The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
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Book Reviews of The Da Vinci Code
Book Review: Blasphemous
Summary: 1 Stars
Where to start? Well first of all, for all those "intellectuals" that think that Dan Brown has DICOVERED something, think again. This book has been written in various different forms by other people preceeding Dan Brown (Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird, and The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker). This in not to say that his crap is true, on the other hand, his references will show that his points are invalid. The references used for this book do not cite source documents from Jesus' time. Instead, the only real mention of the Mary Magdalene scenario is a kiss in the gnostic gospel of Philip, and a mention in the gnostic gospel of Mary. Both of which were rejected by the early Church fathers very early after the death of Christ (200 a.d.). Any research on the Church fathers will show that the canon of the bible surfased long before Constantine, and never contained anything about Jesus being married! Was it a "cover up?" Well, considering that the actual bible has been historically documented only decades after Jesus' death, while the gnostic gospels sprouted up hundreds of years after that, proves that they are likely false. If you have the desire to read this book, just remember that you cant believe everything you read. You owe it to yourself to research Dan Brown's claims before falsely accepting them.
"It is just fiction." This has been heard before, and is quite ridiculous in that Dan Brown himself tells his reader that it is not all fiction. Although, I do agree that even the "facts" in this book are fiction, it is important not to blow this off as a meaningless fictional plot that has no intention of criticizing Christianity.
To my surprise, Dan Brown has "discovered" that the Catholic Church killed five million women as witches. This is ridiculous, the actual number is historically estimated between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned.
Perhaps the paintings of Leonardo are more appealing, in that Dan Brown has surely uncovered something there? Refer to the following from Crisis Magazine (Sandra Miesel. "Dismantling The Da Vinci Code." Crisis (September 2003):
"Brown's revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views "while I was studying art history in Seville," but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received "hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions" (actually, it was just one...and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it's widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not - as Brown claims - a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L'Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown's argument centers around da Vinci's Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn't a material vessel. But da Vinci's painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, "One of you will betray me" (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John's Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown's contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can't be sustained."
It is impossible for me to point out every amount of falseness in this book, however I urge anyone to research it and find out for yourself. Remember, ignorance is the opposite of intellegence. One reason so many "intellectuals" are buying into this crap, is that it makes them feel more intelligent than the "sheep" that buy into religious doctrine! It would be surprising if anyone could obtain the amount of knowledge in one life time that a religion has gained over the course of 2000 or more years!
Book Review: Well written, but utterly ridiculous!
Summary: 1 Stars
Alright how to review a book that uses know intelligence at all. Hmmm... well it seems as though the public believes anything they are told. Even if the "facts" told to them are from a fictional "expert." This is the sad state of the world today. The book opens with the death of the curator of the Lourve, The Da Vinci Code is a mystery story and is reframing the way people think about Christianity, the church, and Jesus himself. First off the premise of this book really isn't original. It was done before in the 1970s, but recieved little to no support. Anyway the novel finds Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon thrown together with a french cryptologist and the daughter of the slain man, Sophie, as they try to unravel a series of clues hidden in the works of da vinci and they attempt to deny the diety of Christ. Using many made up facts and imaginable 80 gospels which have been disproven as propaganda devised by the atheist, alot of the actual historical facts are inaccurate such as the exact date of the discovery of the dead sea scrolls. The book says they were discovered in the 1950s, which is untrue, they were actually discovered in 1947. It is one thing to offer a novel that posits all sorts of conspiracies and theories that intrigue the imagination and provide fodder for coffee-break discussion, but it is entirely different when a writer puts things into the mouths of his fictional characters and present it as true, proven facts when they hae obviously been disproven. Face it people, everyone that has tried to disprove the diety of Jesus Christ has failed miserably. Christ is the Son of God, okay so get over it. No amount of theories or false religions (i.e. atheism, muslim, agnostic) will change that. Besides the Bible already predicted these things, so we are never surprised with things like this. I'm shocked that many of you people