February Book Review

Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine, Bart D. Ehrman, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Reviewer: Ron DuBois, VOTF Paulist Center, Boston, MA

Those of you who read The Da Vinci Code may have had some wonderment about Leigh Teabing's description to Sophie Neveu about the Gospels, the role of Constantine in determining the Canon of Scripture, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the divinity of Jesus, His relation to Mary Magdalene, and many other issues. For answers, I heartily recommend this short, easy-read book, which explores these and many other claims made in The Da Vinci Code. Bart D. Ehrman is a scripture scholar and the head of the Department of Religion at the University of North Carolina. Earlier in 2004 he published an excellent study of the Gnostics and other early Christian "unorthodox" believers entitled Lost Christianities. His new book on The Da Vinci Code borrows much from Lost Christianities but puts it in a very popular context. It not only answers some of the questions about fact and fiction (mostly fiction), but provides a very basic and clear understanding of how critical studies of the Scriptures proceed. Historical scholarship refuses to indulge in imaginative reconstruction of the past. As Ehrman states in his Introduction, "even when Dan Brown strives to present facts (and indicates that he is providing facts accurately), he has played with the 'facts,' so that many of them are, in actual fact, part of his fiction. It is the goal of my discussion to separate the fact from the fiction, the historical realities from the flights of fantasy, for anyone interested in knowing about the historical beginnings of Christianity, especially in the life of Jesus and the writings that make up the New Testament." Ehrman admits to having enjoyed the page-turning novel by Dan Brown, as did many readers. Nevertheless, on the fourth page of his Introduction Ehrman lists ten factual errors in Brown's book, some of them laughable. These, however, become the basis of the quest for the Holy Grail in The Da Vinci Code. Ehrman then goes on to deal with each claim by Leigh Teabing and to separate truth from fiction in each. For those uninitiated in the historical critical approach to the Scriptures, this little book provides one of the most direct and understandable explanations I have seen. Readers would get much from Ehrman's book, even without having read The Da Vinci Code. Nonetheless, I recommend both for sheer enjoyment as well as a little education.

Voice of the Faithful, VOTF, "Keep the Faith, Change the Church,"
Voice of Compassion, VOTF logo(s), Parish Voice, and
Prayerful Voice are trademarks of Voice of the Faithful, Inc.

Voice of the Faithful is a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt organization.