I saw this book at the mall and I was confused. Debunking the Da Vinci Code? I read the DVC, and I recognize it for what it is, a work of fiction. One might as well write a book called Debunking the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Are some folk so insecure in their beliefs they cannot handle any questioning of that belief?
I also saw some cardinal is urging Christians to sue over the DVC. Way to support freedom of speech there, dude. :rolleyes:
You can’t tell me you read the book and came to the conclusion, “oh, Dan Brown actually believes everything the church says but he just wanted to create some interesting fiction”.
He, and the source material he was drawing from, seem to believe in this Priory of Sion stuff, which likely was invented out of whole cloth within the last 120 years or so.
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, he might as well have written that they were behind the plot to assassinate Kennedy or something as equally outlandish.
At least indicate that you understand their position on the matter, and that you therefore recognize their desire to debunk a book that, what. . .10 Million people read?
I don’t think that’s a fair accusation. Dan Brown himself said (and I quote):
“All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
So while it is admittedly a work of fiction, Dan Brown has claimed that it is based o historical fact.
Moreover, when the novel features a couple of world-class scholars (a knighted historian and an eminent “symbologist”) making grandiose claims, many readers are likely to assume that their statements are at least basically true.
What makes you think that they can’t handle it? So they’ve written some rebuttals to Dan Brown’s assertions. How is this imply that they’re insecure? How does this imply that they’re unable to handle any questioning of their beliefs?
Should they simply keep their traps shut, lest any response be construed as childish insecurity?
Without even getting into the religious aspect of it, I think that a lot of people tend to think that if they read a fiction book that talks about a historical event, the historical event is true. It’s almost like, to some people, fiction only means that the main characters aren’t real, but the rest of it is. Or something like that.
Think about it. You read a book about the Civil War – hey that was a real war! It talks about something that happened at the Battle of Shiloh – hey that was a real battle! So therefore some people’s logic takes it one step further into whatever the author says about that battle is the way it really happened, just adding those fictional characters in. In reality, the author may know nothing more about the battle than that it hpapened. Or he/she may have researched it well and it is very realistic. If the reader doesn’t know much about that particular subject, they won’t know which is true.
Throw in an author who says at the beginning that the Priory of Sion is a real organization from the 11th or 12th century (I forget what he says), and that all documents and secret rituals are real. Throw in that his descriptions of the artwork match at first glance (hey, John does look like a woman!). And suddenly people are questioning history, the Catholic Church, their faith, and everything.
Ridiculous, maybe, but not everyone is a Doper!
Reminds me of a couple of years back when that novel Heavenly Bones was quite popular. I was repeatedly amazed to hear people comment on how that novel reassured them concerning the afterlife. I mean, besides my objections to the manner of afterlife presented in the novel, it was - after all - a novel!
Yeah - to me it smacks of insecurity on behalf of the institutions, and recognition of the gullibility of large portions of their membership. Or did I miss the disclaimers coming out of the White House after President (Harrison) Ford kicked hijacker ass in Air Force One? Heck - if you believe it to be true, than it must be true, right?
Of course, since so many people are perfectly willing to base their faith on the best selling work of fiction ever… 
The Lovely Bones ?
It makes sense to me that with the conjecture people make about the Catholic Church, and the conspiracies projected about it, that the Church would want to reflect on the true history surrounding what people are reading and may be taking to heart. Suing over it doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless it is libelling real people.
What’s with the dead guy in the movie previews with the angelic light emanating from his genital region? Fiction, or reality?
I apologize…I did not mean to stir up a hornet’s nest or offend anyone. JT, I never said they don’t have a right to debunk anything. But I don’t think Brown held out the novel as anything but a work of fiction, whatever real artworks and theories he may have included. It just seems to me, IMHO, that debunking a work of fiction is a odd thing to do. John Jakes has his characters interact with historical figures in his books, like The Kent Family Chronicles and North and South.
Dinsdale, did you mean The Lovely Bones? I never did see what all the hype was about that book.
Yep - that was undoubtedly the name.
I’m actually glad that I have dismissed that tripe so thoroughly that I can’t even accurately recall the name…
The point is that he does NOT regard it as mere fiction. He himself has repeatedly claimed that the documents, rituals, architecture and artwork mentioned are all described accurately… and they’re not.
