The purpose of this research is to examine contemporary portrayals of biblical figures and events in popular fiction. The plan of the research will be to show how contemporary views of the historical figures in the Bible demonstrate that there are diverse opinions regarding their meaning, purpose, and symbology, most notably in respect of Dan Brown's treatment of Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, in his book The Da Vinci Code.
The Da Vinci Code's best-seller status shows that there is widespread popular interest in the presentation of matters Christian in the United States and that there is something of a dynamic relationship between fictional treatments of biblical themes and the modern American experience of religion. Dan Brown's novel has affected popular as well as scholarly discourse, not so much in literary terms as in terms of religion and What It All Means. What brings the novel into popular discourse is that contemporary Christians and Christian institutions have a stake in the narrative of their religion's origins.
The big picture of The Da Vinci Code is that the institutionalized Catholic Church--and, by extension, the whole of Christianity--has as its formative doctrine a misogynistic view of its founding deity. The plot of the novel has its principal characters searching for clues to the proposition that the feminine principle was valorized by the doctrinally truest Christians but that the bureaucratic apparatus of what became the orthodox ecclesia instead highlighted the masculine and godlike figure of Jesus. The narrative develops the view that women figured prominently in the earliest years of the church and that Mary Magdalene married Jesus and produced a daughter. However, as the church became more institutionalized, Mary's role in the formative days of the church was gradually suppressed. The basis of proof is the history of the secretive society the Priory of Sion, which is identified with the Knig...