OK, here's the text. WARNING: If you haven't read the book, and don't want any hints, don't read this article. (p.s. there are alot of side bars & links to other articles on the DMN site...)
Explosive novel attracting women
'Da Vinci Code' offers unusual take on early Christianity
10:31 PM CST on Thursday, January 15, 2004
By ALINE McKENZIE and MARTHA SHERIDAN / The Dallas Morning News
When Kim Clark, a court reporter, borrowed a mystery novel from a friend, she expected it to be "kind of hokey."
Instead, she and her friend, wedding consultant and dental hygienist Meredythe Kimbrough, 52, ended up discussing an important historical puzzle – whether the early Christian church had suppressed the role of women as leaders.
The two Dallas women "were both surprised at our response to it," says Mrs. Clark, 46. "We were thinking that if both the masculine and the feminine were combined in the world, maybe the way that they should be, there would be less war."
They're two of the myriad women who've read The Da Vinci Code, a phenomenal success that has been a New York Times best seller for 41 weeks as of Jan. 11. It has been No. 1 since mid-November and continues to stir strong emotions for many readers. It has spawned countless discussions in book groups, Sunday school classrooms and casual chat, especially among women.
The book weaves a murder mystery, intricate clues from the works of Leonardo da Vinci and a fictional modern scholar, and scandalous accusations that early Christian leaders suppressed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and in so doing rejected the role of women as spiritual leaders.
Mrs. Clark was intrigued enough by the clues to research Leonardo and two religious societies mentioned in author Dan Brown's novel.
"I went to the Leonardo da Vinci virtual museum Web site and did a search on him," she says. "I was looking for before and after pictures of The Last Supper, then I got carried away and looked at other things he had done. I was looking at all his inventions."
Art and history
Some women, such as Mrs. Clark, are drawn to the art and history in the book. But many say what really makes them connect with the novel is its take on women and the early Christian church.
At the beginning of the book, Mr. Brown says that the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei are real groups and that the secret rituals in the book are true – leaving readers to wonder where fact ends and fiction begins.
"What's great about a book like that, it gets people talking, it gets people thinking, it gets people researching," says Donna Cressman, owner of Maxwell Books in DeSoto, where the book is recommended to customers. "I had someone comment to me that the author has an ax to grind against the Catholic Church, but it didn't affect their reading of the book."
Jan Worthington, 48, a stay-at-home mom from Dallas, says the book was a discussion topic for her e-mail chat group, which includes a woman who teaches a goddess class in New York, a 48-year-old Princeton seminarian, a West Texas cattle rancher and an Austin real-estate agent.
"I guess what intrigued me is that the book took enough historical references and kind of weaved it into something that made me look at things that hadn't particularly seemed real to me before."
Mrs. Worthington, who is Presbyterian, has been involved in a few spontaneous discussions about the book. "I was working out at the club and we ended up walking through a mini-discussion of the book during our workouts. For some reason, it intrigued everybody."
Ben Witherington III, a professor of the New Testament at the Asbury Theological Seminary near Lexington, Ky., says he's not surprised that women connect so much with the novel.
Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute?
No. Although she was portrayed as one for centuries, and became the patron saint of fallen women, it turns out that in the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great mixed up her appearance in Luke 8:1-3 with a sinful woman of Luke 7:36-50 and Mary of Bethany in John 12:1-8, says Darrell L. Bock, research professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary. In 1969, the church formally acknowledged the mistake.
Does the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre really contain 666 panes of glass?
No. According to the Louvre's Web site (
www.louvre.or.jp/louvre/presse/
en/activites/archives/anniv.htm), the pyramid is made up of 673 panes.
The pyramid was opened in March 1989, outraging some people with its ultramodern lines adjoining historic buildings.
Are there any more clues associated with the book?
Yes. At
www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/davinci, there is a series of cryptic puzzles. The first clue is printed, very faintly, on the book's back cover. The Web site gives further instructions.
There is also a coded message on the inner flaps. Look for the letters that look different.
There are additional puzzles at
www.danbrown.com under "Secrets."
