Criminology Professor Lampoons Da Vinci Conspiracy Theories
Mike Adams/Teresa Neumann Reporting : Jun 2, 2006
Town Hall
REPORTER'S NOTE: The following smart, satirical editorial by Mike Adams concerning the Da Vinci Code came about because of his deliberate habit of carrying the book around with him in the public square. While I must admit I laughed while reading this, I also realized that Adams may have hit upon a great evangelistic tool! -- Teresa Neumann
Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, has posted excerpts from six real conversations that people initiated after seeing him with a copy of The Da Vinci Code. Says Adams, the conversations "explain why I now carry it to work, to restaurants, and just about everywhere except for church."
(The following are excerpts from three of those conversations. To read all six, click on the link below.)
Conversation 2
Q: Oh, I just love that book. Have you read about the Council of Nicea and how they conspired to keep out the Gnostic Gospels? It was all so political the way they chose the Books of the Bible, don't you agree?
A: No.
Q: Well, why not?
A: I've read the Bible seven times, the New Testament ten times, and all of the so-called Gnostic Gospels.
Q: And what have you concluded?
A: The New Testament books were selected long before 325 A.D. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were either written by eyewitnesses or on the basis of eyewitness evidence. The Gnostic Gospels were not. In addition to being incoherent fragments, they were written many, many decades later.
I just try to treat the life of Jesus as a murder mystery, which is easy to do since he was, in fact, murdered. If you want to solve the mystery, you have to know everything you can about the victim. To do so, you should prefer eyewitness testimony over all other forms of evidence. There was no better type of evidence back then. And, of course, only a fool would give preference to the accounts that were written later. That is a backwards way of thinking. I mean that literally.
Q: Then why does The Da Vinci Code suggest that members of the Council of Nicea conspired to exclude certain books for sexist reasons, if it isn't true?
A: Because The Da Vinci Code is fiction.
Q: How do you know?
A: Because I picked it up at Barnes and Noble in the section marked "fiction."
Conversation 3
Q: Won't you admit that there was a conspiracy to label Mary Magdalene as a whore in order to deny her true place at the top of the Christian hierarchy?
A: No.
Q: Aren't you open-minded enough to even consider that Pope Gregory's public labeling of her as a whore was an intentional act undertaken in concert with the members of the Council of Nicea?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Well, Pope Gregory made the statement in 591 A.D. If he were Pope during the time of that council, too, that means he called Mary a whore in the 266th year of his pope-hood. You conspiracy theorists are either profoundly ignorant of history or just plain crazy enough to believe in time travel. I don't know which is worse.
Conversation 4
Q: Why do you keep demanding that I produce evidence to support my theories? Do you have evidence to support everything you believe in?
A: I don't know. Test me.
Q: You believe Jesus was a real person who walked the earth, don't you?
A: Yes.
Q: But they haven't found Jesus' bones have they?
A: No.
Q: Is that consistent with the Bible?
A: As a matter of fact, yes. It is consistent with the story of His resurrection.