I'm sure that this has been touched on before, but I did a search on "Da Vinci" and nothing came up from the last three months.

I finally got around to reading the book to see what the fuss was all about.  Overall it was a very interesting murder mystery novel.

Some observations:
1.  Dan Brown, the author, has some major issues.  Especially when it comes to attacking the Catholic Church and obsessing with sex.

2.  Brown pushes the idea of the "sacred feminine" and insists that worship of the sacred feminine was common practice before the creation of the Catholic Church.  While goddess worship was a common practice amongst pagan religions, I see no evidence of it among ancient Israel.  Brown insists that recently discovered texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls support his claim, but he doesn't cite where these texts support his arguments and it seems that he's merely pulling these claims out of his rear end.

3.  Brown insists that the Catholic Church is out to smear women in general.  Considering how highly Mary, mother of Jesus, is honored by the Catholic Church I think that it is a pretty big hole in Brown's reasoning.  It is true that Mary Magdalene has been referred to as being a harlot in many Christian denominations without any real scriptural reasons for the accusation.  I personally don't know why that accusation was ever made.

4.  Brown keeps trying to claim that "pagan" does not equal devil worship.  My personal Christian views are that a person either worships God or is worshiping the Devil.  Therefore "pagan" worship does equal devil worship to me.  Perhaps not directly, but certainly indirectly.

5.  Brown insists that Templars were innocent of the crimes they were accused of by the French king, yet suggests that they did worship Bahumet(sp?).  If the Templars were worshiping this idol, I personally think that they would be guilty of a crime against Christianity.  Of course, I don't know if the Templar actually engaged in this idol worship and since confessions where brought out by torture, I don't know if we'll ever know the truth.  The Templars were a very interesting group with very intriguing beginnings.  Someday I hope we do find out what they were looking for and found in their excavations of the temple.

6.  Da Vinci is protrayed as someone who held to the idea of the sacred feminine.  Maybe he did have such ideas.  I don't see how his personal ideas make anything fact.  Da Vinci's paintings may or may not symbolize what Brown suggests, but even if they did it wouldn't make the idea of sacred feminine fact.

7.  The big question:  Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? <gasp>
Personally, I don't think that it make a difference either way as far as Jesus being the Savior.  I don't doubt that there is some significance to the fact that the resurrected Jesus appeared to Magdalene before appearing to the apostles.  What that significance is, I personally don't know for sure.  Any speculation on the matter would be just that, speculation.  Since a possible marriage wouldn't change anything important, I'm not going to worry about it.

In the end, the whole secret mystery seems like much ado about nothing to me.  The novel was interesting, but I wouldn't cite it as evidence of anything.

The book was entertaining at least.

it was also a work of fiction...
don't get too bent about it!



reminds me of Crichton's style; just enough "facts" to make for a compelling read.

The true big question is: whether Jesus is the son of God.

That aside, the only signifcance to Jesus being married is that there may have been children creating a blood line from God that may exist today.

I f you really want to get your panties in a bunch, read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown.  Prequel to the "Da Vinci Code".

Even if Dan Brown said he made evey last bit of it up, still makes you go hmmh.

I find the books about topics similiar to this entertaining.  Don't spend too much time picking them apart.  It's just a book.