The DaVinci Myth vs. The Gospel Truth - Online Christian Library

WHY THE DA VINCI CODE IS SO POPULAR
later voting in a meeting on what Jesus really said and
what He didn’t. That is laughable.” 68
“It just seems like the more preposterous you can
be,” observes R. C. Sproul, “the more radical you can be,
the easier it is to get a degree or to get a hearing in
certain academic circles.” 69
“Liberal” and “unbelieving” are synonymous when
it comes to theology. So the Jesus Seminar is essentially
unbelieving scholars sharing their unbelief. When they
ask a question like, “Did Jesus make this statement or
not?” and then vote on that anonymously, as the Jesus
Seminar did, what they are voting on is simply their own
prejudices. There is nothing in the historic record, again
nothing in the biblical manuscripts, that supports what
they say. While manuscripts may differ in places when it
comes to spelling or words, they are in complete agreement
in virtually every point of theology.
If there are any of the various things in question,
they are all listed in the “critical apparatus” of the Greek
New Testament. (English translations have the same
thing, saying things like “This verse is not found in the
earliest manuscripts.”) However, the people of the Jesus
Seminar weren’t dealing with the manuscript evidence;
they were dealing with, frankly, their own feelings and
with extra-biblical writings (primarily, the Gospel of
Thomas—which the early Church decidedly rejected as
Gnostic heresy).
Material in the Gospels where manuscripts differ in
spelling or in words deals with maybe 3-4 percent of the
text; the New Testament documents are very reliable.
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