Scholars debunk facts in a work of fiction

Here's a great article from The Dallas Morning News on "The Da Vinci Code".

Errors large and small

The very first sentence in the book implies this is more than a mere tale. "Fact: The Priory of Sion — a European secret society founded in 1099 — is a real organization." This arcane society, according to Brown's telling, has been the keeper of the secret about Jesus' marriage.

But the "fact" is almost certainly wrong. Last month, "60 Minutes" piled up evidence that a Frenchman — an anti-Semite with a history of criminal fraud — "created" the priory as a hoax in the 1950s.

The book reeks of truthiness and smartiness — the appearance of being truthful and smart without necessarily being either. The protagonist is a Harvard prof (in a department that doesn't exist). The plot is propelled by a series of puzzles based on famous artworks.

But the debunking books list factual errors large and small:

The glass pyramid at the Louvre has 673 glass panes, not 666. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jews and say nothing about Jesus. They were discovered in 1947, not the 1950s.

If the figure to the left of Jesus in "The Last Supper" is really Mary Magdalene, as the book claims, then Leonardo left out an apostle. If it's really John, as most art historians claim, Leonardo was neither the first nor the only artist to paint him as a beardless, long-haired young man.

Brown's best "proof" of a romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene comes from the Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels. In "The Da Vinci Code," the quote reads: "The companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth."

But Ehrman, a text scholar, says the only manuscript we have of that gospel is full of holes. And that all we have of that passage is "The companion of the (gap) Mary Magdalene (gap) more than (gap) the disciples (gap) kiss her (gap) on her (gap)."

If Brown can't get inarguable facts right, the experts say, what faith can readers place in his conclusions about the nature of Christianity? Read the rest HERE.