THE DA VINCI CODE
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu Abraham after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris, when they become involved in a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ having been a companion to Mary Magdalene. The Da Vinci Code provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and Mary Magdalene’s role in the history of Christianity. The book has, however, been extensively denounced by many Christian denominations as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church, and consistently criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracies. The novel nonetheless became a worldwide bestseller that sold 80 million copies as of 2009 and has been translated into 44 languages. (More from Wikipedia)
John Lennon himself had been reading extensively about religion before making his ill-advised statement, and Maureen Cleave noticed a copy of The Passover Plot by Hugh J. Schonfield on his bookshelf during her interview. This scholarly work, which was published in 1965 (and informed many of Lennon’s views toward Christianity), was the Da Vinci Code of its day and portrayed Jesus and His closest disciples as having planned the events leading to the Crucifixion so that He could be taken down from the Cross after a few hours by well-connected individuals (such as Joseph of Arimathea) before He was actually dead and then nursed back to health.
(September 2014)
