Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

 

Title: The Da Vinci Code

Author: Dan Brown (American, 1964- )
Originally published: 2003

Page count: 590

Dates read: 11/3/24-11/20/24

2024 book goal progress: 23 out of 24

Read my other book reviews for my 2024 goals HERE.



Description on back of book:

The Louvre, Paris: the elderly curator of the museum has been violently murdered in the Grand Gallery. Harvard professor Robert Langdon is summoned to decipher the baffling codes which the police find alongside the body. As he and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to an age-old mystery that stretches into the vault of history.

Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth with be lost forever.

First sentence:
"Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery."

Favorite quotes:

"The sacred feminine and the goddess have now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The power of the female and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the predominantly male Church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean. It was man, not God, who created the concept of 'original sin,' whereby Eve tasted the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the sacred giver of life, was now the enemy... 

I should add, that this concept of woman as life-bringer was the foundation of ancient religion. Childbirth was mystical and powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to embezzle the female's creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man the Creator. Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam's rib. Woman became the offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis was the beginning of the end for the goddess."

"History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books - books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napolean once said, 'What is history but a fable agreed upon?' By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account."

"Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith - acceptance of that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessable. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 8/10 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 9
Atmosphere   - 8
Writing Style - 6
Plot                - 8
Intrigue          - 8
Logic             - 9
Enjoyment     - 8
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

Though shorter than the first book in the series, this one could've been significantly shortened as well. I enjoy Dan Brown's writing, but he has significant pacing issues and creates unnecessary cliffhangers that are more annoyances that distance you from characters rather than creating tension and anticipation.

Overall, this was a good book! I enjoyed the characters and the riddles. The architecture and religious symbology were immersive to learn about. There are some good insights into both Christianity and paganism/Goddess worship. I found the book thought-provoking and eye-opening. I can't say too much without revealing spoilers, so this review will be short and end here.

Movie Review:

The movie was alright, but I still preferred the book. There were a couple of things that the movie changed that I liked, but the book has so many more details. An entire part of the puzzle was left out. I get it, they need to have the movie be a reasonable length, so things will be cut. Nonetheless, the book has so much more to it that it's worth reading even if you're already familiar with the story.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Dan Brown have the last words:

(This is a very long quote - almost the entire chapter 55. It's a very controversial chapter regarding Christianity. The beginning and ending of the chapter were not included to avoid any spoilers being given away.)

" 'Everything you need to know about the Bible can be summed up by the great canon doctor Mertin Percy. 'The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven.' The Bible is a work of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not magically fall from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.

Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies. As a descendant of King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the king of the Jews. Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land. More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion - Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.'

'Who chose which gospels to include?'

'Aha! The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.'

'I thought Constantine was a Christian.'

'Hardly. He was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest. In Contantine's day, Rome's official religion was sun worship - the cult of Sol Invictus, or the Invincible Sun - and Contantine was its head priest. Unfortunately for him, a growing religious turmoil was gripping Rome. Three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Christ's followers had multiplied exponentially. Christians and pagans began warring, and the conflict grew to such proportions that it threatened to rend Rome in two. Constantine decided something had to be done. In 325 AD, he decided to unify Rome under a single religion. Christianity.'

'Why would a pagan emperor choose Christianity as the official religion?'

'Constantine was a very good businessman. He could see that Christianity was on the rise, and he simply backed the winning horse. Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Constantine converted sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties.'

'Transmogrification. The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all elements of the Catholic ritual - the mitre, the altar, the doxology and communion, the act of 'God-eating' - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.'

'Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday of Orisis, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans.'

'Originally, Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration day of the sun. To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god's weekly tribute - Sunday.'

'During this fusion of religions, Constantine needed to strengthen the new Christian tradition, and held a famous ecumenical tethering known as the Council of Nicaea - the birthplace of the Nicene Creed. At this gathering, many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon - the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus.'

'I don't follow. His divinity?'

'My dear, until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal. Jesus' establishment as 'the Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea.'

'Hold on. You're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?'

'A relatively close one at that. Nonetheless, establishing Christ's divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was unchallengeable. This is not only precluded by further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel - the Roman Catholic Church

'It was all about power. Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power.

'The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith. Jesus was indeed a great and powerful man. Constantine's underhanded political maneuvers don't diminish the majesty of Christ's life. Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives. All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ's substantial influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today.

'The twist is this. Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history. Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.'

'Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic. The word heretic derives from that moment in history. The Latin word haerericus means 'choice.' Those who 'chose' the original history of Christ were the world's first heretics.'

'Fortunately for historians, some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s and, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945. These documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? These scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda - to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base.'

'It's important to remember that the modern Church's desire to suppress these documents comes from a sincere belief in their established view of Christ. The Vatican is made up of deeply pious men who truly believe these contrary documents could only be false testimony. That's understandable. Constantine's Bible has been their truth for ages. Nobody is more indoctrinated than the indoctrinator.'

'What he means is that we worship the gods of our fathers.'

'What I mean is that almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.' "

[This is brilliantly written, I would only change the very last word in the quote to 'distorted' or 'modified' instead of blatantly 'false.']