For some reason, Dan Brown has now (9/2016) released a
"young adult adaptation" of his best-selling novel The Da
Vinci Code .
The puzzle is that it is not as if the original novel was
written at a particularly high level. Middle school kids could easily read and
understand it. In addition, the DVC moment was quite a few years ago now, and
perhaps you have sensed a pulsing demand for a YA version of an over decade-old
novel...but I haven't.
Nonetheless, given that this new edition might indeed bring
a few new readers into the DVC world, for their benefit, I'm making my own
response, originally published by Our Sunday Visitor in 2004, available at no
cost out here on the Internet. It's a pdf file - just click and download.
The book offers help in answering questions like....
- Did
Leonardo Da Vinci really use his art to communicate secret knowledge about
the Holy Grail?
- Is it
true that the Gospels don’t tell the true story of Jesus?
- Were
Jesus and Mary Magdalene married?
- Did
Jesus really designate Mary Magdalene as the leader of his movement, not
Peter?
What seems to intrigue readers is that the characters in The
Da Vinci Code have answers to these questions, and they are expressed
in the book as factually based, supported by the work and opinions of
historians and other researchers. Brown even cites real books as sources within
the novel. Readers - especially teens encountering this new version - are
naturally wondering why they’ve not heard these ideas before. They’re also
wondering, if what Brown says is true, what the implications for their faith
could be. After all, if the Gospels are false accounts, isn’t all of
Christianity as we know it a lie?
This book is intended to help you unpack all of this and to
explore the truth behind The Da Vinci Code. We’ll look at Dan Brown’s sources,
and see if they’re really trustworthy witnesses to history. We’ll ask if his
characterization of early Christian writings, teaching and disputes – events
that are widely documented and have been studied for hundreds of years by
intelligent, open-minded people – are accurate. We’ll look at Jesus and Mary
Magdalene – the people at the center of this novel – and see if anything at all
The Da Vinci Code has to say about them is based on the historical record. And
along the way, we’ll find a startling number of blatant, glaring errors on
matters great and small that should send up big red flags to anyone reading the
novel as a source of facts, rather than just pure fiction.
