NEW YORK- Debate over Da Vinci Code has begun heating up among the Chinese churches in the U.S. since it has opened in the theatre recently. The Mandarin Baptist Church of Los Angeles (MBCLA) and the Truth Theological Seminary have organized a special seminar to discover the falsities in the movie.

Rev. Ho Kai-Ming, head pastor of the Los Angeles Chinese Alliance Church and professor at the Christian Witness Theological Seminary, who has investigated the book Da Vinci Code for almost a year, was invited as the keynote speaker.

The aim of the seminar on May 20 is to defend the biblical truth, to educate the coworkers in Christ and to boycott heresy. Most importantly, Ho stressed on revealing the truth image of Jesus Christ and affirming the authority of the Holy Bible.

Since the author of Da Vinci Code Dan Brown claimed that he has used several references when writing the book, so the contents have become very confusing as the truth and the lies are mixed together, Ho explained.

"Professor Paul L. Maier of Ancient History from the Western Michigan University pointed out that 80 percent of the content in Da Vinci Code are false. There are totally 53 mistakes found from the artistic, historical and biblical perspectives," Ho added.

As many pastors have suggested, Ho has mentioned the three key points in the book that are charged of attacking the traditional belief of the Gospel. First of all, Ho insisted that Jesus has never got married, as it is not recorded anywhere in the Bible. The Bible mentioned about Jesus’ family- his mother, brothers and sisters- but not his wife. At the moment of crucifixion, the scene described Jesus entrusted his mother Mary to Apostle John.

Apostle Paul has used the example of Apostle Peter to explain the rights of a missionary to be married. Ho questioned, "If Jesus has got married, Paul could have cited Jesus as a better example."

Secondly, Dan Brown claimed that the Emperor Constantine rejected about eighty gospels which spoke of Jesus' human traits, and rewrote the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to make him "godlike". He also stated that “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."

Ho pointed out that the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered in 1947, not in the 1950s. More surprisingly, actually not a single document in the Dead Sea Scrolls contains any mention of Jesus.

Furthermore, Ho said that it was not Constantine who decided that only the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were acceptable, even though he is one of the key characters in the advancement of Christianity in the history.

Thirdly, the novel alleges that "before the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet, not the Son of God." And it was by a "relatively close vote" that the Council of Nicaea endorsed the divinity of Jesus. The novel states that establishing the divinity of Jesus at the Council of Nicaea was critical to reinforce the unity of the Roman Empire and the power of the Vatican.

In response to those claims, Ho quoted the Bible verses from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to prove about Jesus’ divinity. Indeed, Jesus’ divinity is not determined by Constantine but the Church and the apostles have recognized it from the very beginning. The related bible verses are Matthew 16: 15-20, Luke 7: 47-48, Matthew 14: 33 and others.

For more information about the seminar, please visit http://www.ebenezerhall.org for the audio files.

[Editor’s note: Jonathan Quan has reported from New York for this article.]