The Mary Magdalene story is interesting primarily because of it's iconoclastic nature.
I watched an interesting documentary on National Geographic about the Da Vinci Code stuff, and although I was biased, I'm afraid that the cases the experts made for it being hooey were quite a bit more convincing to me than were those trying to make the case in all seriousness.
One point that was made in favor of the MM story was the seeming oddity of Christ appearing first to her. That was quite interesting, because St. Gregory Palamas, in his sermon for the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing women, makes a very strong case for the inner unwritten tradition of the Orthodox Church that Christ actually appeared first to his mother. I won't go into the details, but it is quite interesting...
Much more interesting than all that Holy Blood, Holy Grail, stuff. :-)
Well let's face it. Some of the stuff in the Bible is pretty farfetched too, but for some reason no "believer" really wants to take a serious look at debunking some of that hooey ... the virgin birth, the loaves & fishes etc etc ... it all falls under the "you must have faith" banner.
If someone is going to take the trouble to tear apart one book (the Davinci Code), shouldn't it be fair game to tear apart the other (the Bible)?
I laughed when I saw someone on this thread refer to the Bible as history.
Uh ... no ... it's a book. Fiction (or "allegory" as the Church likes to phrase it) with historical references. So is Davinci.