Consider the following statement from Dan Brown’s own lips:
“I began as a skeptic. As I started researching The Da Vinci Code, I really thought I would disprove a lot of this theory about Mary Magdalene and holy blood and all of that. I became a believer.” (Dan Brown, Interview in National Geographic docum., Unlocking Da Vinci’s Code: The Full Story)
Can you honestly blame people for wanting to debunk what Dan Brown says? I think that’s an entirely reasonable response on their part… and I think it is grossly unfair to accuse them of being insecure, or to suggest that they are unable to handle any questioning of their belief.
But it is precisely those “theories” that the book you saw (and a number of others like it) are debunking.
In which section of the bookstore/library does DVC appear? Of course, if a person’s grasp on the distinction between fact and fiction is so tenuous…
Do we really need to clarify this again? Dan Brown says that the novel itself is fiction, but based on FACT. Is that really so difficult to understand?
Nobody is trying to refute the notion that Robert Langdon is a symbologist from Harvard, or that he had an adventure with a young ingenue named Sophie Neveu. Everybody recognizes those to be fictional elements within his novel.
People do deny, however, that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, that they spawned a royal bloodline, that Constantine compiled the Bible, that he intentionally suppressed any gospels that portrayed Jesus as human, and that he Leonardo da Vinci secretly hid clues regarding Christ’s marriage within his artwork. And they are perfectly right to do so.
There is a real book, The Science of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This despite there being no science anywhere in the original.
In fact, there are probably a dozen Da Vinci Code debunking books, and a dozen clones of the book in fiction. It’s all marketing. If you can ride a name to make some money you do so. Whether people believe or don’t believe is really beside the point. We’re talking about business here, not art.
Are you honestly suggesting that none of these authors are concerned about setting the record straight? That they are motivated solely by business concerns? If so, how did you come to that conclusion?
Our priest on Sunday had an interesting recommendation to us on Sunday. He said, when the movie comes out, instead of boycotting it: go with a friend who really enjoyed the book. Then afterward, take them out for coffee or beer and talk about the movie and in particular the parts that pay fast and loose with church history and art. He even made available some ‘discussion guides’ that talk about the factual inaccuracies in the book.
Talking? That’s so crazy it just might work!
It strikes me that this sums up part of your misconception.
I may be wrong, but I can see no evidence from the earlier posts that you’ve offended anyone. Questioning something is not the same as taking offence.
And recognising this is just as important when assessing the motives of all those writers who have jumped on the Da Vinci Code bandwagon. Some clearly were expressing a sense of outrage. But was Bart Ehrman? What questioning was he unable to handle?
Same way it is entirely appropriate for folks to point out the lack of contemporaneous evidence for the very existence of Jesus Christ, or the political processes by which the current Christian doctrine was derived.
To a skeptic, there is exactly as much contemporaneous evidence for many of DB’s stories as there is for most of whichever Gospels you choose to believe.
And no - no one has EVER tried to make a buck or gain influence through their presentation of Christianity. Perish the thought!
Actually, most skeptics do acknowledge the existence of Christ, but that’s ultimately beside the point.
Even if that particular claim were true, it does not mean that the Da Vinci Code critics are whackos because they choose to attack the factual basis within a work of fiction. I honestly don’t see why anyone would have difficulty in grasping this distinction.
But that’s not what EM said, though. EM didn’t say that some of the authors might be motivated by financial considerations. Rather, his statement was “It’s all marketing. If you can ride a name to make some money you do so. Whether people believe or don’t believe is really beside the point. We’re talking about business here, not art.”
I guess that if some people were motivated by the almighty dollar, we must logically conclude that all people are motivated that way. Right?
There’s fiction and then there’s fiction.
I haven’t seen the debunking book you are referring to, but Opus Dei has worked up an outrage over its depiction in The DaVinci Code. There is an article in a recent Time magazine that tries to show the perspective of that group.
I don’t know what the truth about Opus Dei is, but TDC certainly depicted Opus Dei in a certain way that, IMHO, is intended to be seen as a factual depiction by the reader. Otherwise he would have created a fictional name for the group. Certainly some of it is true, but the claim by Opus Dei is that TDC, by focusing on anomalies, gives a false impression of what the group is all about.
You get out much?