Secrets behind 'The Da Vinci Code'

Buried deep in the pages of “The Da Vinci Code” is a secret about Mary Magdalene, one the book says the church has suppressed for centuries. If you look carefully, there are clues pointing to it everywhere: in the Bible, in historical documents, and in works of art by Leonardo Da Vinci— complex codes and mysterious messages that the novel claims were cleverly hidden by the artist. 

But are they really there?

David Nolta, art historian: He was one of most mysterious people in the history of Western civilization. When people think of the renaissance man, they often think of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Art historian David Nolta teaches a course on “The Da Vinci Code. He considers Leonardo a genius whose work still evokes a deep sense of awe and mystery. His paintings, abundant drawings, and notes, (many of which are written backwards), seem full of secrets and fantasies. Leonardo was an architect, musician, anatomist, and engineer.

Stone Phillips, Dateline anchor: And according to this book, the keeper of the Holy Grail.

Nolta: Right.

According to “The Da Vinci Code,” Leonardo offers the key to the secret of Mary Magdalene and her relationship to Jesus in his masterpiece in Milan, the Last Supper.

The novel turns conventional wisdom on its head with this declaration that "The Last Supper" doesn't depict 13 men, but 12 men and a woman. Could that be true? For answers, the novel instructs us to take a closer look at the figure to Jesus' right. We asked Nolta to help us demystify the meaning of the painting. Could it be that the beardless apostle, always believed to be St. John, is really a woman? And if so, who is she?

Phillips: This figure does appear to be more feminine than any other figure in the painting.

Nolta: I totally agree, most feminine.

If that's true, what could the painting be telling us? The book points to another clue.  The "M" evoked by the outline of the central figures could actually be a secret code that stands for Mary Magdalene.

Nolta: You can find an "M", certainly… which could stand for Mary Magdalene.

Or the book says it could stand for something far more provocative, like matrimonio or marriage. Could Mary Magdalene and Jesus have been husband and wife? “The Da Vinci Code” claims the Last Supper practically shouts out that they were a pair. To find out if there's any truth to this radical claim, we must travel back 2,000 years.

Mary and Jesus are thought to have come from Galilee. Mary, some believe, was from a prosperous fishing family and Jesus was a Jewish preacher with a reputation for performing miracles. 

The New Testament says they came together when Jesus cast out Mary's "seven demons," spirits once thought to represent her wayward past. But today, it is widely seen as a metaphor for illness, perhaps epilepsy.

Soon, the Bible says that Mary was traveling the countryside with Jesus and even contributing money to his ministry. She was with him during his final days in Jerusalem, one of the few followers to remain by his side at his moment of death.

Phillips: How significant a figure was Mary Magdalene in Jesus' life?

Karen King, Harvard divinity school professor: Mary Magdalene had to be the most important woman in Jesus' life, perhaps other than his mother. He surrounded himself by a group that followed him. Jesus loved her more than the others. The question is, why?

Margaret Starbird, author: I think they were a couple. I think he found her irresistible.

Author Margaret Starbird, whose controversial research on Mary Magdalene is cited in “The Da Vinci Code,” says there's no need to look to art for clues of an intimate relationship between Mary and Jesus. All you have to do, she says, is read the New Testament. It's right there in the Book of John.

Starbird: When Mary Magdalene comes to the garden to mourn for Jesus and to anoint him for his final anointing and finds him resurrected in the garden, she is overjoyed.

Before Jesus ascends to heaven, Mary reaches out to him and he tells her "do not touch me." 

Starbird: He's saying "I can't stay with you now" and she's trying to hold on. It's not just a touch. It's an embrace. If she weren't married to him, she wouldn't have dreamed of touching him.

Most scholars and of course the Catholic Church refute the notion that the scene in the garden suggests anything intimate between Jesus and Mary. But Starbird says that outside of the Bible, in those unrecognized gospels found in the Egyptian desert, there are more clues, like phrases from the Gospel of Phillip that say Mary Magdalene "always walked with the Lord" and is "the one who was called his companion."

Phillips: Would the word "companion" translate to "spouse"?

King: It can mean spouse as well as companion.

Others say "companion" might simply mean a spiritual companion or fellow traveler.  But “The Da Vinci Code” quotes another line in the same passage as proof that Jesus and marry shared a sexual relationship.   It reads, "Christ loved her more than all the other disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth."

But many scholars, like Bart Ehrman author of "Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code," say that's stretching the truth.

Bart Ehrman, author of "Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code": The manuscript that has the Gospel of Philip has holes in it. And so there are places where the words don't come through. And so what it says is that Jesus loved blank. And frequently blank kiss blank on the blank. So it looks like Jesus is kissing Mary Magdalene somewhere on her body but we don't know where.

Phillips: That's all we've got.

Ehrman: That's all we got.

Phillips: Literally holes in the story.

So the picture is incomplete.  But wherever Jesus kissed Mary, other scholars add, it doesn't tell us anything more about their relationship.

Phillips: Are there other instances of Jesus kissing other disciples?

Dr. Ben Witherington, III, Asbury Theological Seminary: Oh sure. Absolutely. And of course, you have the famous one that's in the reverse where Judas kisses Jesus to identify him when he's betrayed. What we know about early Jewish culture is that this was the traditional greeting.

And, as for the book's claim that a married Jesus makes infinitely more sense than our view of Jesus as a bachelor, scholarly opinion is mixed.

Elaine Pagels: It's certainly true that most Jewish men got married. Rabbis in particular. And it could well be that Jesus was married.

Witherington: It was the norm and it was normal that Jews got married. Were there a lot of notable exceptions? Absolutely there were. And Jesus could be one.

But one thing scholars agree on is this: nowhere in the New Testament or in any other Christian teachings does it spell out whether or not Jesus was married. That's because it never happened. But for others, that silence is rich with possibility.

King: If there were any definitive piece of evidence that Jesus and Mary were married, it would have been told many times.

Phillips: That's a secret that would not have kept.

King: What we really have is silence, and silence is pregnant with many kinds of meaning.

But what if there was a reason for that silence, a truth, says “The Da Vinci Code,” that if revealed, was far more threatening to the church than a marriage?

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