Everyone Loves a Conspiracy Theory

Just this weekend I read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I began reading this book with the greatest of prejudices. I started on the assumption that Brown is a mediocre writer who stumbled on a good story. I was right on both counts, in my opinion. Brown's style is lacking in fluidity and his narrator's voice is insulting at times. He beats you over the head with some of his plot points. When he lays out the puzzles, it almost seems like Brown is smirking in the background thinking, "I'm so clever" whilst the reader cannot believe the characters have not yet figured out the obvious. That having been said, I enjoyed the book. Like the title of this piece says, everyone loves a conspiracy theory.

I can understand why there is a controversy surrounding this book; however, I think that much of what is "controversial" about Brown's novel is overstated by his opponents. First of all, there is nothing in the fabric of the story that tells me Opus Dei is evil. From my understanding, of the main characters in Opus Dei, one was a zealot (and God knows there are many real-life zealots out there who would do far worse), manipulated because of his very loyalty to his faith, and the second, the leader of Opus Dei who despaired. I am not convinced that the organization as a whole is portrayed negatively (except in Dan Brown's slightly biased style, but I do not think Brown is the person to go to in matters of religious scholarship). I saw nothing shocking about how Brown portrayed their choices. Perhaps this is because I have studied corporal mortification. It has a long history, and it certainly did not start with Opus Dei.

My main beef to pick with Dan Brown is that, even though The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, he seems to be speaking from a position of authority, like a religious scholar. It is here that I would like to remind everyone that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction! It is not a work of religious scholarship. I didn't see any footnotes, directing me to verifiable sources. I saw no peer review of the material. Yes, Dan Brown does rely on some amount of research, and yes, there have been stories about the Priory of Sion floating around for a number of years, but that doesn't make them authoritative. In fact, I heard about this theory years ago, before The Da Vinci Code was a twinkle in Dan Brown's eye. In short, the idea that the Holy Grail is not a grail at all is not new. In 2001 I made a clay sculpture in art class called "The Keeper of the Holy Grail," and it was an image of a pregnant woman. I explained to my teacher the theory that Mary Magdalene was pregnant with Jesus' child, fled to Gaul, and continued Jesus' bloodline. And I went to a Catholic high school! Shockingly eough, my sculpture was not banned from the student art show.

That someone would write a novel exploring this possibility as a reality, that there is in fact a Priory of Sion, and that the material exists to verify it, does not surprise me in the least. In fact, I can't imagine the book didn't write itself. The whole concept is rich with conspiracy potential: The Church is hiding something, there is a shocking truth, there is a secret society involved, etc. It is a wonderful fancy.

When I read Brown's novel I did not assume that what he was telling me is fact. His research is flawed, and scholars have looked in the same places he has and shown us those flaws. For example, the scene where Prof. Langdon and Sophie are at the Teabing estate and Teabing shows an exerpt from a Gnostic Gospel saying Jesus loved Mary Magdalene the most and often kissed her on the mouth, scholars have shown that the manuscript on which Brown relied in order to make that claim is incomplete, and parts of it, such as kissing her on the mouth, are absent from the original and were inserted as ediorials. Also, the catalogue of names of the Grand Masters of the Priory were written and submitted to the Bibliothéque in Paris in the 1960's, and there is no paper trail to show that the information had not been fabricated.

There is no answer to the question of whether or not the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is true. Unfortunately, historical records from that time period are very rare, and often in terrible condition when they are found. Regardless of the veracity or not of that information, I would rather look to theology and history for an explanation, rather than a novel.