Da Vinci Hoax Blog

U.S. News & World Report cracks TDVC with some help from...

... The Da Vinci Hoax. The May 22, 2006, feature article, "Debating Da Vinci," was written by Jeffery L. Sheler, who quotes from our book a couple of times in the course of addressing some of TDVC's main assertions. Entire article is available online here.

Survey: Readers of TDVC twice as likely to believe...

...that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children. The Daily Mail also reports:

Of those questioned in the poll for the Da Vinci Code Response Group, 60 per cent of people who had read the book believed there was truth to the suggestion, compared with 30 per cent who hadn't.

Readers of the blockbuster were also four times more likely to think Catholic organisation Opus Dei, which features in the novel, was a murderous sect than those who hadn't read it.

Almost one in three believe the Priory of Sion was a real medieval organisation, when it was actually a twentieth century hoax. Only six per cent of non-readers believe it existed.

The book has been hugely popular in Britain, with 22 per cent of adults having read it, the survey of 1,000 people by Opinion Research Business found.

The DVC Response Group, which is made up of priests, monks theologians and members of Opus Dei, wants the film adaptation of the novel to carry a disclaimer making it clear it is fiction.

CBC producer: Dan Brown's lies are "historical and institutional"

Peter Kavanagh, a senior producer at CBC Radio One, has written an insightful column about the Coded Craziness for The Toronto Star. He states:

The comparison between James Frey and Dan Brown isn't as odd as it might seem. Frey wrote a non-fiction work, which turned out to be in part fictional, and he was pilloried. Brown wrote a novel, claiming that everything apparently based in historical fact was true, which turned out to be a lie, and became rich and famous. And it says something about our slippery grasp of the idea of truth that this bothers very few of us. Frey's lies were personal; Dan Brown's are historical and institutional.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it." Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda. Too extreme a comparison? Of course! But we are left wondering about the attraction of Dan Brown's tale. The "fiction" at the core of the story is the most post-modern of lies: the lack of evidence supporting it is proof of the conspiracy and denials on the part of the Vatican and other Christian leaders is evidence of the continuing cover-up.

It is by no means original; it weaves together a host of myths, legends, suppositions and heresies and packages them in a potboiler of a story of which the most complimentary thing critics can say is that it is a perfect airport book.

The only truly original thing that can be said of the novel is that it somehow proved to be the right book at the right time, or if you are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the wrong book at the wrong time.There's an element of the Christian community, which argues that Christianity is the only religion at which it is still permissible to hurl slander, innuendo and lies. And when you think of the collective glee and profit that corporations, businesses, media outlets and millions of ordinary people indulge in through contemplation of the Code, it's understandable why some Christians believe their faith is under siege.

It is impossible to imagine a comparable collective rubbing of the hands if the heart of a novel alleging a conspiracy of such magnitude were Buddhism, Judaism, Islam or Hinduism.  Fans of the Code will argue that it's just a novel, a little bit of fun and speculation. But even that is an extension of the lie, a dissimilitude about the ping of recognition that reading the novel sparked, "I knew there was something wonky about the story of Christ from the very beginning."

"The myths of the present become the facts of tomorrow."

That quote comes from a university professor who decided to have his students examine the historical assertions made within TDVC. Why? Because some students were accepting those mythical assertions as established fact. Read the whole story here.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Or should that be "Danned if you do. Danned if you don't"? I'm referring to some of the responses given by those who are either puzzled, amused, or annoyed that some Christians are (gasp!) responding to the historical and theological claims made in TDVC.

A typical line of inquiry begins, of course, with this question/assertion: "Why are you so worried about a work of fiction?" Once an explanation has been given as to why TDVC is not "just fiction,"  one of these questions inevitably follows:

• "But isn't it a good thing that people are talking about religious beliefs?" That depends. What exactly are they talking about? The notion that it is good to simply talk about how you feel about this or that is nonsensical. Using words isn't good enough; rather, how are the words being used? Are conversations that begin with a question such as, "Why are you a member of a Church that has such a rotten past and hates women?" going to result in much good? Of course, it depends in part on how you respond. But, really, how substantive are the specific conversations that result from people reading TDVC? What sort of questions are being asked If people simply immerse themselves further in the Coded Craziness (by reading, for example, Michael Baigent's The Jesus Papers, or some other piece of pseudo-historical trash), then "talking" is of little value. (Following a recent talk in Portland, I was asked by an audience member: "Why should I believe you instead of Michael Baigent when it comes to deciding whether or not the gnostic texts are historically reliable?" But it's not an issue of Olson vs. Baigent, but of reading the Christian Gospels and comparing them to the gnostic gospels, and recognizing that the latter have little to nothing to say about historical persons, events, and details. Read the sources!)

