Can We Trust History? June 25, 2006

Many of us remember the old pop song which sang—Don't know much about history…Well, the truth is that for many of us, we do not know much about history. In many ways, this may not affect our day to day lives. We get along just fine without detailed knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars. But once in a while, along comes an issue which may impact us politically, economically, or spiritually if we do not understand some of the history behind the debate. In the late 1990s, many Americans were convinced that the US Stock Market would continue to rise rapidly and indefinitely. Books hit the market with titles likes “Dow Jones Average 20,000.” Now history told us that the market always has corrections, goes down after a rapid rise. However, popular investment writers and speakers told us that new computer and Internet technologies had created a new investment world. History had no meaning for the new 21 st century economy. But in the end, history proved true when early in the year of 2000, the Stock Market began to fall. This morning, I hope to demonstrate to you that history does matter, that there is a correct understanding of history, and that we can know that history.

I am beginning a three weeks series to discuss the highly popular book and new movie entitled, “The Da Vinci Code” which present to us an extremely altered view of history. Writer Dan Brown moves all the pieces around on the chess board to tell us that everything we have been told about Jesus, about the disciples, and about the early church is wrong. And he seeks to give us a new view of history.

Now many of you may ask, “Does it really matter? It is just a fictional book and movie. What is the big deal?” However, Dan Brown does not claim this to be fiction. Brown says, “All the history, artwork, ancient documents, and secret rituals in the novel are accurate.” When Matt Lauer of the NBC Today Show asked, “How much of this book is based on reality?” Brown replied, “Absolutely all of it.”

Even more disturbing is how many people believe this new view of history, in fact, are open minded to any view of history. Marley and I had dinner with another couple back in April and the wife told me that everyone can have an opinion about historical reality. She asked, “Who can really say what is true?” However, there is true and false in history. If we are discussing if red carpet is better than blue carpet, then opinion will be different. But if we ask whether the Allies or the Nazis won the Second World War, then there are historical facts. It is not a matter of opinion. There are facts to history.

Most all of us have seen the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware. It was Christmas Eve 1776, icy and cold. Washington was pinned down with his army and he needed a victory. So while the British were resting, Washington planned a bold move to capture Trenton, NJ. Yet how do we know this really happened? None of us were there? Science is verified when an experiment can be repeated in a laboratory by other scientists. However, history cannot be repeated in a laboratory. So how do we know what happened? Is history merely everyone's opinion? No. There is a science to doing historical research. Historians examine the evidence. Much like a jury does in a crime. We cannot go back in time and repeat the crime. We cannot go back and see who pulled the trigger. So what do we do? We bring forward witnesses. We look at fingerprints. We examine crime scene data. And every day of the year, juries around the nation make decisions as to what is the truth. The judge does not want to hear opinions. The judge will not accept that there are different view points. Based on real hard actual evidence, the jury must decide what the verdict is.

That is how real historians work also. Novelist like Dan Brown can engage in opinions. He can explore his imagination. He can change the facts and data to suit his story. But real historical scholars are constrained by the facts as found in witnesses who were there, as found in evidence that has been left behind, as found in the discoveries of archaeology.

So much of this strikes very close to home for me. I was a skeptic in my younger years. I had doubts and questions. However, I engaged in a serious and lengthy pursuit to discover what could really know about the history of Jesus and the ancient Christian faith. That search carried me to study in college and graduate school. It was an obsession to me to know the truth, to examine the earliest documents in the ancient languages, to study in Jerusalem where the events actually happened, to earn a PhD in religious history. That quest continues for me today as I stay current about new discoveries made by archaeologists and historians and as I teach my own students at Erskine Seminary. I am always ready and open minded to hear of new data and possibilities in understanding Jesus and his first followers. But new data must be based on facts.

However, Dan Brown's book and movie give me nothing. The material is based not on history but upon a clever fraud. Let me tell you the facts. Not my opinion but facts. Brown's primary starting point for his story deals with a secret organization founded in AD 1099 called the Priory of Sion and a group of ancient secret documents hidden in France which reveal that Jesus never said he was one with God, was married to Mary Magdalene, and had a daughter named Sarah. Jesus intended Mary to be the head of his new church which used sexual rituals to worship the mother goddess. His descendents founded a royal blood line in France and many of them live today. The Bible we have is entirely wrong, put together by lying disciples, and finally made official by the Roman Emperor Constantine. A huge church conspiracy has worked for 2000 years to cover up this. This is Dan Brown's story and his opinion of history.

Now what are the facts of history? The Priory of Sion, this secret organization, supposedly founded in AD 1099, was actually founded in 1956 by a Frenchman Pierre Plantard. In the 1960s and 70s, he forged a series of documents showing the existence of a bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, through the kings of France, down to the present day, culminating in himself, Pierre Plantard. He even changed his name to Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair. In 1983, a book entitled “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” was published and Dan Brown uses this book as the main source of his story. But Pierre Plantard spent time in prison for fraud. Later, in 1993, he was involved in a political scandal in Paris and admitted under oath on trial that he had forged the documents and made up the whole Priory of Sion scheme.

Yet Dan Brown screams that it is all a conspiracy, a cover up by the authorities, to hide the real truth. What are we to believe? We can believe the clear evidence or we can believe in a massive conspiracy, hidden proofs, and secret rituals. As I stated earlier, historians work much like a jury in a court of law. If you were sitting on this jury, what would you believe about history?

Perhaps you think to yourself, “But do not juries sometimes fail and give the wrong verdict?” Yes, they do. In most cases, juries in America get the case right, but sometimes a false verdict is given. Let us think for a moment about one famous case that many of us watched eleven years ago. The OJ Simpson murder trial. In that case, there was clear evidence. There was blood. There was DNA. There were witnesses. There was a fleeing suspect, seeking to escape the police in a white Ford Bronco. There were all these facts, and yet, the defense claimed that it was all a conspiracy, a cover, an effort to get OJ Simpson. Dozens of police at the crime scene had altered the evidence. DNA lab scientists had lied. The witnesses were false about OJ's location that night. The court was in league with it all. And the verdict was given of not guilty. And almost all of America was amazed. All of us knew the facts said OJ Simpson killed two people that night, and yet, when the jury's thinking was cleverly clouded by cover up theories; they ended up with a wrong decision.

This morning, we can see the facts as clearly shown by real evidence or we can run down the blind alleys of Dan Brown as he tells us of conspiracies, secrets, and cover ups. Oh, conspiracy stories are always imaginative and exciting, but the facts remain the facts. Dan Brown has written an exciting fictional mystery story. But in the end, it is only that. A fiction. By examining the evidence, we can know the reality of history. Dan Brown's story is not the truth. Let us close the door on that question. However, there is another question to ask. “The Da Vinci Code” is false, but is the New Testament is true? Dan Brown is wrong about Jesus, but what does the New Testament claim about Jesus? And is that story true to history? We will explore that very question next week.