment on the witchcraft element and I would refer people to a marvellous book by Rodney Stark called To The Glory of God. It is the companion to his earlier book, The Rise of Christianity. The Glory of God has got two very extensive sections on slavery and Christianity, and witchcraft and Christianity. Stark is able to document these issues in a way that reveals that, at many, many points, it was the church who intervened to prevent persecution, or at least to mitigate it. I think we have to acknowledge that there have been some terrible things which have been done in the name of Christianity, and we should have a sense of shame about those things where they are true. But on the other hand, it is very easy for writers like Dan Brown to overstate a case. In this regard, Stark shows how this has been done in relation to the claims that Christianity has suppressed science. I think his treatment is brilliant. I warmly recommend his books.
