If you like detective thriller novels, the chances are you’ll have come across Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. This is a popular book which has remained on top of the New York Times bestsellers list since its appearance last year.

Drawing on the idea of the Holy Grail, Dan Brown has written a gripping novel which begins with a murder in the Louvre in Paris, and leads to a puzzle which involves the true meaning of the New Testament and the identity of Jesus. In a skillful manner, Brown solves the mystery of the murder in a manner that brings the ‘truth’ of the New Testament to light – and, in the process, tries to demonstrates that doctrines such as the virginity and deity of Jesus were imposed by the church on the Gospel tradition for unworthy purposes.

Brown’s novel is a blockbuster: and for Bible-believing Christians, that is part of the problem, since heresy can very easily be disseminated in the simplest and most alluring of ways. It is no surprise then, that leading New Testament scholars such as Darrel Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, have reacted swiftly, defending the orthodox doctrines of the faith against the undermining influences of The Da Vinci Code.

One such work is Ben Witherington’s The Gospel Code. Having read both Brown and Witherington, I am glad that a New Testament scholar of such standing and influence as Ben Witherington has taken time to produce an answer to Brown’s claims. With all his penetrating insightfulness and knowledge of the New Testament world, Witherington isolates the heresies popularised in Dan Brown’s work. These include the idea that the earliest Gospels are not Matthew, Mark and Luke, but the so-called ‘Gnostic Gospels’, the idea that Jesus was ‘divinised’ at the Council of Nicea in 325, the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and so on.

Witherington meets these false ideas head on, and demonstrates the historical reliability of the Gospels. As he does so, he opens up rich views of the New Testament along the way, and shows why it is both logical and sensible to accept the canonical New Testament with its high view of the Person of Christ.

As Christians committed to the inspiration and authority of Scripture, we should be aware of attempts made to undermine our faith in a Jesus who is both fully God and fully man. We should also be thankful for scholars like Witherington who know the issues involved, and who are able to address them for a wide audience. Read Dan Brown’s novel if you wish – but don’t do it without also reading The Gospel Code!