Re: Mary Magdalene
I'll be blunt about it - I'm a Christian. I liked “The Da Vinci Code.” I'm still a Christian. To use faith as a basis for blind fanaticism against those who present speculation and doubt is to abuse a profound opportunity to acquire wisdom. If one so zealously claims that a book which has acquired such esteem and notoriety is false and made up and purely fictional, without regarding any sort of historical truth or validity, their motives ought to be questioned directly. Being defensive and short-sighted will gain nobody any ground. To be fair, it is just as foolish to blindly accept the claims Dan Brown makes as truth, historically or otherwise, and to judge his suggested implications of those claims as being valid. Anyone unwilling to study the subject himself is unfit to assert its truth, while anyone who makes a claim regarding its validity is responsible to reasoning the facts out for himself.
For those who claim “The Da Vinci Code” is pure fiction, it should be taken into account that few books are held in such controversy, much less fiction. A lot of the historical background Brown presents is verifiable, such as the content of the Nag Hammadi texts (known as the Gnostic Gospels), the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which most people know of, but are unbearably difficult to get a hold of), the claims that both texts make, the claims on the nature of the Holy Grail, including the roots of the term, the existence and proclaimed purpose of the secret society "Priory of Sion", etc.
The part of the story that is fiction however, is regarding that part of the plot dedicated to the demonization of Catholosism, and the implications of the historical evidence. An article written by Opus Dei (which really is a personal prelature of the Catholic Church) in the defense of the faith states the following:
The book has raised public interest in the origins of the Bible and of central Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus Christ. These topics are important and valuable to study, and we hope that interested readers will be motivated to study some of the abundant scholarship on them that is available in the non-fiction section of the library.
Readers who do further research and exercise critical judgment will discover that assertions made in The Da Vinci Code about Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, and Church history lack support among reputable scholars. By way of example, the book popularizes the idea that the fourth century Roman emperor Constantine invented the doctrine of the divinity of Christ for political reasons. The historical evidence, however, clearly shows that the New Testament and the very earliest Christian writings manifest Christian belief in the divinity of Christ.
These claims hardly seem like attempts of desperation to blindly dissuade the Dan Brown reader who has become a skeptic of Christian and Catholic doctrine and practice. Rather, it encourages the reader to research the subject themselves, convinced that they will find a truth far different from the one presented by an actually quite fantastic thriller novel - something I challenge you to do as well. As an encouragement on the subject, consider two prominent Christian theologians and scholars, who began their journey of faith with a steady determination to disprove the existence of God and the validity of
Christianity: Josh McDowell, and, of course, C.S. Lewis.
Therefore, whoever has ears, let him hear. We have the means to understand, it is a pitiful waste of our lives and intellects not to utilize it.
-This was written by an anonymous author (myself) under the pen name of Democritus and the internet name Zerathustra.
It is a book, fiction, an adventure, not a Bible or Quran. People may think of it whatever they want, and writers can write whatever they want…