worship of the sacred
feminine (or the goddess), his
disdain for traditional
Christianity, and the truth
about Mary Magdalene.
It is difficult to know where
to begin dissecting The Da
Vinci Code. Brown's story is
little more than a wellcrafted, cleverly written 454page diatribe against
Christianity, especially its
Roman Catholic sector.
Equally troubling is the way
that he, his publisher, and the
media have presented The Da
Vinci Code as a "fact-based"
expose wherein the
characters reveal truths long
hidden from, or at the very
least ignored by, the general
public. To use the author's
own words, "When you finish
the book, like it or not,
you've learned a ton." Nearly
every reviewer has parroted
this line, which is not
surprising since the book
itself, on the very first page,
reads: "FACT:... All
Joy feelings magazine
descriptions of artwork,
architecture, documents, and
secret rituals in this novel are
accurate."
The truth, however, is that
Brown's story has very little
to do with truth. Instead,
errors abound in The Da
Vinci Code and not just about
Christianity either, but also
about the Knights Templar,
Medieval witch hunts, pagan
symbolism, the Dead Sea
Scrolls, the Gnostic gospels,
and the works of Leonardo
Da Vinci. Brown does not
even get right the number of
glass panes in the Louvre
Museum's pyramid (there
were 673 panes not 666) or
the origins of the Olympic
games in ancient Greece (he
claims they were based on an
eight-year cycle in honor of
Venus, when in reality, they
ran on a four-year cycle in
honor of Zeus).
Such mistakes illustrate the
book's main weakness: its
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