This question, by the way, was posed by Anderson Cooper of CNN this past week when he interviewed Sandra and me on his late night news program. I think we handled it well enough, but the notion that the TDVC is a good thing because it sparks conversation reminded me of the trick question: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" You are put immediately on the defensive by an absurd question. Yet many conversations about TDVC begin with absurd questions that immediately put Catholics on the defensive. Then, if you choose to defend yourself ("I've never beaten my wife. Why did you say that?"), you sometimes hear:

• "What are Christians so afraid of? Obviously you are hiding something or else you wouldn't be defensive." Several readers have told me of the frustrations that come with being unexpectedly accosted by a family member or co-worker who has suddenly received his doctorate in Church history by reading TDVC (after all, the Chicago Tribune did write that Brown's novel does "transmit several doctorates' worth of fascinating history and learned speculation"). They are put on the defensive and often react defensively, naturally. Unfortunately, again, there are some people who really do think that if a Christian tries to defend or explain their beliefs, they have admitted guilt. Period. Say no more! You wouldn't be trying to defend yourself if you weren't guilty! Of course, you can't win, because if you say nothing, your silence is also understood to be an admission of guilt. (For a subtle variation of this approach, see this recent piece in TimesOnline, which also uses the "it's just fiction but it's also true" approach.) If, however, you are able to respond to this "question," you will probably have this reply thrown in your path:

• "Well, you have to admit that the Catholic Church has brought all of this negative attention on itself by being so mean and secretive." This often comes from people who apparently have, for whatever reason, an axe to grind with the Catholic Church and who are of the opinion that simply being Catholic is an offense to reason and humanity. As a former anti-Catholic fundamentalist myself, I am very familiar with the old and tired arguments about how big, secretive, nasty, powerful, and deceptive the Catholic Church was/is.

What I eventually learned was that I was mistaking my gross ignorance of Catholicism and Church history as evidence of some giant conspiracy theory. In other words, the Church must have lots of secrets since I didn't know much about it. Then I made the stunning decision (duh!) to actually read Church history (as written by Catholics, non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians), early Church writings, gnostic writings, official Church documents, and works of Catholic theology. Yes, there have been many bad Catholics and many bad deeds done in the name of the Catholic Church, which is often different than those acts being supported by the Catholic Church. Fair enough. What I found is that the Catholic Church, more than any other religious institution, has been willing to acknowledge the sins committed by sons and daughters of the Church. Every group has sinners within their ranks; but those groups shouldn't be judged solely by the sinners, but also by those who live and fulfill the mission of the group (also known, within the Catholic contexts,  as saints). After all, if the presence of evil deeds is a good reason to do away with the Catholic Church, it's a good enough reason to do away with all of humanity, regardless of race, color, or creed.

But, sadly, none of this matters to those who are convinced that the Catholic Church has done little but terrorize, oppress, plunder, deceive, manipulate, control, and even murder throughout two thousand years of history (or 1700 years, if you want to believe that Constantine created the Catholic Church, a belief apparently shared, oddly enough, by Dan Brown and Tim LaHaye). Yesterday I was interviewed on a radio program on a large Seattle-area station. One of the two hosts explained he really liked TDVC because it provided a history of Christianity that was different from "99.9%" of the information people are usually given.  He insisted  the Catholic Church  deserved to be portrayed negatively in TDVC because "that's how the Church was." After all, the Church has controlled "the story"of Jesus since the beginning, so isn't it time that people heard a different version? The issue at hand, it seemed, was not one of truth, but of options: I want a story that I like and that works for me. One  problem, I replied, is that Brown's version isn't supported by any evidence and his assertions are often contradictory or go against his supposed sources (e.g., the appeal to gnostic "gospels" for a Jesus who is human only). Which then led to the host launching another question:

