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James L. Carlow and Peter Jones, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code, You’ve Read the Fiction, Now Read the Facts (Colorado Springs: Victor, 2004)
Reviewed by Lawrence G. Downing
(April 25, 2006)
Religious writers have hit a vein of pure gold within North America’s reading audience. Rick Warren’s books have topped the best seller list for months and the Left Behind series has broken sales records. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is right up there with the winners. In this book, authors Carlow and Jones unite their efforts in an attempt to counter the effect of Brown’s success.
It is fitting that Tim LaHay, coauthor of the Left Behind series, has written a brief prologue to this book. Both the Left Behind series and The Da Vinci Code play loose with the facts, exploit people’s interest in the obscure and sensational, and make full use of their fascination with conspiracy theories.
Although not a novel, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code utilizes a novelist’s methods to grab readers’ attention and seeks to convert them to the authors’ viewpoint through use of an ongoing scenario of a university student’s brush with secular religion and the occult. I found the story line less than convincing, distracting, and contrived.
The authors build this disjointed story around the lives of Carrie; Evan, her Christian boyfriend; Jen, her lesbian, feminist roommate; and professors who advocate paganism or antireligious attitudes. The selection of the participants is guaranteed to generate a response favorable to what the authors advocate when read by the sympathetic reader. The author’s methods identify deviant theology with people who themselves have questionable behavior and errant theology and who attack God and the Bible. This is classical, tried-and-true propaganda methodology.
Carlow and Jones write from a Christian believer’s perspective. No problem with that. They believe that Brown writes as an historian who believes his "writing is real" (23). "Brown says everything he presents in The Da Vinci Code is ’historical fact’" (26), state the authors. (It would have been helpful had the authors provided footnotes to support their claims about Brown’s words.)
With these statements as premise, the authors attack Brown’s credibility as a legitimate historian and accuse him of distorting, misinterpreting, and flat out misstating the facts. They may be correct, but they themselves have not set a model. Their unsupported categorical statements are numerous and often questionable or inaccurate.
Carlow and Jones list in question form four examples from Brown’s book: "Jesus had sexual relations with Mary Magdalene? Our bible is the construct of Constantine’s political whims? The church has it in for women? Jesus was ’voted’ divine at the Council of Nicaea?" Then they ask, "We can’t honestly embrace these ideas, can we? After all, we have historical facts to show each of these claims to be false."
If they have facts to prove each of these question/statements false, they possess data that no one else in the world has. Religious studies would benefit had they chosen to share the documents that support their "facts."
The authors take Brown to task for building upon oral tradition, although they themselves depend upon oral tradition when they state that Paul was beheaded by Nero in A.D. 66 (93).
Carlow and Jones also claim that the biblical God, though called "our Father," has no gender—"He has no genitalia, no X or Y chromosomes. God is spirit…and the mystery of His Person goes way beyond anything we humans can imagine" (44). The authors may be correct, but they argue from silence and an extension of their understanding of what "spirit" is, although they also admit unfathomable mystery
Every first-year logician is aware of the pitfall inherent in an argument from silence. The path one follows when extrapolating upon one’s comprehension of spirit has high potential to lead to a plethora of unfounded conclusions. The authors do not disappoint.
When the authors write "we must deal with facts that cannot be disputed" (105), they have set the bar high. There are few, if any, events in recorded history that have not been challenged by someone. The authors would have strengthened their case had they demonstrated more caution.
Examples abound where the authors would have been better served had they been more circumspect in their categorical conclusions.
"Is there a real Holy Grail? No, there is no physical Grail" (121). (The argument from silence, again.) "We can say for certain that the Holy Grail is not, as Brown would have you believe, Mary Magdalene or her offspring" (ibid). (They may be correct, but where is the evidence?) "On the first day of the church’s history, the Gospel was preached to representatives from almost every nationality" (142). (Unless one counts the Far East, much of Europe, Australia, North America, and numerous of other areas.)
When it comes to formation of the biblical canon, the authors miss the boat. They gloss over historical squabbles that have riled the church for centuries. As far as one would deduce from reading their account, secular and religious politics were totally absent from intrigue that was part of the canonical sessions.
History does not support such a pure and pious process. Their simplistic, too-pat-answer approach toward this complex and convoluted subject does not help the discussion, nor does it present a correct picture of what until even now has been a live issue in the religious world.
In the final chapters, one heading well describes the authors’ purpose. They understand themselves part of an ideological war, and theirs is a call to arms (222). If this is a valid conclusion—and I am not prepared to argue that they are wrong—they have brought forth a deficient weapon. Their armament is directed toward people on their side, not the perceived enemy.
They may be correct in the charge that "The Da Vinci Code is not a neutral fictional tale that adds a few historical facts for a ring of truth. It is a propaganda piece for a religious worldview" (222–23). However, the same can be said of Carlow and Jones’s work. Each of the three authors has pursued goals and purposes in personal ways.
Looking at the finished Carlow and Jones product, I do not believe they succeeded in delivering what the title claimed. The Da Vinci Code may have been dented—but it has not been cracked.
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