Problems with The Da Vinci Code

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tyler_Smedley
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I just finished reading the book myself. I am a Catholic school teacher and had two parents ask me about it in the course of just a few weeks so I figured I’d better find out what everyone was talking about.

I agree with the poster who said it is a much different type of fiction than Harry Potter. The book definitely portrays itself as fiction based in fact. I can also see how much of what it says would be accepted at face value by those who are not well versed in early church history.

There have been a number of Catholic apologies written to address this book. Can you all recommend some good ones for me to read over the summer?
 
I read the DaVinci Code because it was chosen for two of my book reading clubs. The best place to start in debunking it is Amy WellBorn’s Decoding DaVinci It is a not very long and is an easy read. The major stores are carrying it on-line but not in their brick and mortar stores.
She references two biographies of Leonardo in her book. The Nuland one is the quickest read and should be sufficient to debunk all the mistakes about Leonardo.
My first response to the book is this is what you get when you let a product of the American Public School System write books. My more reasoned response is that Dan Brown is a con artist. I believe he purposely made the mistakes in order to write a book that would anger people. It took me 5 minutes Pietro C. Marani’s Leonardo DaVinci The Complete Paintings to refute all of his claims about Leonardo’s paintings. BTW my six year old could tell the diffeerence between John the Baptist and Jesus in Madonna on the Rocks
There are questions raised by the book that aren’t answered. Of course the first rule of a mystery is that you answer all questions.
Snide question: Given the normal mode of dress for Renaisance men, how did one tell the “flamboyent” homosexuals from the closeted ones or from the straight men for that matter?
Serious question 1: If as is proposed in the book, Jesus was merely a philosopher who wanted to enouragea Judaic return to polytheism, why was anyone crucified? Polytheism was widely accepted in the Roman Empire; I doubt anyone would have taken seriously any demands from Jewish leaders to kill Christ and his followers for being monotheists.
Serious question 2: For two thousand years there have been people who claim that Christ wasn’t the Son of God, why would anyone think at this late date the Church would need to resort to violence to surpress doubts about him.
 
Thank you Beth. I’ll check out the Wellborn book. Could you give me the title of the Nuland book she references? Thanks!
 
Where I live (Chicago) Cardinal Francis George debunked it in a full article in the Catholic New World not to long ago. The last time I ran across so many foolish people who buy into ANYTHING that touts the Catholic Church as hiding secrets was when Stigmata (the movie) came out… Some of these deluded folks stated how FACTUAL Stigmata was, but said they LAUGHED at The Exorcist cause it was so unbelievable! I get so frustrated, it feels like they just suck the oxygen out of the room when the subject of religion in movies comes up.
 
Does any one have an idea of a good comment to make in passing to a co-worker who is reading the book? I’m looking for something short, not offensive, but will get them to question the integrity of the book. I would like to get them riled-up that this book is so wrong, so offensive to Catholics and to all Christians. If a book was published that misrepresented Jewish history to the extent that this misrepresents Christian history the out cry would be enormous!! (and rightly so!) But for some reason it is ok to malign Catholics and christians in general.
 
 
Well, I hate the DVC for all the reasons stated above, and I even thought it was terribly written, (flat characters, predictable plot), but you know what? It was a guilty pleasure. I read it not long before I finally went to Rome, and was fascinated by the travelogue aspect of it. Yeah, it was all fluff supposed to be fact, but if a story has secret societies, involves the Church in some way, and is steeped in history, (even if it’s faux history), I love it.

Still, I think Brown needs…um…“fingers,” let’s say…from a tall tree.
 
I read the book and was entertained (it helped kill time on a long flight). The best thing about the book is that it made me want to go and research what I didn’t know about the history of the Catholic faith (to check Brown’s references, sort to speak). I read the Gnostic Gospels to see what they actually claimed and came to understand why the early Church saw them as heretical. If the DVC does nothing else than to get people interested in and reading more about the early Christian Church than I think that will be a plus for Catholicism. The more one knows and understands about early Christian history the less confusion there will be about Catholicism and what it stands for.
 
From a New York Times Travel section article (19-Jul-2004) about the increased tourism at Rosslyn Chapel (an important site in The Davinci Code):
Hannah Storie, a co-worker, said she was frequently asked about the alleged Star of David sign in the chapel floor, which Mr. Brown describes as being a crucial clue to the Grail’s whereabouts. Perhaps, persistent visitors insist, it is concealed under a carpet.
Click to expand...
Nope, Mr. Beattie said at the gift shop. It is not under the floor, and not by the door. ‘‘We tell them that the book is a work of fiction, meaning that it isn’t true,’’ he said.
Click to expand...
:rotfl:
tee
 
Dan Brown got a lot of his misinformation from a book entitled “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, which the authors maintain is a theory. Yea, right. Just like every one else, they have a fight with the Catholic Church, they alone know the knowledge, and everyone else is an idiot. I am not an idiot. I can read.
 
40.png
Tom:
Has anyone thought of explaining to these people that the book is FICTION? Try explaining that James Bond really doesn’t exist, all those neat toys are just fiction, get a glass of milk and some cookies and read the Scripture if fiction is too upsetting.
Click to expand...
The problem is that people refuse to believe that it IS fiction. I can tell you that even intelligent, well-educated people are falling for it hook, line, & sinker. As I mentioned in another post, I have heard professors at the university where I work praising the book & its entire premise *as an historical account that unearthed new facts, *not as a merely entertaining work of fiction.
 
After Brown claims that “history has been written by the ‘winners’”, why would anyone want to swallow his version of history?

I hear the sound of someone sawing off the very branch he’s sitting on.
 
40.png
stellina:
The problem is that people refuse to believe that it IS fiction. I can tell you that even intelligent, well-educated people are falling for it hook, line, & sinker. As I mentioned in another post, I have heard professors at the university where I work praising the book & its entire premise *as an historical account that unearthed new facts, *not as a merely entertaining work of fiction.
Click to expand...
For those who say it’s just fiction and what’s the big deal, this is exactly the point. If you go to amazon.com and read the reviews, people uncritically accept this book as well-researched history, saying things like “I’m glad I finally know the truth about Jesus and the Church!” I work with an otherwise intelligent engineer who accepts the premises of the book as a viable alternative history, even quoting Brown’s dopey catch-phrase, “Well, you know that history is written by the winners.” I was in line behind a lady at Costco who had 8 copies of the DVC stacked on the conveyor belt. Do you think she was anxious to share it because it was a well written story (which, sorry to disagree with some of you, it is not)? Apparently this woman was so taken by the ideas presented in this book, that she wanted to put it into the hands of as many of her loved one’s as she could.
 
A friend who is a Mason told me their ranks have grown lately by leaps and bounds, thanks to all the Yuppie men who’ve read “The DaVinci Code,” and are now interested in esoterica.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top