• "But isn't it true that we really can't know what happened in the first century? After all, we really don't have any reliable evidence about Jesus, do we?" This is the height of irony (or even cynicism) considering it is usually uttered after a litany of "facts" have been given about the early Church: it destroyed secret gospels, hated Mary Magdalene, oppressed women, was all about political power, etc., etc. So the only established facts about the first few centuries of Christianity are all negative? How convenient. How unconvincing. But this, I think, may be one of the most damaging consequences of the Coded Craziness: the conviction that there is nothing convincing about the historical evidence, especially not if might be in favor of the Catholic Church. In the words of a certain Jennifer "reviewing" our book over at the Barnes & Noble site (and "who is still looking for answers"):

Even thought the book was a work of FICTION, some things ring true & have been proven so. The fact that paganism was around before Christianity came along is true. The fact that the Catholic church did smear the face of it to promote more to Christianity is true. Pagan temples were remade to be Christian churches. As for the rest, NO ONE knows the truth. Who knows if Jesus was married or not, no one can know first hand since it was so long ago. All we have to go on are books written by us (man/woman) alike, and we only write it as WE see it to be. This is the reason they are called BELIEFS. Since religion & information has been passed down through the centuries, the truth has been watered down. Everyone has their own beliefs, & we shouldnt put people down just because their's conflicts with ours.

There you go: No one knows the truth. And that's the truth. But, we do know that Christianity is horrible. End of story. And for many readers, TDVC will be the end of the story. And that is a shame, a problem, and a challenge.

"The Da Vinci Hoax" in the news...

Here is a partial list of recent articles and columns that mention The Da Vinci Hoax and/or quote me or Sandra Miesel:

• "Controversy Surrounds "The Da Vinci Code" (May 12, 2006) | WISHTV.com | Piece from Indianapolis news station about Sandra Miesel and TDVH.

• "Watch 'Da Vinci Code' debunked" (May 10, 2006) | WorldNetDaily | Article about "The Da Vinci Delusion," a television special produced by Coral Ridge Ministries and which includes comments made by Sandra. The special airs May 13 and 14. Go here for more details.

• "Faith vs. Fiction" (May 12, 2006) | Akron Beacon Journal | News piece about reactions by Christians to the cinematic version of the Code.

• "The Da Vinci Hoax" (May 8, 2006) | Crosswalk.com | Dr. Paul J. Dean, a Baptist pastor, comments upon TDVH's refutation of the claims in TDVC.

• "Eugene man joins crowd of those protesting 'Da Vinci Code'" (April 30, 2006) | Associated Press | Piece adapted from earlier article that appeared in The Register Guard. Nice headline, but misleading. I wrote my first critiques of TDVC in August 2003 and our book was published in June 2004, so I think it's fair to say I was here before most of the "crowd."

• "Are we reading too much into fiction?" (May 1, 2006) | Knight Ridder Newspapers | News article about the popularity of TDVC and how many readers are accepting its claim to being well-researched and based on fact.

Archbishop George Niederauer: "How Dark the Con of Dan"

The Archbishop of San Francisco has written a great column in The Tidings about the Coded Crazines. Sure, I like it because he quotes me a few times, but I'm especially impressed with how direct he is (" Is The Da Vinci Code anti-Catholic? Well, sure it is.") and how he draws from a number of unexpected, non-Christian sources to make important points. For instance:

Nevertheless, when we Catholics complain about anti-Catholicism, especially in the entertainment media, it is easy to hear us as whiners and special pleaders. Hence an outside opinion is helpful and enlightening.

Slightly over a year ago David Denby, a film critic for The New Yorker, wrote a review of a film titled, of all things, "Constantine." Denby described the movie as a "religio-satanic horror spectacle," starring Keanu Reeves. At the showing Denby attended, it was being watched "by rapt adults as well as teenagers."

After dealing with that particular film, the critic moved on to the difficult, more general topic of how Hollywood deals with matters Catholic. Denby wrote: "Which raises a touchy point. 'Constantine' turns Catholic doctrine, ritual and iconography into schlock. God's warrior wins, but is that enough to justify the tawdry, promiscuous borrowing? Will the trashy exploitation of Catholicism in movies ever end?"

