Code Breakers: "The Da Vinci Code" and its discontents.

The Wall Street Journal ^ | April 23, 2004 | John Miller

[Cincinatus]

The best thrillers are unputdownable--a word that many readers surely attach to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." It's difficult to ride a subway or walk through an airport these days and not see somebody engrossed in its page-turning tale of murder and conspiracy. In 13 months since publication, the book has sold more than seven million copies.

[joonbug]

No I enjoyed it too. Recently read Digital Fortress which was also a fun read.

[Fifth Business]

...eschew obfuscation.

Catching! Can I use it?

[Drawsing]

A co-worker lent me the book. I found myself interested in finding out what happens next, but I was so offended by much of the content that it was difficult to finish. Subsequently, I wrote an essay to give to my friend who lent me the book:

The Da Vinci Code, a few observations.

The book is fiction, however the author presents the historical background as facts. Thus a refutation is called for.

1. Leonardo was a homosexual.
Maybe. The only recorded reference to this I have found is that he was accused of this by an anonymous accuser. He was arrested and later acquitted due to lack of evidence.


2. The painting "The Last Supper" portrays Mary Magdalene next to Jesus.
Leonardo was commissioned to paint Jesus and the twelve disciples and he did just that. Preliminary sketches label all of the figures by name. The "Mary" figure is the apostle John. Leonardo traditionally painted John as clean shaven and somewhat effeminate. Leonardo painted a painting of John the Baptist with the same effeminate look. The Last Supper painting depicts the moment that Jesus reveals he will be betrayed by one of them. This explains the dramatic poses and expressions of the disciples. Peter is pointing, he is not making a knife cutting gesture.


3. The council of Nicaea determined Jesus should be divine due to pressure from Emperor Constantine and political motivations. The gnostic gospels were excluded for the same reasons.

Historical documents of the time indicate the canon was already accepted and in wide use. The council put an official stamp on it. Also the notion of Jesus' divinity was universally accepted before Nicaea and had been proclaimed by Jesus himself in the Gospels. The gnostic gospels such as the gospel of Phillip...gnostic means "knowledge from within"...proclaim that we are all divine and we must learn to love ourselves so that we can realize that Christ is within all of us. This is the same as "new age" philosophy and the eastern religion craze and modern psychobabble that continues to befuddle the ignorant today. Our present canon..the 66 books of the Bible were accepted due to their obvious unity. The same God is proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation. God's nature and message does not change from book to book. Also the historical facts of persons, kings, nations, wars and other historical events were known to be accurate and consistent in these books. Furthermore, present day archaeological and historical study continues to bear out the facts contained in the canon. The gnostic gospels, on the other hand, contain bizarre tails with no precedent or substantiating facts. Their message directly contradicts the message of the old and new testaments and is very reminiscent of prevailing pagan mysticism. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. In fact, studies by biblical scholars and other historians have securely dated the earliest copies of the gospels as much older than the gnostic writings.

4. The Mona Lisa was an androgynous self-portrait or feminine goddess.

History records this portrait as Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo.

5. Gothic cathedrals are monuments to feminine anatomy!
I have taken over 20 credit hours of art history. I studied and memorized hundreds of examples of Gothic architecture including cathedrals, doorways, windows etc... They sure didn't look like feminine anatomy to me. Even my liberal feminist professors would have laughed at the ideas presented in this book.

6. Pagan good...Christians bad.
The author labors to present pre-Christian rituals of nature-worship, temple prostitution, and goddess worship as the true religion. He fails to mention other unpleasant aspects of pagan religions such as tossing infants into the fire, female circumcision, tossing virgins into the fire, and cutting out the hearts of living slaves and other ritual human sacrifices. Also the "goddess" religions only elevated women as far as being a sex object. It was the teachings of Christ that raised women up from the level of slave. As Paul said, "In Christ there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free." The disciples were astonished that Jesus would engage in conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well. In the early church the Bible speaks of women deacons and elders. The apostle Paul referred to women as his loyal yokefellow in the ministry. These and many other examples undercut the absurd points of Dan Brown that somehow pagan religions are superior.

7. The early church executed 5 million "witches".
Where Dan Brown got this 5 million figure is a mystery. Latest figures indicate between 30-50,000 deaths over two centuries 1300-1500 during the European witch craze. Not all of these were women and not all of them were ordered by the church. The organized church is not guiltless in this. However it is always a mistake to judge Christianity and Christ by the actions and decisions of a man-made institution.
Contrast these deaths with the rise of socialism/communism and the resultant 80-150 million deaths in one century (the 20th).

Here is another essay:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0413davinci.asp

[Ichneumon]

Am I the only one who enjoyed the book?

I enjoyed it, although I thought his "Angels and Demons" was better. It's on a similar theme and involves the same main character.

[Tijeras_Slim]

5. Gothic cathedrals are monuments to feminine anatomy!

I'd really rather not think of Hillary and Flying Butress at the same time. :)

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Anyone got an opinion on how The Da Vinci Code compares to Foucault's Pendulum?

Like a pennywhistle and triangle duet playing Happy Birthday To You compares to the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven's 9th. TDVC is a good, guilty read, but its characterizations are pathetic, its scholarship ridiculous, its message conjecture of the highest order---and directed, mind you. From the very first paragraph, you know Dan Brown had screenplay in mind, and nothing more---it's as if he had a checklist with every crucial movie cliche and ticked off each item as he wrote it into TDVC. If you take that into consideration, and read with a heavy dose of NaCl, TDVC is a fun, engaging read.

On the other hand, FP is sharp, witty, deep, involving, illuminating, illustrative, evocative, intriguing, and addictive. Umberto Eco is simply brilliant, and his genius shows on every page of FP. This author is simply a treasure.

