Wednesday, February 04, 2004
How accurate is "The Da Vinci Code"?
Even if you lived under a rock - a rock in a remote area of the Sahara desert - you could not avoid hearing about The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's runaway bestseller of a novel.
This book has spent 43 weeks at the top of the New York Times' bestseller list, and has prompted huge public debate over its claims that the church (particularly the Catholic church) has distorted and invented many of the accepted teachings of Christianity. It also claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and their descendants live on today. Although the book is a novel, Brown presents his ideas as facts, even though they fly in the face of what most Christians have been taught. Where is the truth?
Here's a look at some of the burning questions brought up by The Da Vinci Code - and the real religious history behind those ideas.
Even if you lived under a rock - a rock in a remote area of the Sahara desert - you could not avoid hearing about The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's runaway bestseller of a novel.
This book has spent 43 weeks at the top of the New York Times' bestseller list, and has prompted huge public debate over its claims that the church (particularly the Catholic church) has distorted and invented many of the accepted teachings of Christianity. It also claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and their descendants live on today. Although the book is a novel, Brown presents his ideas as facts, even though they fly in the face of what most Christians have been taught. Where is the truth?
Here's a look at some of the burning questions brought up by The Da Vinci Code - and the real religious history behind those ideas.
