Free Republic

It is a dark and stormy night. Yet at the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris, there isn't a single self-mutilating albino monk in sight. Along the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, not even one dead curator sprawls on the museum's famous parquet floor. And in the hayloft of a chateau outside Paris, the secret listening post just isn't there. Yet even if they can't find all the details mentioned in the book, fans of "The Da Vinci Code" seem to have an insatiable need to link the fiction to reality -- especially at the Louvre, where the opening murder...

In preparation for this book review, I recently began reading Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel, The Da Vinci Code. I found it to be a gripping mystery filled with page-turning cliffhangers. No wonder this book has sparked such a reaction. Many novelists have written copycats, hoping to strike similar gold. On the other hand, countless Christian writers and theologians have fought an uphill battle trying to set the historical record straight. Darrell Bock is one of them, and he debunks Brown's ideas in his new book, Breaking the Da Vinci Code. Many have wondered why biblical scholars would take such an...

Glorious Appearing — the twelfth edition of the Left Behind novels — and The Da Vinci Code are a strange couple. Yet there they sit, Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, on the April 18th New York Times bestseller list for hardcover fiction. The Left Behind books have now outsold John Grisham, and The Da Vinci Code has sold nearly seven million copies in a year. Is the popularity of the two a mere coincidence? So it would seem, based on the glaring differences between the books. In one corner, the Left Behind juggernaut is steered by two devout fundamentalist Christians,...

<p>Everything is interwoven. Jesus tongue kissed Mary Magdalene, a lot. Potent juicy mystical secrets are everywhere, if you know where to look. Organized religion is the worst possible answer.</p> <p>What supposedly sacred truths are available to us are all relative to those who hold the power. Often, just behind the facade of things is a huge hunk of gorgeous convoluted magic you would do well to lick. Meanwhile, the divine feminine is right there, winking, sighing heavily, waiting for you. Like, duh.</p>

The year’s surprise “it” girl is the star of a mega best seller, a hot topic on campuses and rumored to be the “special friend” of a famous and powerful man. Yet she’s still very much a woman of mystery. For close to 2,000 years, Christians have known her as Mary Magdalene, but she was probably named Miriam, and came from the fishing village of Magdala. Most people today grew up believing she was a harlot saved by Jesus. But the Bible never says that. Scholars working with ancient texts now believe she was one of Christ’s most devoted followers,...