CX

After considerable discussion of Dan Brown's best seller amonst members of my family, I borrowed a copy from my brother and have been tearing through it (it's quick light reading). My impressions are twofold.

First, the book itself is very entertaining if you are looking for a relatively superficial and visceral experience (which I, for one, AM looking for on the rare occaision I read fictions). The pace is quick the plot is amusing and the characters, though not especially meaty, are nonetheless interesting enough to spare a few hours time.

That being said, the "history" in the Da Vinci Code is the most trite and ridculous kind of pop-cultural tabloid nonsense available to the layman. It seems as though the author did a bunch of internet research for the majority of the "startling revelations" uncovered in the book. There are small details which, though irksome, only a pedantic jerk myself would mention (i.e. the fact that the author conflates scrolls and codices as if they were the same medium) and whoppers (like fabulous conspiracy bits about the Knight's Templar taken directly off some crackpot website where one is likely to also read about the Masons, The Illuminati, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion etc.) Perhaps the thing that gave me the greatest giggle was when the Oxford University Holy Grail expert in the book refers to "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" as the pinnacle of academic scholarship in the field of grail studies.

Even so the book, is historical fiction and I almost the get the impression that the author's schtick is largely tongue-in-cheel (though perhaps that's giving him too much the benefit of the doubt).

What irks me however is how the news media has picked up on the popularity of the book and is propagating some of the flimsiest pseudo-scholarship in the field today with regard to Mary Magdelene, neo-feminism in the church etc. Sadly even the names of luminaries like John Dominic Crossan are used to give credibility to such bits of fluff as in the current cover story in Newsweek. In such articles we read all about the "substantial evidence" of the importance of Mary Magdalene that was blotted out by the male dominated orthodox church and are treated to excerpts from such gnostic gems as "The Gospel of Mary" and "The Gospel of Philip" (to gnostic writings which also feature prominently in Brown's book) yet nothing is said about the fact that we have very little in the way of MSS evidence for either of these texts especially compared to other canonical and extra-canonical early Xian writings. I mean for the love all that is unholy the evidence for the Gospel of Mary consists of 2 highly fragmentary Greek exemplars from roughly the 3rd century and a slightly longer, but still notably deficient, Coptic translation from the 5th century that contains all of 1 pericope pertaining to Jesus' relationship with Mary Magdelene, a figure who is known to have been immensely popular with 2nd century Gnostics. And that is held help to refute the complete absence of any discussion of MM in any detail in the early Xian text legacy canonical or otherwise.

This seems to me yet another example of people straining at gnats and swallowing whales to support some pet theory that jives with their personal philosophical stance.

gregor

I agree completely with your analysis.

For a better novel to read with a similar Xian history bent, I enjoyed Wilton Barnhardt's Gospel quite a bit. I hope this link works:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ernetInfidels/

Toto

Newsweek: the Bible's lost stories

Decoding the da Vinci Code

There is also a review of The DaVinci Code on

The Skeptics webpage by Tim Callahan

Llyricist

Well, to be fair, Jesus' Kingship wasn't anything to "write home about" either.