The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code

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Summary: Fiction has limits - and 'Hoax' corrects 'Code's absurdities
Review: A reviewer on this list advises us to grow up and get a life rather than read a book debunking the hoax perpetrated by Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code.' He suggests that wild story telling is the nature of fiction or even, one has to assume, historical fiction, in which a story is told within the context of real events with cameos by historical figures. This suggestion is, of course, just silly.

If a writer is writing historical fiction and tells his readers in story, say, that George Washington was a serial rapist and slave butcher - and that book sells a kazillion copies and is made into a movie, this reviewer would have us believe those books written to tell us the facts about Washington are all 'exploitation' silliness and unnecessary. Isn't it the writer of such fiction, who turns history on its head to advance a political or anti-religious agenda, the real exploiter? 'The Da Vinci Hoax,' by telling us the facts and correcting the absurd assertions and irresponsible errors of 'The Da Vinci Code,' will help, one hopes, to prevent Dan Brown's anti-clerical diatribe and exploitation of people's interest in the historical Jesus from becoming the popular understanding of Christian history. I say "one hopes" not because of any deficiency in this book; its scholarship and care in refuting the innuendo and outright nonsense of 'Code' is as comprehensive a treatment as will ever be published, I expect, and the authors are to be commended for their sobriety and their never descending to Brown's level. My doubts about its efficacy in correcting the growing popular idea, consequent to the 'Code,' that Jesus of Nazareth lived on after his crucifixion are only due to the greater reach of sensational fiction and a movie as compared to a non-fiction book, however well written and documented.

Anyone who has read 'The Da Vinci Code' will be well served by reading the antidote in 'Hoax' to Brown's slow-acting poison. I will be giving copies to friends enamored of its hip take on history and flip attitude toward Catholicism and Christianity in general. Brown writes from a sneering, condescending attitude toward the Catholic Church with a disdainful disregard for established truths of historical events and personages, art history, and theology which I find remarkable even in our times (I am not a Roman Catholic, incidentally). Miesel and Olson charitably and painstakingly present the facts and bring the errors and omissions to light. In doing so, they do serious readers and the culture at large a great service. Three cheers!

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Summary: Better than Davinci Code
Review: At least, this book is more interested in truth than Da Vinci Code. Maybe it sells less copies.

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Summary: Best of the bunch
Review: Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" is one of the best selling novels in the country. It is also poorly written, with 1 dimensional characters and dialog, and a barely believable story line. So why does it sell so well?

The answer is that it attacks Jesus Christ and the Church. Attacking the church is one of our country's favorite pastimes, but this is nothing new. What is new is this wonderful and scholarly book by Olson and Miesel.

I have read much of the anti DaVinci code literature. By far the best of the bunch thus far is the The DaVinci Hoax. It is more substantive and thoroughly footnoted than Dr. Bock's (still excellent) "Breaking the Da Vinci Code." It is far better than the truly awful "Cracking Da Vinci's Code" by Garlow and Jones. (stay away from this one... its just as much a pathetic anti-Catholic diatribe as the Da Vinci code itself)

This book is strongly recommended as a gift for anyone you know who has been entrapped by Dan Brown's propaganda, and for yourself so you can understand why the Brown's "facts" are so very untrue.

God Bless

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Summary: a supplement, not a response, to brown
Review: I have to admit that the primary reason I gave in to all my friends' entreaties and broke down and read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was so that I could understand the body of literature that has grown up to "correct" the "errors" in Brown's book.

Olsen and Miesel make their perspective on Brown's book very clear early on. To say that they don't like Brown's book is an understatement. They perceive Brown's book as a threat to their belief system, an anti-intellectual and especially paranoid brand of Catholicism, that threatens to tear the entire Christian world apart. Early on they dismiss Brown's novel as a crudely written romance novel. This characterization does not, however, dissuade them from spending the better part of 300 pages in paperback exposing historical inaccuracies in Brown's novel.

