Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah ”” sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.
But the success of this message ”” which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators ”” can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling ”” they’re far, far weirder than that ”” nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ”” jealous, demanding, apocalyptic ”” may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.
For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.
I remember thinking after hearing about the plot of [b]The DaVinci Code[/b] that its infrastructure appeared plagiarized from an earlier ‘non-fiction’ work, [b]Holy Blood, Holy Grail[/b]. I haven’t read [b]The DaVinci Code[/b], although I once knew a graduate student who had one of the designs (her statement) from the book tattooed on her lower back. I did read [b]Holy Blood, Holy Grail[/b], but thought it was just anti-Christian propaganda.
The ‘descendant’ of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the latter book was reported to have invented the whole story, and I thought Dan Brown admitted to having lifted the premise from the earlier work. Were these just rumors, or did I imagine all of this? If these things actually happened, why is this never mentioned?
As the old gospel song goes, ‘You can have Dan Brown and all his lies, but give me Jesus.’ Precious, costly, wholly demanding, completely holy, thoroughly efficaceous, utterly salvific Jesus. Any day!
Dan Brown did in fact take the “descendant of Mary Magdalene and Jesus” idea from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This is pretty well-known; if it seems like it’s “never mentioned,” it’s probably because it’s assumed to be general knowledge.
At least one of the authors of HB, HG tried to sue him for plagiarism in England; but as the judge pointed out, if you market your book as non-fictional history you can’t complain when people use the ideas as the basis for fiction. It would be like someone who wrote a biography of Lincoln trying to sue anyone who then wrote a historical novel in which Lincoln appeared.
Every time I point out a scientific/physical falacy of a movie my wife tells me it is not important because “It’s ONLY A MOVIE!” I have always been uncomfortable with this and did not know why. Now after Dan Brown, I do. He’s deliberately misleading us.
Sheep
a good opine, from the NYT’s no less….
Well, the NYT can only benefit from having Douthat contribute.
“Holy Blood, Holy Grail” came out in the early 80’s. It made a bit of a splash, then was ignored, until Brown re-packaged it into an entertaining (for some) novel.
#4 is right to be uncomfortable — the sad fact is that too many people get their “facts” from popular entertainment. Relying on Dan Brown for history or theology is a little like relying on “Gone with the Wind” for your knowledge of the Civil War, or even like relying on “Star Trek” for your knowledge of astronomy.
You would not believe the number of people I had come up in the Library when DaVinci Code came out, saying that it was nice to have someone publish the TRUTH about Christianity! When I pointed out that it was FICTION and Brown admitted as much, they would say “well of course he’d say that, otherwise the Vatican would have him killed!” 🙄
For those who WANT to be deceived, no amount of truth will convince them otherwise. Even on his ‘based on history’ passages, Brown got it wrong 99% of the time.
Jim Elliott
Florida
Dan who?
For Dan Brown calling his work “Fiction” there’s a story I heard from an Orthodox priest whose daughter attended school with Brown’s daughter. When the first book was making big headlines, the school the girls attended asked Brown out to speak to the student body. While speaking to them he is said to have told them that all the book was true, tho written as a novel. The priest missed seeing him by just a few hours, or as he said, there would have been a very interesting meeting. he doesn’t take kindly to people lying about the faith, neither do I. Brown just doesn’t know how to tell the truth, and I expect after a few years of doing this and alot of money as a result it gets harder to think of a good reason not to lie.
Hold on! Hold on! Are you telling me that Star Trek is an unsatisfactory source of knowledge about astronomy? Next you will be telling me that The Force cannot be with me nd that Star Wars is merely fictional.
You are destroying my faith in my best sources of knowledge. And now knocking Dan Brown! Now I have to go back and change what I wrote in Wikipedia, and is not Wikipedia absolutely trustworthy? L
franz, i remember reading the general consensus that gone with the wind was actually quite factual regarding the war between the states and the battle timelines…? i have been a trekker for quite awhile but wasn’t obsessive about it so i can’t speak for learning about constellations; btw the new star trek film is fantabulous…