buy into this. I mean art critics have examined da vinci's drawing of the "Last Supper" and every sunday school student knows good and well that their were 12 disciples, and that has been proven, and considering that this was the last supper all the disciples would be their. Because John doesn't have a beard, this guy gets it in his head that this must be Jesus's wife? WHAT RUBISH! Every historical document, ancient diary, and even all art critics say that the figure in the painting is of a young man without a beard. You see that pretty much takes the wind out of this persons argument. Brown's expert is wrong on even simple, basic facts. As I mentioned before, The Dead Sea Scrolls were not discovered in the 1950s but in 1947. They were documents from a Jewish community that thrived during the time just prior to Jesus' life. They not only do not contain any "gospels" of any kind, but make no reference to Jesus at all. There are a few "gospels" among the Nag Hammadi documents, but based on the dating of the documents themselves, the allusions to the Canonical Gospels found in them, and the references found in the Early Church Fathers to the teaching that permeates the Nag Hammadi material, it is reasonable to conclude that these so-called gospels all are much later creations than the Canonical Gospels. The discriptions of Jesus is inconsistence not only with the Gospels, but what is known about Jesus from sources outside of the New Testament. It is true that Jesus is the most inspirational leader the world has ever seen, but He did not personally topple kings. Ultimately, His followers did influence millions for Him, but His personal ministry touched far fewer. Although He is the Messiah and as such the rightful heir to David's throne, His life was not recorded by thousands of His followers. Not only is there no reliable historical evidence of such wide spread recording, but seeing as He lived in a time when writing materials and ability were scarce, it is unreasonable to make such an assertion. Also this moron, Brown, has his "expert" quoting from the Gospel of Philip. There are some Aramaic/Syrian nuances in the work, but it doesn't exist in Aramaic. Apparently Brown intends for us to accept the idea that the original Armaic word that was translated into Greek and then into Coptic always means "spouse." But neither the word in Aramaic, or Greek, or Coptic for "companion" has as its only meaning "spouse." Face it, Jesus wasn't married, and He is the Son of God. So honestly as I have just exposed the stupidity of this lame-brained author, I hope you'll be smart and not support false teachings, and definately do not, under any circumstances, support this wad of junk. PLEASE, next time you try to deny the diety of Christ, at least get the facts strait Brown.Book Review: "The Da Vinci Code" is a Trojan Horse
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Da Vinci Code" is a Trojan horse. On the outside, it's a gripping murder mystery penned by Dan Brown, a masterful writer of fiction. On the inside, the reader can easily mistake speculative material for fact. Several points that Brown's characters endeavor to establish are not true or are at best speculation; among them:
1 - The divinity of Jesus Christ was determined by nothing more than a vote of fourth-century bishops at the Council of Nicaea.
2 - One of Brown's characters states: "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned."
3 - Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene, and together they had children and established a "royal bloodline" that exists to this day.
Brown's characters' present these assertions as fact; however, there is good reason to suspect they are far from the truth or just plain false.
1 - According to one of Brown's characters, the Council of Nicaea, held in 325 A.D., determined Jesus' divinity by merely voting on it (page 233). However, determining the divinity of Jesus Christ was not among the issues that prompted Constantine to assemble this Council. The Council was convened to discuss and evaluate a new perspective that sprang up within the church and endeavored to deny Jesus' deity. The Council ultimately affirmed a long-standing apostolic doctrine (that is, established truths and historical accounts that originated with actual eyewitnesses of Jesus' miracles over three centuries earlier). The Council overwhelmingly confirmed His deity based on a thorough evaluation of this new perspective in comparison to the eyewitness-based apostolic doctrines.
2 - Constantine did not select or omit different versions of the Gospels, as one of Brown's characters states (pages 231 and 234). He merely initiated the production of fifty new copies of the existing Bible to ensure more widespread distribution and use of it throughout the Roman Empire. The content of the Bible was already well established before Constantine's birth, evidenced by a list of nearly all of the New Testament books (including the names of the four Gospels or references thereto) found on the Muratorian Fragment, dated approximately 190 A.D., nearly a century before Constantine's birth.
3 - To support the proposition that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, one of Brown's characters explains that this "royal bloodline" has been "chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." This character then refers another character (and at the same time, the reader) to a list of these historians' books (page 253), all of which actually exist. The "tome" among them, according to this character, is "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." However, one of the "historians" who wrote that book describes the book's material as something other than historical fact.