Could any Catholic have asked those questions better? Denby went on to conjure up Jewish and Hindu variations of the frequent Catholic exploitation films: "Imagine a Jewish version of the spectacle --- 'Angel,' starring Vin Diesel, in which God's messenger stays Abraham's hand in mid-sacrifice and then earns His approval by lowering himself into cursed pharaonic tombs with tied together prayer shawls. In a Hindu version --- 'Vishnu," with Nicolas Cage --- Shiva unleashes his snakes on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie and starts a war between truck drivers and apple pickers."

Denby  knew that the strategy of satire is often to take things over the top to show how ridiculous the situation has become, and he did that very well. In conclusion, however, he made a thoughtful and provocative remark:

"Somehow I think these projects might be shelved. Yet terrible movies like .... 'Constantine' get made and become enormously popular. I will leave the issue of blasphemy to experts. But maybe some of the audience should wonder if they aren't doing the Devil's work by sitting so quietly through movies that turn wonders into garbage."                                     

And, in conclusion, this snappy summary of the problem at hand:

"The Da Vinci Code" --- the book and probably the film --- presents Catholics with one set of problems, and those are best dealt with by knowing the facts of our Church's faith and its history. A broader challenge is an entertainment establishment that doesn't know very much about Catholicism, doesn't like what it thinks it knows, doesn't want to learn any more, and can't leave Catholic faith, practice and imagery alone.

First review of the Cinematic Code...

...comes from John Hiscock of The Daily Telegraph. He writes:

It is clear from the opening scenes, featuring the Louvre curator running in fear through the museum's dark galleries with the homicidal albino monk Silas in pursuit, that this is a film that will race along at a breakneck pace. ...

(Note: Silas's ability to run around at night with great stealth and agility is emarkable, I suppose, considering that people with albinism have poor to very poor vision.)

Although the movie closely follows the book's storyline, Howard delivers something Dan Brown doesn't - dramatic recreations of events relating to the book's central inflammatory theory that for 2,000 years the Catholic Church has been covering up the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe.

As well as scenes of the Inquisition and of women being tortured, burned and drowned, Howard shows Mary Magdalene fleeing the Holy Land for France and giving birth there.

Meanwhile, a few more remarks from Ron Howard about the making of the movie:

Very early on, within weeks after deciding that I wanted to do the movie, Brian Grazer, my producing partner at Imagine, Akiva Goldsman, the writer, and I went on the “Da Vinci Code” tour in London and in Paris. The person giving the tour didn’t know that we were working on the film and that we had already read the novel three or four times each. He kept describing everything about the story in great detail and at a certain point we said, we really know the story. Just drive us to the places and talk about the history. It was great—this blending of real places, verifiable factoids with these conspiracy theories that made the novel popular. During filming, I got to virtually live the Da Vinci Code Tour for about four or five months and it was fun and eye-opening. You do learn a lot about your world.

Perhaps "your world," but not the real world. After all, even Dan Brown's descriptions of modern-day places are full of errors — a remarkable achievement considering how many maps, travel books, and online information are available. But I digress. Back to Howard:

Early on, when I seriously began considering doing the movie, Tom gave me a call and said, “Do you want to talk about ‘The Da Vinci Code’?” He had read it and really liked it. He was intrigued about playing a career academic and man of that [level of] intellect. He had a real instant sense of the character that I thought was absolutely authentic. I really wanted authenticity in the characters to counterbalance the strangeness of the story. One of the things that he kept saying was, “Let’s get as much of the book into the movie as possible.” He was a big advocate of that. He has a fantastic bullshit detector. He wants to try to find the truth in his character and present it as much as possible so he was never interested in trying to turn it into something that it wasn’t—some kind of a superhero, super sleuth of a role.

Dare I suggest that someone's "detector" wasn't working very well when he read and filmed The Da Vinci Code? As for Langdon's vaunted intellect, it was fully exposed as severely lacking on page 298 (hardcover), when it took him an eternity to realize that he (a symbologist!) and Sophie (a detective!) cannot figure out that they are staring at reversed text. "I don't know," Langdon whispered intently, "My first guess is a Semitic, but now I'm not so sure." Uh, how about holding it up to a mirror, brilliant boy? Anyone--and I mean anyone--who has looked at Leonardo da Vinci's sketchbooks will know what they are seeing. But, again, I've strayed. Back to Howard and Hanks:

Frankly, if Tom Hanks did not become an actor, I am really certain that he would have become a high profile academic. He loves history. He loves that kind of problem-solving. He’s fascinated by the world and the way it works, loves to talk and think about it, loves to consider all the possibilities so he took to this character really well.

