<p>I confess I haven’t seen the movie, but I thought the book was seriously over-rated. Not because I’m Catholic (I’m not) or offended as a Christian. </p>
<p>First, because it was badly written. That had to be the longest night in the history of the world, esp since it started at midnight. The second half descended into blocks and blocks of speeches to get across Brown’s point. The mirror writing “code” was so numbingly obvious–yet the codebreaker had trouble with it. The characterizations were beyond paper thin. </p>
<p>And it gets a lot of theology wrong. First, nowhere in the Gospels does it say that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. She’s actually portrayed as a wealthy business woman (yes, I know you could say a prostitute could be that; it still never , anywhere, calls her a prostitute).</p>
<p>Also, it posits that women are played down in the gospels as currently passed down. Did Brown not read Acts? Many of the house church leaders were women, such as Lydia and Priscilla. Women are shown as being equals in a way never before seen. The fact that Paul had some issues in his Letters (and these have been somewhat misinterpreted) does not negate what is plainly seen in the Scriptures as they are passed down. If there was a conspiracy to shut women out, we wouldn’t see so much equality plainly included, like the fact that Mary M was a close advisor, or that the sisters Mary and Martha were considered equal in stature to other disciples.</p>
<p>Also, this royal blood thing of Jesus and Mary is just silliness. The whole point of Jesus’ teaching is that everyone is sacred; you’re not more important because of who your parents are. Which is why calling a possible descendent the “Holy Grail” is similarly besides the point–there are not holy bloodlines, there are holy people (which is everyone.)</p>
<p>And ya know, I don’t know if Jesus slept with anyone or not. But why the prurient interest, anyway? It reads like the giggly teenage girl version of religion–just sooo dreamy to think about.</p>
<p>Sexuality is a wonderful part of many human’s lives, but it’s not unthinkable that someone might focus their entire Self in a spiritual direction; it’s a common thread in many varieties of spirituality. As I said, I don’t know, I wasn’t there–I just don’t get why whether someone did it or not is really an important question to ponder.</p>
<p>So, those are my opinions, from a literary critique and progressive Christian point of view. To reiterate, I’m not offended by the book, I just think it was kinda, well, dumb.</p>