Da Vinci Code Roundup
Da Vinci Code will be in the news for the next 5 days, but here a few interesting bits and pieces to read.

Bill Muehlenberg has a good article on Online Opinion about why Da Vinci Code should be responded to.

But there are at least three reasons why one might be concerned:

1. With over 40 million copies of the book sold into 44 different languages, it is having a huge impact. And the film will expose even more people to its spurious claims.
2. Although a novel, Dan Brown clearly states in it - and on his website - that it is accurate, based on fact and solid research.
3. The subject matter of the book is vitally important. Indeed, it concerns someone who is arguably the most important person in human history: Jesus Christ.

Details of people who are taking the book seriously as possibly true are everywhere.

Stephen Bainbridge decides that Dan Brown and others have managed to get rich saying a really foolish thing. After dismantling several of the books main arguments (Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, Stephen goes on to quote CS Lewis

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Even US News gets in on bashing the Da Vinci Code's accuracy (I guess it is so easy, everyone can join in the fun!).

Historical facts. What the church finds so potentially damaging in The Da Vinci Code is precisely the impression it leaves that the historical background woven into the fictional story is true. Some of the supposed historical facts contradict central tenets of the Christian faith, such as the divinity of Jesus and the authority and authenticity of Scripture. At one point, Brown has a leading character in the book say, "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false."

US News then does a great job of dismantling the claims of the book.

Ultimately, the weekend will prove an interesting test to see how many people see the movie, enjoy it and more importantly, use the movie as a point of discussion.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, May 19, 2006