This book is the most authoritative, arguably the definitive, appraisal of some of the claims that are directly made or are imbedded in the incredibly successful work of popular fiction by Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code; it is not an essentially partisan Christian rebuttal of The Da Vinci Code (as are virtually all the books currently available) but a truly historical assessment by a noted early Christian scholar. This novel is unusual in that the author makes the statement up front that the historical information in the book is all factually accurate, and many readers presumably have taken the author at his word. Some of these facts are surprising and provocative, such as that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, that this union produced an offspring whose holy lineage has been preserved down to today, that Emperor Constantine suppressed secret Gospels that attest to these stories, etc. perspective. His focus is on the historical Jesus, the historical Mary, the development of the early Christian church, the writings of the early Christian Gospels, and the role played by Constantine in the formation of what has come down to us as the beliefs and scriptures of the Christian religion. Possible quote for back cover from the introduction to the book: How much truth is there in The Da Vinci Code? In some ways the question is raised by The Da Vinci Code itself, as it begins (on p. 1, before the Prologue) with a list of items that it labels 'FACT, ' including ... the claim: 'All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.' But are they? indicates that he is providing facts accurately), he has played with the 'facts, ' so that many of them are, in actual fact, part of his fiction. historical realities from the flights of fantasy, for anyone interested in knowing about the historical beginnings of Christianity, especially in the life of Jesus and the writings that make up the New Testament. Another useful quote, perhaps for a press kit, from Chapter 5 of the book: I should stress that I am not objecting to Dan Brown's inventing claims about early Christian documents as part of his fictional narrative; the problem is that he indicates that his accounting of early Christian documents is historically accurate, and readers who don't know the history of early Christianity will naturally take him at his word. But there is more fiction than fact, not just in the plot of The Da Vinci Code, but also in its discussion of the early documentary record about Jesu
