(Below are some highlights from a talk given by Peter Currie. If you would like more info on the Da Vinci Code a CD and a powerpoint presentation of the talk are available - contact us for details: wpcc@netspace.net.au)
 

The Last Supper
Dan Brown makes a big deal out of a bizarre interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in The Da Vinci Code p327. Click on "The Last Supper" and take a look for yourself:

• Dan Brown is so busy trying to find the myth of the Holy Grail in the painting that he forgets Da Vinci’s purpose in painting it :
  •  Leonardo painted it on the refectory wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy, between 1495 and 1498. 
  • In this painting Leonardo attempts to capture the reactions of the twelve following Jesus’ declaration: “I tell you the truth, one of you shall betray me” (John 13:21).
  • To establish compositional balance in the picture Leonardo grouped the twelve apostles into four groups of three, two on either side of Jesus. It is the threesome immediately at Jesus’ right hand — to the left of him as we view the picture — that plays the most important role in The Da Vinci Code.
    • There we see the figures of John, Judas, and Peter.  The triangular structure of this grouping is derived from Peter’s leaning forward to ask John a question and John’s leaning back to hear it.
    • In this Leonardo is following the cue of John 13:24: “Simon Peter motioned to the disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”
    • In the Gospel story, John then asks the question of Jesus and is told: "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." (John 13:26).  
    • And so, Judas is portrayed clutching the money bag in his right hand (see John 13:29), with his left hand hovering over a piece of bread on the table
    • There is no Holy Grail because the Holy Grail is a myth, a legend, it has no importance to genuine Christianity
       
• Mary Magdalene or John?
  • John is historically painted as young
  • “Many art historians have dismissed the theory that the figure is a woman, saying it's just a tradition to paint John as beardless and long-haired. "It looks like a young male. I see no breasts," art historian Jack Wasserman (a Leonoardo scholar) told ABCNEWS.
  • Finally, John’s face is admittedly effeminate, but not more so than the faces of Jesus and Philip in the same picture. Many of the young, beardless men in Leonardo’s paintings and drawings are effeminate (see, for example, the startlingly effeminate St. John the Baptist in the Louvre). This may relate to the artist’s homosexuality. 

Constantine
http://www.irr.org/da-vinci-code.html#Part%20

Can We Trust Our Bible?
http://www.bible-researcher.com/bruce1.html
http://biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html

There are over 5,300 known ancient Greek manuscript copies (MSS) and fragments of the New Testament in Greek that have survived until today. Counting an additional 10,000 Latin Vulgate and over 9,300 other early manuscript versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, and Ethiopic, totaling over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament. Small changes and variations in manuscripts affect none of the central Christian doctrines, nor do they change the message.

Tertullian stated that by 150 A.D., the Church in Rome had compiled a list of the New Testament books matching our list of today. We have 32,000 quotes from before 325 AD, from Irenaeus (182-188 AD), Justin Martyr (before 150 AD), Polycarp (107 AD), Ignatius (100), Clement (96 AD) and many other second and third century fathers. All but eleven verses of the New Testament could be reconstructed through their writings alone. The Muratonian Canon Fragment dating from 170 AD lists the same New Testament that we have. Also see the Early Church Fathers

The Dead Sea Scrolls
http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/dss.html