Product Description

The Da Vinci code is a modern-day publishing phenomenon. With millions of copies in print, it is the most popular adult novel of the 21st Century. In an introductory note author Dan Brown tells us that ""all descriptions of documents and secret rituals...are accurate"". But are they? Now Martin Lunn, an expert historian, reveals the truth behind Brown's research. Non-dogmatic and not out to discredit Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code for religious reasons, as some critics in the past have been, Lunn delivers the one essential reader's guide to this highly controversial novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #295507 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
While the author clearly knows his stuff, this book is desperately disappointing. Dry, poorly structured and rambling, the "Da Vinci Code Decoded" simply regurgitates the information presented so skillfully in Dan Brown's book and adds to it a mass of only mildy relevant information. It would be great to find a book that does a good job of looking at the truth behind the "Da Vinci Code" - this one certainly doesn't.

Did he even use any source material?
This is without doubt the worst "history" book I have ever had the misfortune to read. Whether Lunn actually researched his material or sat and googled it is debatable. An example is the chapter on the supposed marriage of Christ. Lunn contradicts himself in two paragraphs. One saying that Mary Magdalene is often mistake for Mary of Bethany incorrectly and another saying that they are the same person. (Incidentally it is not true that they are the same person.)
His argument for Jesus's marriage to Magdalene rests on the incident of Lazarus's death and Mary of Bethany's behaviour there (having already denied that they are the same person) and the wedding that is mentioned in John. This passage in John makes it very clear that Jesus is merely a guest there and the Mary in question there is his mother. However, since Lunn appears not to have bothered reading the gospel, it is no surprise that this didn't deter him.
In short, he presents a contradictory argument, full of holes and often merely his own opinion with no evidence to back it up. The rest of the book follows a similar pattern.
Do not waste your money on this book unless you are a history student seeking a good example of how not to write an essay.

Interesting subject.... tatty writing
I'd thoroughly enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, and I was interested to know how much of it WAS fact. I hoped this book would give me the answers.

Well... it does, sometimes. However, to get to the answers you have to read possibly the worst-edited book I have had the misfortune to trawl through. The typographical errors and the poor layout remind me of a first year undergraduate's essays - unforgiveable in a book written by such an eminent historian as this. It looks and feels like something thrown together in haste as the bandwagon gathered speed. I don't regret buying it (it's cheap but at least it wasn't too costly) but I'd have been embarrassed to, say, have given it as a gift.

It's also almost as full of questions as the Da Vinci Code itself, and the answers it gives are not vastly more authoritative - full footnotes and references would have inspired more confidence.