Summary
Title: Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine
Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195181409
Pro:
• Provides a real less on early, biblical Christianity
• Also teaches about how history is done by real scholars
Con:
• Not enough people will read it
Description:
• Historian analyzes Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code for historical accuracy
• Argues that the book is filled with errors — including unnecessary errors
• Explains how historians work and what sorts of claims they can make
There is certainly nothing wrong with basing a work of fiction around real events and people. Authors have been doing it for ages. A problem occurs, however, when it isn’t clear to readers where the history ends and the fiction begins. This can be especially true in works of religious fiction where the line is already far more blurred to begin with.
That is where Bart D. Ehrman’s Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine may be helpful. Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC, Ehrman is an expert on early Christianity — exactly the period covered by *The Da Vinci Code. Ehrman really enjoyed Brown’s book as a work of fiction and as an engrossing mystery novel. He was not, however, quite as taken by the book’s attempt to pretend that certain aspects were based upon facts about Christian history.
Too often, people’s understanding of religious history is driven by their exposure to fiction rather than scholarship. This was one of the main motivations Ehrman had in writing his response:
- “The ability of film directors and book authors to affect public sentiment and to shift public thinking is neither a good thing nor a bad one; it is simply a reality of the times. But when the images they create for their viewers or readers are erroneous — well, it means people misunderstand history as it really was and subsitutute fiction for facts. Maybe there's no real harm in that. But for those of us who spend our lives studying the history, it can grate a bit on the nerves.”
Dan Brown asserts as a fact that all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in his novel are accurate. This will lead people to believe that while the characters and events may be fictional, they are all predicated upon a real world of conspiracies, secrets, and murders. In reality, the biggest fiction in the book may be precisely the aforementioned assertion.
