[maine-iac7]

became a Dan Brownite member in the Church of Dan Brown.

for the umpteenth time _ why is everyone both vilifying and crediting Brown with these "ideas"?

He simply took the 'ideas' that have been around for 2000 years - and from CURRENT publications - NON-fiction with extensive biblios - and used them as a springboard for a NOVEL: "a fictional prose work with a relatively long and often complex plot, "

Is it that so few folk today read NON-fiction or is it that it is hoped that by keeping the focus on the fiction story it may deflect from people discovering the NON-fictional (like in historical and factual) accounts of the "ideas" being credited to Brown?

For those who want to know where Brown got "his" ideas, a good place to start is a book that first gave Brown the impetus to explore further - a book by a lifelong Catholic with an impressive background, who set out to disprove the Mary Magdalene/Jesus marriage story. It was her first book on the subject: "The Woman With the Alabaster Jar" - published looonnng before the DC.

For those qwho already know all the facts );o) don't look at the following:

Margaret Starbird's web sight - scroll down to her bio first -

http://www.margaretstarbird.net/

and for heavens sake, don't read any of Sir Laurence Gardner's books or the many others now in print on these 'ideas' that will come up in Amazon.com, for one.

And close your eyes now, I'm going to post a photo of a stained glass window in a European church - been there long before Brown was born:

[Irish Queen]

First thing maine-iac7 do you believe Dan Brown's ideas about who Mary Magdalene was?

Second, I did not pan Dan Brown as a writer. It's obvious that he writes very well - enough to sell millions of books worldwide. Is he the best writer of suspense novels or historical fiction in the last 100 years, probably not. Does he include real historical facts in his book? Of course he does. But He does not seem to be the kind of writer who is driven to fact check each and every detail. By its very construct a historical fiction book must be placed firmly within the boundaries of real time and space. If Dan Brown wrote The DeVinci Code without historical elements he'd have to title it something other than the DeVinci Code. Unless the creator of the code was Vinny DeVinci, a housepainter from Trenton, New Jersey.

Thirdly, I did not accuse Dan Brown of plagiarizing another's writer's story plot. It is a well structured story, with enough twists and turns to make for a real summer page turner. Fourthly, my comments about some folks being Dan Brownite's was not a put-down of the author. Instead it was a comment of the intense devotion some readers toward Dan's Brown's fictional story. At times devotees of certain books or series remind me of the Cargo Cult in the South Pacific. During WWII certain native people created a religion from the abandoned cargo and military surplus left on their islands. Some folks seem to do the same things with certain books, such as the Harry Potter Series, the books of Arthur C. Clarke,

[Irish Queen]

First thing maine-iac7 do you believe Dan Brown's ideas about who Mary Magalene was?

Second, I did not pan Dan Brown as a writer. It's obvious that he writes very well - enough to sell millions of books worldwide. Is he the best writer of suspense novels or historical fiction in the last 100 years, probably not. Does he include real historical facts in his book? Of course he does. But He does not seem to be the kind of writer who is driven to fact check each and every detail. By its very construct a historical fiction book must be placed firmly within the boundaries of real time and space. If Dan Brown wrote The DeVinci Code without historical elements he'd have to title it something other than the DeVinci Code. Unless the creator of the code was Vinny DeVinci, a housepainter from Trenton, New Jersy.

Thirdly, I did not accuse Dan Brown of stealing plagerising another's writer's story plot. It is a well structured story, with enough twists and turns make for a real summer page turner. Fourly, my comments about some folks being Dan Brownite's was not a put-down of the author. Instead it was a comment of the intense devotion some readers toward Dan's Brown's fictional story.