I have not read the book or seen the movie and I am not sure I intend to do either. I was visiting over a snack with a friend of mine who teaches at the University of Washington. He is interested in this kind of thing from an academic perspective and was interviewed by the student newspaper at UW. Here are some of his statements:
The problem with the book and movie is not that it is a piece of fiction that takes liberties with how it presents the past, but rather that it is intentionally deceptive.
Re the movie's claim "that Jesus' followers regarded him as a mortal prophet until the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D." No one at Nicaea thought Jesus was a mere mortal -- rather, the debate surrounded whether he was essentially God a super-powerful Son created by God before the beginning of time.
An important thing to keep in mind is that the book and film mislead their audience not only about Christianity but about history and art as well.
Just about everything in it is inaccurate, as far as I can tell. I graded Advanced Placement History exams a few years ago and observed that quite a number of students failed their exam question on Renaissance art because they had gotten their knowledge from The Da Vinci Code.
The problem is not just that the author injects his own agenda into the story, but that he doesn't present it clearly as fiction. The author Dan Brown believes that religions, including Christianity, are made up, so he wants to make up an alternative version--one that is in step with his own biases and prejudices. But instead of saying, 'I'm making up an alternative version of Christianity that you may like better than the ones we already have," which would be the honest approach, he pretends that he is sharing actual truths about the past with the reader.
As one young scholar of Renaissance history told me recently, there are people who think they're learning about history from The Da Vinci Code, when in fact they know even less about history for having read it.
Christians and non-Christians alike could benefit from a deeper understanding of the story of early Christianity.
The question of how the Bible was put together is fascinating and enlightening, but The Da Vinci Code tells that story in a manner that can only be regarded as ludicrous. Tom Hanks, the lead actor in the film, probably put it best when he recently said that the story was loaded with 'hooey' and 'nonsense.'
2 comments:
There was a Polish History category on Jeopardy last night. Lots of names and places I'd never heard of. You would have approved. :)
I did read "The Da Vinci Code" and I agree that the problem is that the Brown presents his version of the "historical" as fact. The foreward in the book basically makes that statement, so I can understand why the average Joe would believe that they are learning history as they read the novel.
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