I personally have no confusion regarding whether Dan Brown’s work is fiction or not; I’m quite aware that it is fiction. I don’t find it a “threat” to my faith.

However, many people are/were confused regarding the nature of his work, even if you and I are not, in part because he himself has made statements that many parts of the book are fact, and even provides a list of books by authors like Michael Baigent which are *not* intended to be fiction and upon which his book’s fictional narrative is largely based (as Peter has pointed out). So it’s not surprising that during “on the street” interviews conducted for the filming of the BBC/Discover Channel documentary “The Real Da Vinci Code” many people considered the book to contain many important “truths”. Like it or not, many people uncritically accept many things they read in pseudo-historical books like this, and the historical inaccuracies (not mere differences of opinion, demonstrable false information) found here could color a reader’s impression of the Jesus of the Bible and thereby limit their opportunity to explore Him as the life changing Savior many have come to know.

In response to some of the specific questions raised:

“How do you know how many gospels were written?” I’ve researched it; if you do the same, you won’t find the eighty other gospels that Dan Brown’s novel mentions.

“How do you know what the first Christians thought about Mary Magdalene?” The same way that we know how anyone thought about anything in the past: Research. We possess many ancient writings from the early church, and merely have to read them to discover what their opinions were on any particular topic.

“Nothing is truly known about Mary or for that matter Jesus.” From this statement we can assume that you are dismissing the New Testament as mere myth. We should not do so out of hand, and instead perhaps ask, ‘Are there reasons to take this material seriously?’ (Besides, even if someone were to totally discount the Bible as a historical source, which I think is unwarranted, we can still know some things about Jesus from sources outside the Bible.)

“The surviving gospels in the New testament were written after Jesus’s death by men who didn’t personally know him.” How do you know this? Were you there? (Sorry, couldn’t resist; referencing back to your comment “How do you know … Were you there.”!) But seriously, as I explain in my free ebook ( http://www.whyfaith.com/nt ) there are good reasons to believe that the New Testament books, the gospels in particular, were composed by eyewitnesses or those who consulted directly with eyewitnesses. This is not merely accepting this idea on faith; I give reasons to justify such a belief. I think they’re persuasive. You may not; and you’re free to that opinion. But unless a person is able to give better reasons to justify their position, it won’t be persuasive to me.

“Who can say how accurate any of it is?” I’d say we can make educated decisions based on the available evidence; ‘inference to the best explanation’.

From galia: “we don’t know anything about Jesus or Mary’s life, we only rely on Bible which is written by men, inspired by God.” I may be misunderstanding you, but I admit that I don’t really ‘get’ this comment. If we rely on the Bible, which you say is inspired by God, how can we not know anything about Jesus or Mary’s life? It seems to me we can rely on the Bible as being accurate, or say that we know nothing about Jesus, but we can’t do both at the same time, because one implies the other … If the Bible is indeed God’s word, even if it was physically written down by men, then we know truths about Jesus, namely what we find in it. However, if it is not accurate, we should not rely on it at all. Do you agree?

Two decent books on these topics are Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for the Real Jesus”. Strobel is a Yale Law School graduate who was the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune … here he interviews top scholars for their reasons for believing. Also, my ebook mentioned above covers many topics relevant to the New Testament, although not the DVC specifically.

I am posting in the hope of getting some help for my research on the promotion for ‘The Da Vinci Code’ film. I can see you all have an interest in this and wondered if you would like to answer some questions on a forum I have created http://www.network54.com/Forum/559052/, it shouldn’t take long but the more detailed you are the better!

This would really help me out and any comments you give would be really beneficial to my research! I hope you can help!

Thanks!

Tina

The Book

Dan Browns book The Da Vinci Code is a compelling read a rare novel that you have to continue to read and are unable to put down. The story and the characters draw you in and you believe in them, you are transposed into them so you become a part of the action and you care about what happens to them.

The devilishly clever plot takes you on a journey of discovery through the past and present and the fact that there are elements within the book that are real; such as the places, the art and the organisations leads the reader to believe in the story. You are constantly on the edge of your seat from the very beginning to the very end and never once do you think you know what the outcome will be as the plot twists and turns are so expertly written. The thoroughly enjoyable and compelling read.

The Film

The film was a big disappointment after reading the book, after only 30 minutes I had become disheartened with the calibre of the film. As with a lot of today?s films it was dark and you felt you missed a lot. Tom Hanks was not a great choice for Robert Langdon he often looked uncomfortable and out of his depth. He was not convincing as a professor in the subject. The colourful descriptions used in the book failed to be applied to the film and it lost a lot of its excitement in the translation from book to screen.

Finally someone sad the truth about the ‘Da Vince Code’ movie! I do also think that this movie is one of the worse filming ever. I have not reed the whole book yet, but I do think the book is much better. I wonder if you also have an opinion about the movie Lord of the Rings, cause I really think this filming is great.

The ?Da Vinci Code movie? is one of the worst movie I have ever seen.
When you read ?Da Vinci Code? book, you experience a feeling of conspiracy hypothesis. But when I saw the movie ?Da vinci Code?, I thought: way are some parts of the book left away? I think that Hollywood have transformed a real good book to a very annoying movie.

cant you see that dan brown is a illuminati whore who cannot even count the steps at louvre.

there are 673 steps at louvre if your maths is not as bad as brown’s go and recount it.

this illuminati whore dan brown has written slander and you guys buy and read his books.

jesus/God is the saviour

the illuminati random whore published this crap book to brainwash guys like you. you are programmable robots.
open your eyes see the truthFirst they came for Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda
and I did not speak out…
because I was not Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda!
Then they came for General David McCloud,
and I did not speak out…
because I was not General David McCloud!
Then they came for Vince Foster
and I did not speak out…
because I was not Vince Foster!
Then they came for William Colby
and I did not speak out
because I was not William Colby!
Then they came for Princess Diana
and I did not speak out
because I was not Princess Diana!
Then they came for Anna Politkovskaya
and I did not speak out
because I was not Anna Politkovskaya!

Recently they came for Alexander Walterovich Litvinenko,
and I did not speak out
because I was not Alexander Litvinenko!
Tomorrow they will come for me
and alas, there will be no one left
to speak out for me….
———————-
remember me in 2008 before you decide…

“an unknown patriot”

P.S. Please forward to every American on the internet.