Now I have to give Olsen and Miesel some credit. Their work is well written and well researched. Having read Brown, Olsen and Miesel fill in some details about the early Church that Brown, by necessity, glosses over. But their biggest flaw is that they fail to articulate how the "errors" they claim to "expose" in Brown's novel threaten Christianity. For example, they point out -- correctly, to the best of my recollection -- that the Gnostic Gospels were actually written and shortly thereafter rejected from the New Testament canon about a hundred years after Brown claims they were. To Olsen and Miesel, this hundred-year mistake destroys Brown's novel entirely.

Olsen and Miesel make too much out of this claim. The date the Gnostic Gospels were written is irrelevant to the role they play in propelling the plot of Brown's novel. To properly undermine the role of the Gnostic Gospels in Brown's book, Olsen and Miesel would have to undermine the validity of archaeology itself, which they make no attempt to do. (They are, however, openly suspicious of archaeology, because it does not reinforce their particular spirituality.)

I enjoyed reading "The Da Vinci Hoax." The historical details they add to Brown's novel flesh it out and further illuminate the feminine reading of the Grail legend that forms the backdrop to Brown's novel. But I wish that I didn't have to sift through Olsen's and Miesel's paranoia and scurrilous hatred for anything that doesn't fit their narrow-minded conception of Catholicism in order to discover it.

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Summary: Best of the DVC Debunkers
Review: I've read quite a few books of the Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG) genre over the last two decades, and generally enjoyed them -- not as history, but as a fun, pseudo-historical modern mythos. I enjoyed that aspect of The Da Vinci Code (DVC) as well, (although the book had flimsy caricatures in place of characters, logical errors and a weak story). However, with his great success and his absurd insistence that the HBHG background material is factual, Dan Brown has popularized the HBHG bunk as real history, and done so on a huge scale. So when DVC generated a shelf-load of rebuttals, I was interested in them too. The Da Vinci Hoax appears to be the best of the lot.

There are several areas of HBHG lore with which I have more than a little familiarity, so I use those as checkpoints. In those areas, Olson and Miesel cite good sources and say all the right things. Having now checked some of their sources with which I wasn't previously familiar, they too seem reliable. My only criticism is that a few of the early discussions in their book have some Christian apologetics thrown in. It is certainly understandable that many of the people motivated to debunk HBHG and related anti-Catholic materials (like DVC) are themselves devout Christians, as are many who would purchase such debunking books. However, such pro-Christian side arguments tend to obscure main issue, the historical problems with the HBHG lore, making it seem as if the debate were between committed Christians and neo-Gnostic Magdalene-bloodline true believers. However, that is a minor criticism directed to only a few passages, (as opposed to some of the other DVC debunking books, which are swamped by Christian apologetics).

Despite the number of other DVC rebuttals on the shelves, this book was very much needed. It provides a serious and documented analysis of all the main historical points of Brown's misleading bestseller, with useful and reliable references.

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Summary: The best of the lot
Review: Up till now, I thought Darrell Bock's Breaking the Da Vinci Code was the best book on exposing the errors of Dan Brown's multi-million selling foolishness. This new book is slightly better, primarily because it's more comprehensive.

For one thing, it extensively quotes not only the main characters in Brown's book as they relate their version of "history," it also has quite a few quotes from the author himself from various interviews. These quotes are then examined for accuracy in relation to a wide variety of expert opinion. In every case, the quotes Brown has his characters utter, as well as his own quotes, are shown to be either simply false or the opinions of a tiny minority of authors whose views have been found wanting at the bar of history and scholarship. This book, which is about twice as long as Bock's book (which is limited pretty much to the time before Constantine and the Council of Nicea), also covers a good deal more ground. Topics addressed include Holy Grail myths, the real Templars, the Priory of Sion silliness, and errors in interpreting not only Leonardo's Last Supper but his take on art, the occult, and Christianity in general.

If you think The Da Vinci Code--the foundations of which are a synthesis of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Templar Revelation, The Chalice and the Blade, Drawing Down the Moon, and the works of Margaret Starbird and other marginalized and/or discredited books--accurately depicts what really went on in Western history (which no serious person does who has any familiarity with the available materials), then you will not like any of the books debunking Dan Brown's ridiculous book, least of all this one. But if you want to find out what really happened, this gives as complete an accounting as you'll find anywhere.

In sum, this critique is extensive, even exhaustive, and in the end entirely persuasive.