Da Vinci Code backlash

The headline screamed: 1.7 million Canadians believe Da Vinci Code.
It certainly caught my attention as I read and re-read the Ottawa Citizen article by Paul Gessell. It stated that a Decima Research survey concluded that nearly two million Canadians, who read Dan Brown's mega-selling book, The Da Vinci Code, ended the novel convinced that Jesus Christ fathered a line of descendants on Earth.
However, a small group of Catholics and Lutherans of the Wisconsin Synod, who created AboutBibleProphecy.com in mid-February, 2001, have taken a stand against such assumptions.
On their website, they make nine statements, in clarifying their stand against the novel:
1. Fiction: Mary Magdale was married to Jesus.
This claim is the backbone of Brown's novel: The Da Vinci Code claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, that they had children, and that their descendants included a line of kings in France, as well as some of the main characters in Brown's novel. Despite Brown's claims, however, there are no historical documents that claim Jesus was married -- not even the "Gnostic gospels" that Brown mentions in the novel.
2. Fiction. The Gnostic gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls are "the earliest Christian records."
The Da Vinci Code claims that the New Testament is a forgery and that the Gnostic gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls are the original Christian texts. This claim, however, is flatly contradicted by an overwhelming amount of scholarship by Christians and non-Christians. Many scholars believe that the New Testament was written during the first century and that the Gnostic texts were written no sooner than the second century. And, the Dead Sea Scrolls don't contain any gospels of any kind. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain any Christian writings at all.
3. Fiction: Christianity stole its ideas and concepts from paganism.
The Da Vinci Code, on page 232, claims: "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian god Mithras -- called the Son of God and the Light of the World -- was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 was also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh." This sequence of claims has puzzled many critics of Brown's book as their possible origin, if indeed they have an origin outside of the author's imagination.
4. Fiction: The sacred name for God has a paganistic origin.
The Da Vinci Code, on page 309, claims: "The Jewish Teragrammaton YHWH -- the sacred name of God -- in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah." This is perhaps one of the most embarrassing errors within Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The word Jehovah isn't the name for God. In fact, that word doesn't appear in the Bible in either the Hebrew text of the Old Testament or in the Greek text of the New Testament. The word Jehovah is a made-up English word.
5. Fiction: The Vatican killed an "astounding 5 million women" during the witch hunts.
This is important to Brown's The Da Vinci Code, because in order for the novel's storyline to work, the Catholic Church must be portrayed as an evil, oppressive institution that hates, oppresses and feels threatened by women. But, despite Brown's claims that there were 5 million women burned to death by the Vatican, the fact is many scholars, including those who are not Christian, say that the witch hunts were generally done by local governments and individuals. Many scholarly sources estimate that the number of people killed by the witch hunts is between 20,000 to 100,000. And, some sources estimate that 20 to 25 per cent of the victims were men.
6. Fiction: Emperor Constantine shaped the New Testament.
This is essential to the plot in The Da Vinci Code because it requires that the reader can believe that Constantine replaced the Gnostic writings with what we now call the New Testament. But, Constantine could not have had a hand in shaping the New Testament for two reasons: He wasn't born soon enough and he didn't live long enough.
7. Fiction: The Vatican demonized pagan worship.
The Da Vinci Code, page 37: "As part of the Vatican's campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and godesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil ... Venus' pentacle became the sign of the devil." Many people might now realize this, but there is a great deal of historical evidence that shows that pagans tried to eradicate Christianity and that pagans copied Christian symbols and ceremonies in the hopes of surviving the spread of Christianity, especially during the first three centuries after the time of Jesus.
8. Fiction: Constantine and the Vatican demonized Mary Magdalene and sought to degrade women as part of a "power grab."
These claims are important to Dan Brown's storyline. The historical evidence, however, strongly contradicts Brown's claim. Mary Magdalene is held in special regard by the Catholic Church, in part because she was the first person to witness the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
9. Fiction: "Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
Da Vinci Code, pages 232-233" "Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans. Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration day of the sun." Actually, long before Constantine was born, there were Christian writings that made it clear than there was a Sabbath, which corresponds to Saturday, and a "Lord's Day," which corresponds to Sunday.