April 27, 2004
Da Vinci Code debunkers
From today's NY Times:
Fearing that the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" may be sowing doubt about basic Christian beliefs, a host of Christian churches, clergy members and Bible scholars are rushing to rebut it.Not to mention historians, who by now are heartily sick and tired of fiction writers laying claim to historical accuracy based on extensive research -- a telling inversion of the historian's standard disclaimer that the writer is solely responsible for any errors, which clearly acknowledges that errors there inevitably will be.
Word that the director Ron Howard is making a movie based on the book has intensified the critics' urgency. More than 10 books are being released, most in April and May, with titles that promise to break, crack, unlock or decode "The Da Vinci Code." Churches are offering pamphlets and study guides for readers who may have been prompted by the novel to question their faith. Large audiences are showing up for Da Vinci Code lectures and sermons. . .It would have been welcome, not to mention accurate and responsible, if the article came right out and flatly stated that no scholar, Christian or otherwise, considers any of the book's "history" anything but fantasy. Not that that would do much to stem the tide:A wide spectrum of Christian scholars agree the depiction of the Council of Nicaea is one of the book's most blatant distortions. While there was a diversity of early expressions of Christianity, they agree, Jesus' divinity was part of the church's established canons well before 325, and predates most of the newly found Gnostic and other gospels. . .
Much of "The Da Vinci Code" scaffolding of conspiracies was constructed in an earlier best seller, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," published in the 1980's. It relies on a file of documents found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France that has since been exposed as one man's hoax.
There is evidence that Mr. Brown's novel may be shaping the beliefs of a generation that is famously biblically illiterate. Michael S. Martin, a high school French teacher in Burlington, Vt., said he decided to read the novel when he noticed that his students were reading it in Harry Potter proportions.Greco-Roman religion "feminine"? One of my classics professors used to compare the role of women in the ancient Mediterranean world to that in the most conservative Islamic societies of today."We like conspiracy theories, so whether it's J.F.K. or Jesus, people want to think there's something more than what they are telling us — the they in this case being the church," Mr. Martin said. "The church has a long and documented history of really trying to crush the whole feminine side, the pagan side. I think that's really hard to debate."
Posted by David on April 27, 2004 10:05 AM
Running this article suggests that there's fear of the debunking books blemishing DA VINCI CODE's success. As co-author of THE DA VINCI HOAX, due from Ignatius Press in June, I 'm understandably annoyed that the NYT writer couldn't be bothered to mention our book or talk to us despite being provided with a manuscript.
The public's willingness to believe Dan Brown over academic historians is disturbing.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel on April 27, 2004 11:45 AM
Why so upset about the fact that some novelist wrote a novel about another novel?
I refer to the New Testament.
Posted by: Jon on April 27, 2004 11:44 PM
Surely there would not be so much concern had the novel been clearly presented as fiction. As the Times article notes:
The novel . . . might seem like little more than a potboiler. But it opens with a page titled "Fact." That page concludes: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."Whatever your feelings about the New Testament or Christianity, it should be apparent that confusing fantasy with reality can be a bad thing.
Posted by: David on April 28, 2004 2:12 PM
David,
It's a novel. Novels, except when clearly marked as part of the fantasy genre, are fact-based. Do you have to put a warning on a Tom Clancy novel?
I do think that confusing fantasy with reality is bad. Believing that a 90-year-old woman gave birth, or that God begat a son of a mortal woman, who gave birth as a virgin, and what's more, remained perpetually a virgin although she had 6-7 more children, is a very bad thing. Agreed.
What's clear is that this harmless novelist has upset some people whose power is slipping, and they are ticked. Tough.
Posted by: Jon on April 28, 2004 7:11 PM
According to Robert Graves the original deity was feminine the triple goddess her worship persisted up until the christian era, indeed the worship of the V Mary is a continuation. See demeter, and diana of the ephesians. The masculine gods took over, but the female goddesses still were important.
Posted by: ridgel on April 29, 2004 4:20 PM
"[C]onfusing fantasy with reality" has a long tradition amongst authors. One might as well complain about the "Flashman" series (although, on second thought, its take on historical events may be more closer to what happened than what we find in textbooks).
I would suggest that the people who confuse an acknowledged work of fiction with historical fact are the same people who believe Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon was filmed in a secret studio.
Posted by: South on April 30, 2004 11:32 AM
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