Science And Religion In The Da Vinci Code By Dan Brown

“The son of a mathematics teacher and a church organist, Dan Brown was raised on a prep school campus where he developed a fascination with the paradoxical interplay between science and religion. These themes eventually formed the backdrop for the Da Vinci Code.” (Greenburger, "Dan Brown") The story goes Leonardo da Vinci was a member of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion and hid secret symbols in his paintings that give away the secret of the holy grail. Religious symbology expert Dr. Robert Langdon and French cryptographer Sophie Neveu are sent on an adventure to find the truth with the police and members of the Church hot on their trail. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a highly criticized novel due to the conflicting opinions

Brown has made it very clear that his novel is a work of fiction and not to be taken literally, and that it was ultimately up to the individual to believe what he or she chooses to believe.(Schaffrath, “Comparing Brown and Eco”) He has simply created an alternate history of early Christianity “...that offers insights into the nature of real faith and the identity of the true church. Judging from the enthusiastic response, many readers take him at his word. They find the book fascinating not only because they consider it a good read but also because they discover in it an appealing, alternative reading of Christianity.”(Burrows,"Gospel Fantasy") That being said Brown states that he does believe in his theories despite going against the mainstream ideas. “Brown himself has indicated that he believes in the veracity of his work. For example, when Matt Lauer asks him how much of the book is based on reality in an early Today Show interview, Brown replies, "Absolutely all of it. Obviously, there are . . . Robert Landon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, all of that is historical fact."”(Re-sexualizing the Magdalene) He further verifies this when he did an interview with Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America where he said that if his book had been a work of nonfiction all the theories he talks of would not vary at

Brown’s more sexual depiction of Mary Magdalene and the sacred feminine have led themselves to be interpreted with a very negative connotation not only because what he claims is so far from the normalcy, but also because the plot itself plays on Christianity 's patriarchal dominion and its conflicted approach to sexuality “Brown 's ambitions as a cultural commentator are not always convincing. Not every reader will warm to the suggestion voiced by one of the characters that we should embrace "orgasm as prayer" and that men 's sexual climax is "a moment of clarity during which God [can] be glimpsed."”(Burrows,"Gospel Fantasy") The characters in the book claim that Christianity or the Superior man has suppressed the sacred feminine by slandering Mary Magdalene and desexualizing females in the church; however, some people have accepted this approach and have a more open opinion about women playing such a different role. “Readers have warmed to the author 's efforts to envision a religion more deeply committed to women 's experience and leadership than the one they have encountered in church. Mary Magdalene, he contends, was a leader in the early church--a fact that the church quickly acted to suppress. The real story that Christianity has covered up is not about Jesus at all but about this woman and her (female) descendants. According to the novel, men rewrote the