The Da Vinci Code

Literary views on Christianity in the 20th Century run the gamut from C. S. Lewis's fiction works supporting Biblical themes, such as The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia, to Dan Brown's blatantly non-Biblical The Da Vinci Code. Nonfiction Christian literature such as Ronald Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest also span from Biblical inaccuracy to Biblical fact. Christian literature in the 20th Century takes the pulse of modern society and finds that it is a mixed society, some of which is deeply allied with Biblical principles and some of which is so misinformed and confused that its literature can scarcely be labeled "Christian."

The particular literary genre of Christian and purportedly Christian novels is the focus of this paper. Examples include the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkinr and The Da Vinbi Code by Dan Brown. Both were worldwide phenomena that invite a closer inspection, and this paper will address the latter.

The Da Vinci Code has rightfully received a great deal of attention(both good and bad(because it mixes superb crafting with a seemingly endless array of inaccuracies. Virtually everyone agrees that it is a good read, a breathtaking thriller that keeps the reader spellbound through every page; certainly, as a runaway best seller, the book is arguably compelling at the very least. Where the controversy lies is in th

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any people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great" (Miesel http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm). There is even some confusion as to whether Mary Magdalene and Mary (the mother of Jesus) are one and the same person. Another Dan Brown novel, Angels and Demons, is written in the same gripping style as The Da Vinci Code and is equally afflicted with misrepresentations and inaccuracies. The plot opens with Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, being called to a research facility in Switzerland to analyze a mysterious symbol that has been burned into the chest of a dead physicist. This investigation reveals that the ancient brotherhood of the Illuminati has become active again in its efforts to take down the Catholic Church. The Illuminati informs him that an antimatter bomb has been hidden in the Vatican City, and he goes on a long and exciting chase accompanied by an Italian scientist through the catacombs, following a trail of intriguing clues, in an effort to find the home base of the Illuminati, where the only hope of stopping the bomb can be found. Although the novel does

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