Everyone Else Is Talking About It

This entry was posted by on Thursday, 18 May, 2006 at

I read The Da Vinci Code last December, after hearing about the “controversy” for some time. I found it irritating. To be fair, I categorize it as a “decent” thriller. I have definitely read better, but I have also read some absolute trash, and this was certainly above-average.

What really irritated me is that so many people seem to read this book and suddenly think that they know more about Christianity than Christians do. It’s a work of fiction people; which is not to say that Dan Brown personally made up the claims in this book, (because in many cases he did not) but he did combine various theories together in a way that suited his own plot. I find the fact that multiple books have been written about this book to be rather absurd, because honestly, I can only imagine that anyone who would actually take their theology from a work of fiction is probably far more interested in fiction than in theology. (Of course, at this point, the atheist would be quick to point out that the scriptures of every religion are merely works of fiction, but that’s a slightly different issue.)

Of course, people find it interesting for the questions it raises. Even if you haven’t read it, I assume by now that you have heard the claims that Jesus married and had children by Mary Magdalene. (Or maybe you only heard, as I have on at least one occasion, that Jesus married “Mary” and assumed this meant the Virgin Mary, his own mother.) Am I bold enough to say that I have such confidence in the accuracy of the Bible as it has been preserved for us that I am one hundred percent certain that that never happened? Of course I am not. But I just happened to be in Paris while I was reading the book, and could not help but wonder, “Have you actually been to the Louvre, Mr. Brown? … Because I was there this morning, and it wasn’t like you described.” I have since talked to a couple of other people who declared that the book also contained rather serious errors within their fields of expertise, and we all quite readily agree that if the book is wrong on things that we do happen to know something about, why on earth should we trust it in areas that we do not?

Obviously the most grievous error is Dan Brown’s characterization of what Christianity “is”, verses what it was supposably meant to be. The book claims something to the effect that the Jesus intended to leave Mary Magdalene in charge of the Church, not Peter, and that there has been a conspiracy of male dominance ever since. I neither defend nor speak for the Catholic Church, but protestants hold that Jesus himself is still head of the Church, and Christians are not answerable to Peter or anyone else on earth. If you have not read the book, allow me to spoil it for you: according to Dan Brown, “true” Christianity is basically a goddess-worshiping sex cult. I mention this in the off chance that the producers of the movie tastefully decide to leave out the orgy scene (which somehow – I doubt.)

Having read the book, I have no desire to see the movie. I have no desire for anyone to see the movie, but I do not imagine that that holds a lot of weight. I do not think that the book was worthy of the attention and controversy it has generated. I wish that people would just stop talking about it, yet here we are.
Instead of going out to see this movie, why not rent Walk The Line instead?


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