Writing in "The Introduction to the Paperback Edition," one of the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," described the material upon which that book is based as "academically suspect" among historians. Describing the three authors' approach to writing the book, he states, "It was with a vision akin to that of the novelist that we created our book." And, "...unlike the professional historian, the novelist is accustomed to an approach such as ours. He is accustomed to synthesizing diverse material, to making connections more elusive than those explicitly preserved in documents. He recognizes that truth may not be confined only to recorded facts but often lies in more intangible domains-in cultural achievements, in myths, legends, and traditions; in the psychic life of both individuals and entire peoples." Note to the reader: this is one of the "historians" referred to by Brown's character.
Brown packages these and other vast assertions made by his characters in an excellent murder mystery that is bursting at the seams with highly detailed and very interesting descriptions of myths, legends, religious and pagan symbols, numerology, cryptology, and every other "ology" that's out there. The sheer volume of these presumably accurate descriptions, and Brown's technique for cleverly weaving them into his gripping murder mystery, readily lulls the reader into accepting everything presented by his characters as fact.
Just as the Trojans should have been in that mythological classic, readers of The Da Vinci Code should beware. There's great can't-put-it-down entertainment here, crafted by a gifted fiction writer; however, the perceptive reader will be wary of taking anything as fact without first checking credible sources for confirmation.
Book Review: Hardy Boys for adults
Summary: 3 Stars
A comparison of this novel with the Hardy Boys is meant to be descriptive, not pejorative. When I was 10 or 11 years old I used to love diving into a new Hardy Boys mystery and it was with some regret that when I reached the age of 13 the books no longer worked for me. (The regret lasted only until I discovered Science Fiction -Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Simak, Norton, etc.) Starting with the colourful cover, the Hardy Boys porovided action, mystery, suspense -these were juveniles succeeding in an adult world. My God, they could even drive! And imagine having a father who was a detective. I would lose myself for hours in their black and white world of smart, energetic teen-agers and bad guys with foreign accents and five o'clock shadows.'The Da Vinci Code' is the second Dan Brown book I have read (I read 'Angels and Demons' last year.) Both books are packed with fascinating, little known facts and interesting, if far out, theories about intriguing subjects. The writing is clunky, even risible in places. The characters are one dimensional and absolutely cartoonish at times. The plot twists are outrageous, occasionally bordering on the ridiculous. The action is breakneck and nobody in a Dan Brown book seems to ever sleep. And yet it all works in its own way.
Here are some negatives that a potential reader might want to know about:
-paper-thin, cliched characters.
-barely readable writing style -I've never read a book where so many people 'chuckled' or where jaws were so prone to dropping.
-grandiose, Agatha Christie-like plot turns.
-loose, somewhat unsatisfying ending -perhaps setting things up for a sequel.
On the positive side:
-interesting, surprising facts about all sorts of things (e.g. Christ's divinity was voted upon at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Until then a majority of Christians thought of Christ as a divinely inspired prophet, but still a human being.) Brown stimulates thought on any number of intriguing topics. He challenges what you thought you knew while providing fascinating snippets of new information. Some of this information seems to be stretched and sensationalized at times, but I don't think there are any fabrications or any intent to mislead.
-well-described, exotic European buildings and locations. Brown is at his best describing ancient buildings and famous works of art.
-furious action and multiple points of view.
-there is no padding. Some writers would have dragged out this book for another 200 pages.
-there is violence but no gratuitous violence. There is no sex, gratuitous or otherwise, which I suppose could have also have been listed as a negative. Nevertheless it is refreshing to read a best-selling author who doesn't feel he has to put in a minimum quota of sex to fulfill a mundane expectation.
-reading 'The Da Vinci Code' makes you want to travel and see the art and locations described within.
Brwon speculates a lot, but with the topics under consideration there is a lot of room for speculation. Hard, uncontestable facts about early Christianity, the Templars, medieval secret societies, and the inner intrigues of the Catholic church are not easy to come by. Brown does his readers a service by questioning long accepted ideas and challenging one to re-examine what you thought you knew about the rise of Christianity. The idea that the Roman Empire didn't really fall but only morphed into the monolithic, imperialistic Catholic Church is not new (see P.K. Dick's 'Valis') but it is an important concept that deserves more consideration, and it will be a new idea to a lot of Brown's huge readership. The fact that the four gospels, which so many Christians take for the last word about events that happened 2000 years ago, were only a small fraction of what was extant at the time the 'authorized version' was approved about 1700 years ago will also be new to many readers (read 'The Unauthorized Version' by Robin Lane Fox), as will the role of the Catholic church in deliberately suppressing all points of view not in strict accordance with its rigid dogma. It wasn't just millions of people who were tortured, slaughtered, and erased from history when the Manichaeans, Gnostics, Bogomils, Cathars and so-called witches were wiped out, it was also ideas that were killed. Often the only way facts about some of these ideas, movements, and people can be reconstituted is by studying extant church polemics against them (see 'Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics' by Leonard George.)