He loves history. Neat. Quick, Ron and Tom, give us the name of one real art scholar (with a real degree from a real school) who thinks that The Last Supper depicts Mary Magdalene seated to the right of Jesus. Or one biblical scholar who thinks that gnostic texts present a more human, believable Jesus than do the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (all it takes to prove otherwise is to actually read them. Really, it's that simple). Or any historian who thinks that nobody believed Jesus was divine until A.D. 325. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Meeting The Real Mary Magdalene | An Interview with Amy Welborn | May 12, 2006

Meeting The Real Mary Magdalene | An Interview with Amy Welborn | May 12, 2006

Amy Welborn is a prolific author and widely read blogger. She holds an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University and has taught theology in Catholic high schools, and served as a parish Director of Religious Education.

Her writings have appeared in many periodicals, including First Things, Commonweal,Writer's Digest, Liguorian, Catholic Digest and Catholic Parent. Her books include the Prove It series, The Loyola Kids' Book of Saints, The Loyola Kids' Book of Heroes, and Here. Now. Two of her most recent books are De-Coding Da Vinci and De-Coding Mary Magdalene, both published by Our Sunday Visitor.

IgnatiusInsight.com recently spoke to Welborn about her books addressing the claims of The Da Vinci Code, especially the many assertions made about Mary Magdalene.

Continue reading...

Reviewer: "The Da Vinci Hoax is more than just a standard debunker. It is everything that Dan Brown's work isn't."

Of course, most people who read The Da Vinci Hoax write positive reviews, such as this one:

Everything Dan Brown's book is not, April 27, 2006

Reviewer:

A. P. Schiavo Jr. (Bristol, PA United States)  - See all my reviews

Dan Brown's anti-Catholic bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, has gone beyond mere market success to become a cultural phenomenon. Indeed, it was the hype surrounding the book which first induced me to read it. After a few pages, I quickly understood that Mr. Brown had written the kind of book that would have resulted in a fatwa issued against him, had he targeted Islam instead of Christianity. However, in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we Catholics today use the keyboard, not the scimitar, when rebutting our attackers. Admirably, Olson and Miesel have risen to Dan Brown's challenge and written, in The Da Vinci Hoax, a book which is a devastating critique of Brown's noxious anti-Catholicism and an exposition of the true history of Christ and the Catholic Church.

The Da Vinci Hoax is more than just a standard debunker. It is everything that Dan Brown's work isn't. First, it's well-sourced. Dan Brown had the luxury of being able to make outrageous claims about the Catholic Church while using the cover of "it's just fiction" to hide his sources. As it turns out, most of the "history" presented in Brown's book is lifted from a couple of crack-pot pop-conspiracy works of almost no scholarly value. The Da Vinci Hoax on the other hand, provides copious footnotes and allows the interested reader to check the primary sources themselves, if they are so inclined.

Second, The Da Vinci Hoax is educational. As Olson and Miesel knock down Dan Brown's spurious claims one after another, the reader is given a wonderful lesson in early Church history and in the history of the various heresies and conspiracy theories that have grown up around the Church from the very beginning. They also address the bogus claims Brown makes about Da Vinci himself, the so-called Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, St. Mary Magdalene, Constantine, and many others.

Third,The Da Vinci Hoax is well-written. It may be dense with facts, but the prose is cheerful and occasionally humorous. A good reader could probably make it through the book in a couple of nights.

In attempting to explain the cultural phenomenon Dan Brown's book has become, Olson and Miesel write: "The Da Vinci Code is custom made fiction for our time: pretentious, posturing, self-serving, arrogant, self-congratulatory, condescending, glib, illogical, superficial, and deviant." Given how our 'elites' in the major media and entertainment industry have fawned all over Dan Brown and his book--and how they tend to behave in general--I'd say that Olson and Miesel have hit the nail squarely on the head.

The Da Vinci Hoax is a "must-have" for any serious person who is sick of hearing Dan Brown's drivel praised to the heavens by the ignorant.

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Nicely put, if I might shamelessly say so.