Aline McKenzie
"Part of the reason is that in so many contexts in the church, not much has been done to highlight the role of women in the early church," he says. "It's not surprising to me that women would look elsewhere if they thought the New Testament was repressive."
Elaine Pagels, a religion professor at Princeton University and author of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas and other books about the early church, says the book speaks to women because it portrays them as important in religion.
Three decades ago, the Vatican announced that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, as she has been portrayed for hundreds of years, Dr. Pagels notes.
"Many people are saying if they didn't tell us the truth about that, what else didn't they tell us about the early Christians? We're just now beginning to understand them."
One particular attraction for women is the book's portrayal of pre-Christian worship of the "sacred feminine" – that there is a female as well as a male deity, and each is required to maketheother spiritually whole, in contrast to the church's later views ofwomen as sinning temptresses of men.
Julie Trcka, 32, a marketing designer from Dallas, read the book in her book club, and says it "makes you ask a lot of questions about your own religion – not your beliefs, but your religion. ... I thought God spoke to men of the early church, but it was the interpretation of what God was saying to them that made them build the early church.
"It made me wonder about a lot of things, but it didn't change my standards about my faith."
Not all overcome
However, Margaret Reid, 39, director of development for the central region at Heifer International, which provides livestock to people in impoverished countries, says she liked the novel as just a fun, fast read. Her niece read it over Thanksgiving and recommended it to her.
"I can't say, 'Oh, my gosh, I've been overcome by the sacred feminine,' " she says. "I needed a break. I read very heavy stuff all the time for my work. I had to get my mind off children starving in Africa."
She does worry that readers won't be able to separate fact from fiction – taking the novel as literal history, the way a moviegoer might rely on the movie JFK as the sole source of information on the Kennedy assassination.
"People could take the leap and think the whole book is accurate," Ms. Reid says.
Shari Nelson, 38a stay-at-home mom in Dallas, belongs to a five-woman investment club whose members discuss a book they've read every third meeting.
Their discussion of the book centered on how this information affected their religious beliefs.
"There was a lot of discussion about da Vinci's works," she says. "Everybody wanted to go see The Last Supper and see if that really looked like a woman in the painting." The novel posits that the apostle to Jesus' right isn't John, but Mary Magdalene.
The book "made me question a lot of the things I had always taken as irrefutable truth," she says. "It made me stop and wonder about things I had never really wondered about before."
Sandra Glahn of Mesquite is listening to the novel on tape because of a recommendation by a prominent American woman: "I heard Hillary Clinton on C-SPAN saying it was the best book she had read all summer." Ms. Glahn, 45, co-author of medical thrillers including Lethal Harvest and Deadly Cure, has a master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. Since she's a writer who teaches "Christian Journalism" and "Women in Ministry" classes, it's natural for people to ask her what she thinks about the book, she says.
Ms. Glahn believes authors need to clarify what is fact and what's fiction. For example, when the animated film The Prince of Egypt begins, there's a note on-screen explaining the story was drawn from the Book of Exodus and liberties were taken with it.
That tells the viewer up front that she can willingly suspend belief, "and that's perfectly fine," she says. "If I want to learn the real story, I'll need to do some further looking. Dan Brown makes it sound like he's done all the research, that it's all true."
Gloria Dixon-Labrie, of Dallas, a vice president of diversity and economic development for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, recommended it for her book club.
"I like fiction and history, so combining the two to make a good story is fine with me," she says. "You just can't believe everything you read. You've got to pick it apart and sort out the things you know are facts."
Sara Alexander, assistant to equipping ministry at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas, a ministry that helps people find how they can serve God, is of two minds about the book she recently finished. It was fun and a good read, a mystery that grabbed her attention.
On the other hand, she believes the author distorted facts to portray a false history of the early Christian church.
"It's pretty sinister, in my opinion, because he has an agenda," she says. "He does the very thing he accuses the church of doing."
Nevertheless, interest in the book is so great that Northwest Bible Church began a three-week discussion series Wednesday evening, Ms. Alexander says.
About 800 people showed up to hear speakers and discuss topics such as sacred texts and secret codes, or goddess worship and the sacred feminine.
"This is hot stuff," she says.
E-mail
amckenzie@dallasnews.com
and
msheridan@dallasnews.com
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