What about the Gnostic Gospels? When were they written?
According to Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, previously unknown Gnostic Gospels have come to light in recent years. These give us a more authentic picture of Jesus than the Gospels in the Bible. They show him as just a mortal man, not a supernatural figure.
Suppressed?
For his theory to work, the early Church must have suppressed the Gnostic Gospels, so that they were lost to history until recently.
But this isn't what actually happened: specialists have known about the Gnostic Gospels for the past seventeen hundred years - that is, since they were written . They aren't by any stretch a recent 'discovery.' In fact, the early Church leaders wrote about them at tedious length. Until recently, the main way we knew anything about the Gnostics was through what they wrote about them. They didn't suppress the Gnostic Gospels. Rather, they argued publicly against what they said.
Gnostics?
So who were the Gnostics? Gnosticism wasn't a precisely defined movement. It didn't have a definite leadership structure, or a fixed core of beliefs. Rather it was a trend, or a current of thought - like the New Age movement today.
The word 'Gnostic' means 'someone who knows.' Gnosticism is all about secret knowledge, which is only shared with the insiders. Gnostics claimed that if you wanted to relate to God, you had to possess this secret knowledge. They had it - and only they had it.
The trend towards Gnosticism began towards the end of the New Testament era, but it really became important in the second and third centuries after Christ. Dan Brown says that Gnosticism was the earliest form of Christianity. Historical reality doesn't support this idea.
Recent discoveries
When Dan Brown talks about these 'recently discovered' Gospels, he particularly refers to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and to the Nag Hammadi Library from Egypt. So he has Leigh Teabing say:
Fortunately for historians... some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms... The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda - to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use his influence to solidify their own power base.
Let's look carefully at the facts behind these statements.
Dead Sea Scrolls
Qumran cave 4. Photo: BiblePlaces.com
A group of Arab shepherds discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls by accident in caves at Qumran, in 1947 and in the years following. They're one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made relating to the Bible.
But they aren't Gospels. They don't mention Jesus, or Mary Magdalene, and they certainly don't mention the Grail. They aren't even Christian documents. They're a collection of Jewish documents, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and they come from a group of Jews called the Essenes, who lived at about the same time as Jesus.
They're tremendously important for what they tell us about Jewish life and beliefs at that time, but it's a complete misunderstanding to say that they contradict the Gospels in the Bible. They don't.
Nag Hammadi Library
Dan Brown also mentions the Nag Hammadi library - a collection of documents discovered by accident, in Egypt in 1945. This is made up of books (not scrolls) - thirteen leather-bound volumes, containing about fifty individual documents.
They're written in Coptic, which is an Egyptian language, and specialists have dated them to about 350 AD. But they were translated from Greek original documents, which probably come from the second century.
Anyone who wants to can read what these documents said, and can check for themselves - a full translation of the Nag Hammadi library was published in English in 1977.
Gospels?
The documents in the Nag Hammadi library aren't all called Gospels, and even the five that are called Gospels aren't all about the life of Jesus, like the Gospels in the Bible.
There are other Gnostic Gospels too, that aren't part of the Nag Hammadi library. For example, the 'Gospel of Mary,' which Dan Brown refers to, was discovered separately, in Cairo, in 1896.
Unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Gospels do talk about Jesus and Mary, although they certainly don't mention the Grail. They're very important for what they tell us about the history of the early Church.
The two Gnostic documents that are most important to Dan Brown's argument are the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. There is no evidence that they existed at the time the New Testament Gospels were written.
The official translator of the Nag Hammadi library puts the date of the Gospel of Philip at 250 AD. The earliest date that has ever been suggested is 175 AD.
In fact, the Gnostic Gospels rely on the Gospels in the Bible for the story of Jesus, and they quote from documents that are in the New Testament, so they must have been written later. For example, the Gospel of Philip quotes both from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians and from John's Gospel.
The Gnostic Gospels were written about a hundred years later than the Gospels in the Bible. So the people who wrote them weren't close to the events they were writing about. Saying that these are the earliest Christian records doesn't measure up to the historical reality.