Find out about the novel The Da Vinci Code from a scholarly perspective.
An Interview with Professor Charles W. Hedrick
Charles W. Hedrick is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Missouri State University. Among his many publications are The Apocalypse of Adam (Wipf & Stock, 2005), Many Things in Parables: Jesus and His Modern Critics (Westminster John Knox, 2004), and When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus (Hendrickson, 1999). He is the co-editor of Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel (Polebridge Press, 2004) and Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). His book, Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, co-edited with Robert Hodgson, Jr. of American Bible Society, has just been reprinted and is available from Wipf & Stock Publishers.
Bible Resource Center (BRC): Did you read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Doubleday 2003)? From the perspective of a Bible scholar and an authority on Gnosticism, what did you like and dislike about the book? What would you say to someone who had not read the book in order to contextualize the subject matter and its portrayal?
Charles W. Hedrick (CWH): I didn’t really read Brown’s book from the perspective of either a Bible scholar or a Gnosticism scholar. I was invited to talk about it at a church gathering (i.e., just to answer questions). In general, I describe the book as a fiction novel that draws a little from what is known about religion in antiquity. I found the book to be a fast and entertaining read. I contextualize the book by reminding people that Brown is writing a book to sell and make money. He is not writing to inform, but to entertain. I liked it better than his books on angels and demons which seemed almost sophomoric by comparison.
BRC: How would you define “Gnosticism”?
CWH: Gnosticism is a series of related/unrelated movements in the first and second centuries that, in general, have the following features in common: (i) the world is created by an error-prone creator; (ii) the highest spiritual reality had nothing to do with the origin of the world; (iii) humanity is held captive in the world in ignorance and delusion, unaware of its higher spiritual possibilities; and (iv) only an emissary from the highest spiritual reality can bring the special intuitive knowledge that illuminates and liberates. These common elements are expressed in different ways by the various groups along with other features.
BRC: Who was Mary Magdalene and what is the “Gospel of Mary”?
CWH: Mary of Magdala was a follower of Jesus of Nazareth during his public career. Apparently a woman of means, she provided financial support to the activities of Jesus and his disciples (Luke 8:2,3). She was present at the crucifixion (Mark 15:40) and burial (Mark 15:47) and one of the first to arrive at the empty tomb (Mark 16:1). According to John, she was the first to see the resurrected Christ (John 20:14).
The “Gospel of Mary” is a fragmentary early Christian text (first/second century) that is now incomplete. It begins with a dialogue between the Savior and the disciples in which the Savior presents a teaching about the true spiritual nature of humanity and the entrapping materiality of the world. When the Savior abruptly departs, the disciples are distressed and turn to Mary, “whom the savior loved best,” for further instruction. Mary relates a vision from the Savior to her. In the text, Mary plays the role of an authoritative apostle along with the male disciples equal in the authority of her knowledge and experience.
BRC: In your new book, Many Things in Parables (Westminster John Knox, 2004), you write, “The description of Jesus by contemporary Christian orthodoxy is a modern construct, ultimately deriving from what one segment of the early Christian movements thought of him toward the end of the second century. The orthodox construct glosses over the remarkable diversity among the early Christian accounts of Jesus” (page 25). Would you say a bit more about this? When and how did Christian “orthodoxy” come to prevail?
CWH: Early Christian literature in the first and second centuries is quite diverse in ways that are generally surprising to modern Christians (see my book, When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus, 48-75). Toward the end of the second century, Christians found ways to harmonize the diverse texts from the first century or otherwise ignore the diversity to present a unified proclamation. The diversity continued to be used against them by such second century pagan critics as Celsus. Other groups continued to exist with different gospels. For example the Gospel of Thomas could describe the significance of Jesus for faith without recourse to a cross/resurrection gospel. For the author of Thomas, salvation came through the words of Jesus. In the fourth century, two events propelled orthodoxy to a position of preeminence among these early Christian movements: the finalizing of the biblical canon (Athanasius), and Constantine making Christian orthodoxy the official religion of the Roman Empire. Both of these events marginalized other groups not within orthodoxy’s fold.
BRC: Why was “Gnosticism” labeled a “heresy”? What is a heresy? Who decides what groups will be classified as heretical?
CWH: The word “heresy” basically means “crooked thinking.” It is a term applied by a certain in-group to those outside the group who do not share the thinking of the in-group. Members of the in-group regard themselves as the “orthodox,” that is “straight thinking.” The term actually has no specific content other than this, since it must be remembered that one person’s heretic is another person’s orthodox.
BRC: Is “Gnosticism” still around today?
CWH: There is a Gnostic church in Los Angeles. I know nothing about it and I doubt that it is in historical continuity with the movements of the first and second century. In general, any religious group that becomes fixated on salvation out of this world to their eternal reward and ignores their social responsibility and the social implications of their faith may be said, in my opinion, to be marginally gnostic.
BRC: Why do you think a book like The Da Vinci Code is so popular?
CWH: It’s hard to say. The general public is not really religiously literate and hence is open to exploitation by charlatans and to other upsetting reactions by whatever they meet in the marketplace. When a book appears that draws on historical material unfamiliar to them, and uses it in a way that raises questions about what they have always believed, the public is always curious because of the heavy investment most people have in their faith. In one sense they can ill afford to ignore such a book.