The Da Vinci Codebreaker: An Easy-to-Use Fact Checker for Truth Seekers Review
Even though I am predisposed to dislike "The Da Vinci Code," reading James Garlow's book has given me many more reasons. It is an easy dictionary for names, places, and terms referenced in or related to Dan Brown's novel. Though it appears to be written for the reader who is already familiar with the novel, I haven't read it all yet and didn't find The Code Breaker less easy to understand.
Garlow says that hosts asked him during interviews for his preceding book, Cracking Da Vinci's Code co-authored with Peter Jones, why he was attacking a work of fiction. The reason is Brown claims that only the story is fiction. All the historic details, he says, are true. Garlow says the average reader can't tell the fiction from the fact, which I can understand completely because so many tiny details are untrue.
1. Do you know who founded Paris? A Gallic tribe called Parisi. Brown gets that wrong.
2. Do you know how many glass panes are in Le Louvre Pyramide? It isn't 666. The museum reports 673.
3. Brown describes La Pyramide Inversée as having a tip "suspended only six feet above the floor"; below it is "a miniature pyramid, only three feet tall." The tips of these two structures are "almost touching." Doesn't a yard's distance seems a little far for "almost touching"?
4. That miniature pyramid is described as coming "up through the floor," but a close observer can see that it actually sits on the floor and can be moved aside for sweepers.
5. Leonardo Da Vinci did not name his famous painting Mona Lisa, so he wasn't sending a message through the title. Brown says L'isa is an alternative name for Isis. The Code Breaker states that it isn't. The English name Mona Lisa was given to the painting by a Da Vinci biographer many years after the artist's death.
6. Leonardo made notes while painting The Last Supper in which he refers to the figure at Jesus' right hand as a man, clearly from the artist's context to be the Apostle John, not Mary Magdalene.
Details like these wouldn't make up the text of many books if Brown hadn't boasted his accuracy at the start of his novel and in interviews afterward. I don't doubt he believes the hoax and that he thought he got many minor details right; but The Da Vinci Code and his other novels suffer, at least a little bit, from careless research.
But The Code Breaker reveals more disturbing errors or hoaxes which many people will assume to be true. Why make up stuff like this?
1. The Vatican, which Brown says ruled Christianity and suppressed the true accounts of Jesus' life in the fourth century, existed only as a simple church at that time. It was not building its new power base, as Brown claims.
2. The books and letters which make up the New Testament were not declared God's Word by a council. Most of them had been accepted by disciples of Jesus since the time they were first circulated.
3. Brown says English is a pure language, free from the corruption of the Vatican. This is idiotic. The English language comes to us from the German language, so wouldn't German be far more pure than it? Also, many English words were imported from Norman French.
4. Finally, in a section which makes me laugh from a literary perspective, main character Robert Langdon states the church burned five million women as witches over several centuries. The Code Breaker points to sources which record only 55,000 witch trials which resulted in executions and over 20% of the convicts were men. Many of these trials were done by common people, not the Catholic Church.
The Da Vinci Code Breaker calls itself "an easy-to-use fact checker," and I agree. Not only does it include corrections to the novel, but it also describes why the Gnostic writings were rejected, how the Bible was assembled, and other writings or recordings on the issues distorted in The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Codebreaker provides answers to the questions readers most often ask about the popular novel. Included are more than 500 terms, people, locations, events, and definitions, including explanations that are historically and theologically correct—all arranged in an easy-to-use dictionary style. Thorough research and a reader-friendly format make this the must-have book for Christians who want the facts and seekers who want more information about the claims of the blockbuster novel and movie.
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Customer Reviews
Thorough and Credible - Annabelle Robertson - Atlanta, GA
When the author of the wildly popular "The Da Vinci Code" insisted that his novel was factual, he lit a firestorm among academics and theologians. One response, "Cracking Da Vinci's Code," shot to the top of the bestseller lists. As the film soared to the top of the box office, pastor and theologian James Garlow returned with a dictionary style listing of information that readers and moviegoers will need, if they're interested in the facts, and just the facts. Thorough and credible.
Good refutation where Dan Brown gets off track - Chris Meirose - Waseca, MN United States
The cover of the book states that it is "An Easy-To-Use Fact Checker" and it lives up to that end. Think of this book as a dictionary of apologetics for the book and movie. The authors research is thorough, and very comprehensive. He's thought of things and made connections that I believe few others would. As a Pastor, some of the book's entries are review of things I studied in Seminary classes like Church History, but there is quite a bit of information that I found new and interesting. An example of it's exhaustiveness would be that rather than just referencing the Gnostic gospels that are mentioned in the book/movie, Garlow goes far beyond that and defines many other Gnostic gospels that never come into play. There are more than 500 facts and terms in this book, all of which are well written and informative. This would be a book I highly recommend adding to your library as an apologetics tool. Unfortunately with the way Dan Brown falsifies truth, books of this nature are necessary.
The practical applications of this book are limitless. Even if you didn't see or watch the movie The Da Vinci Code you could learn a lot from just reading this book, as it is full of useful information separate from it's intended goal of being an apologetic on The Da Vinci Code. This is not a reader book, as it is written in a dictionary format, with alphabetical entries chosen by their relationship to the book/movie and the subjects in the book/movie. Go and get a copy, so when your friends, co-workers, and family start asking questions you can respond in an informed way. This book gives the facts that refute Dan Brown's fiction portrayed as fact.
I would pair this book with Lee Strobel's The Case for Faithas a good one-two punch for anyone who finds they want to know more about Christianity and how it is so poorly represented by the careless pen of Dan Brown.
Jun 28, 2010 15:29:10
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