[fourdeuce82d]

Catching! Can I use it?

If you do, I would suggest sedulously abjuring sesquipedalian logorrhea in your freeping lucubrations.

[Aquinasfan]

I was amazed at the apparent number of readers who are hypnotized by the book

The only thing I can think of is that everyone loves a great conspiracy. And this book probably also appeals to skeptics and people who don't like the Catholic Church.

[blowfish]

Agreed. I read an earlier book of his 'Angels and Demons' and though it was little more than an airport time-killer. I expected DaVinci Code to be better, but it wasn't.

[KC Burke]

I think it has troubled many readers in their faith and does so intentionally.

James L Garlow, PhD, and Peter Jones, PhD, both scholars of impecable credentials have written a book called Cracking DaVinci's Code which is really, as the author's note, cracking Brown's code. And what a "Code" it is.

They clearly point out from tha author's own words, that he didn't intend it as "just a novel." Instead it is a propganic tract, meant to sway, misinform and alter the thinking in as many as it can.

Brown on the Today Show insisted that other than his fictional character that is used to pilot the novel, the rest is absolutely fact, in his words. The book is great in its analysis of the travesty and of the behind the curtain leftist pagan crap it is trying to promote. Check out the following related sites:

www.jim garlow.com

www.cwipp.org

www.breakingthedavincicode.com

As I haven't checked them out yet, I haven't provided a live link...cut and paste if you chose to explore.

[KC Burke]

The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail have admitted that the information they used about "The Priory of Sion" was from Plantard.

After a stint in prison for fraud that ended in 1953, in '54 Plantard and some friends set up a promotion for low-cost housing in France called the Priory of Sion. It ended after amounting to nothing, but Plantard kept the name and used it as central to a giant fabricated conspiracy scheme.

In '93 a scandel in government called into question a number of people. One Roger-Patrice Pelat had been named a Grand Master of the, fictional Priory by Plantard in his documentation for his fictional conspiracy. Plantard was called into court and admitted, under oath that he had made up the whole Priory Scheme. Documents he had fabricated that were found in his home culminated with supposed evidence that he, Plantard, was the true King of France and was also descended from Mary of Magdelene.

Claptrap is everywhere. Avoid it.

[null and void]

Nope. I liked it.

[KC Burke]

see my posts 31 and 32

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Anyone got an opinion on how The Da Vinci Code compares to Foucault's Pendulum?

I think the real burning question here is "What does 'Focault's Pendulum' think about "The Da Vinci Code"?

[valkyrieanne]

DVC is an execrably written book. Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum or Theodore Roczak's Flicker are far better, in the genre of "secret gnostic cult" thrillers.

The 1996-1997 Fox TV show Millenium was far more creative with the "descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene" story arc.

That DVC should have become the best seller, when Millenium went off the air and Flicker is out of print, is really sad.

[valkyrieanne]

I couldn't read it. Labyrinthian sentences and abstruse vocabulary made it too much a chore.

Foucault's Pendulum is more fun if you sit near a terminal and do internet searches on the weirder words and phrases. How does Eco have room in his head for all this stuff?

[ASA Vet]

Anyone got an opinion on how The Da Vinci Code compares to Foucault's Pendulum?

"The Fibonacci Chain" is infinitely more unreadable.

[theFIRMbss]

>

'Da Vinci Code' best seller gets first challenge CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — "The Da Vinci Code," a thriller by a relatively unknown author, is a best seller. It has boosted the profile of New Hampshire author Dan Brown -- and it's brought him his first literary challenge. Author Lewis Perdue says that Brown's story, which explores codes hidden in Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork and a closely guarded secret involving the Roman Catholic Church, has similarities to Perdue's "Daughter of God," published in 2000. Last week, Perdue sent a letter to Doubleday, Brown's publisher. While religious themes, secrets and conspiracies aren't newcomers to popular fiction, Perdue said he was seeing too many of his own ideas in "The Da Vinci Code," Brown's fourth novel. "There are far too many parallels between the two books for it to be an accident," Perdue said Monday in an interview from north Lake Tahoe, where he is on vacation. "We've decided to take legal action." Brown said that until last week, he had never heard of Perdue, who has written about a dozen books, including "The Da Vinci Legacy," which deals with a church secret involving the illegitimate offspring of St. Peter. Brown said he has not read any of Perdue's books. Brown's protagonist, who made his debut in a previous novel, is a professor who studies religious symbols. Perdue's hero is a professor of religion. Brown's heroine is a cryptologist; Perdue's is an expert specializing in art forgery. Both deal with curator deaths. Both books also deal with a secret that the church wants to keep under wraps. "To me, the biggest smoking gun is there is a painting which contains, physically, a gold key, which leads to a safe deposit box in a Zurich bank, which contains the ultimate clue leading to the treasure," said Perdue. "And the two people retrieve this from the safe deposit box as the bad guys are closing in and they escape by the skin of their teeth." Brown's book includes a scene where the cryptologist finds a gold key behind a painting, which leads her and the professor on a harrowing journey to a safe deposit box in a Paris Swiss bank. "Swiss bank accounts are so often in thrillers they are cliche," said Brown, who added that there are limited places to hide a key in an art museum. Brown said his first book about his professor, "Angels and Demons," came out before "Daughter of God." Perdue said "Daughter of God" is a re-edit of his 1985 book, "The Linz Testament," with the same hero but with a different name.

[MEGoody]

"you'll learn some interesting history"

And in both cases, you will also learn myths that some have tried to redefine as history (e.g. that Jesus was married).