While far from being a work of art, 'The Da Vinci Code' is a good bit of escapist fun which touches on important questions of history and theology, and I look forward to reading Brown's next book.
Book Review: Decent, But Highly Overrated
Summary: 3 Stars
Placed firmly between fact and fiction, the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown attempts to draw the reader in with a loose tapestry which spans both, and tries to draw on each element to keep your attention. While the book is intriguing on one level, it is deficient in another. It draws you in for one reason, then casts you out for another. It starts fast, and finishes faster. The story moves in 2 different planes, one of them satisfying and the other a myriad of absurdity. In the end, neither aspect is really all that satisfying because they have to coexist together to form the book as a whole.
I read this book because my mother bought it for me. She bought it for me because it was the rage at the time. She read it, her friend read it, her friend's friend read it, and so on. I don't question how or why a book ends up on top of my "to read" pile. I just read it, thankful for the opportunity to walk down a road I might not have otherwise walked down. This is exactly that, a book I never would have read left to my own devices.
I enjoyed the book. But it is nowhere near as good as general perception paints it to be. Frankly, I think this is one of the most overrated books in recent memory. I rarely read bestsellers because I think the general reading public tends towards trash novels that aren't worth the time spent reading them. Is this one of those novels? I can't say that. But it's not a 5-star book either. It's a decent book which intrigued me in terms of historical perspective but which suffered mightily in trying to tie it together. This would have been better served as a sort of Dummy's Guide to Biblical Intrigue, or something along those lines.
The book's dual parts come from the historical discussion on religion, combined with a fictional story about a riddle which needs to be figured out. [...]
I have to imagine there will be a sharp polarization regarding opinions on this book based on religious affiliation, or lack thereof. This tired debate should not be how you approach this book. It is a work of fiction, first and foremost, and should be regarded as such. Despite the fact that Dan Brown states all the documents and rituals in the book are factual, a token investigation shows these claims are flimsy, at best. Throughout the book, Brown toys with fact and fiction so much that one isn't sure where the line is drawn between them. In the end, it's hard not to see Brown as self-important, since he is essentially dubbing his book as the Holy Grail, in a very tangible way. I'm not sure he intended that, at least not overtly. But that's what his claim ultimately is.
As I said earlier, the religious history is intriguing. This is so true it's easy to find yourself fully engaged in the book, regardless of the pure fictional aspect of it. The "code" keeps you interested. Yet in the end, it lacks the literary punch to keep you hooked throughout, as the believability factor creeps towards absurdity as the pages dwindle. This is the core of the fictional piece of the book. As it winds down, we see the story fade into a weak, mediocre pulpit in which Brown uses to preach his message.
The payoff to the novel is disappointing, since we don't get much of a crescendo to either story. The ending is a distasteful combination of the predicable and anti-climatic. You're left assuming Brown couldn't tie it together, and was forced to patch things up as best he could so the story could end. For many people, I believe the intrigue of the religious aspect is so strong it allows them to overlook the weak ending and poor fiction in the book. Personally, I find it very difficult to allow the weak ending to be overshadowed by the excellent opening, an opening which was left ultimately unrewarding.
Despite all the criticisms, I think it's a good book that *some* people should read. As I see it, the potential problem lies in the thought that people will have problems differentiating fact and fiction, and the book will serve as another disinformation tool which is no better than the church which it, in part, attempts to expose. The story, characters, and dialog are enjoyable until they get inane, the layers of involvement degrade, and the conclusion derails. Still, I did enjoy my time reading it.
In all, a good book for those who are easily able to differentiate between fact and fiction, who can assess the book on its own merits without allowing the loaded fictitious scenarios to sway them either way, and for those people (like me) who are likely uninformed about the subject matter it tries to uncover, namely the details of the Holy Grail and the religious history surrounding it.