De-Coding Da Vinci is a handy, thorough, yet easy-to-read resource that can help readers understand the difference between fact and fiction in the best-selling novel by Dan Brown.

De-Coding Da Vinci: The Facts behind the Fiction of The Da Vinci Code addresses the misrepresentation of history, religion and art in The Da Vinci Code. Did Leonardo actually build these codes into his paintings? Was the Priory of Sion a real organization? Is the Holy Grail really, as he says, Mary Magdalene's womb and now her bones, and not the Last Supper cup? Is Opus Dei really what The Da Vinci Code says it is? What was Constantine's true role in early Christianity? Was Jesus human or divine or both? Was He married to Mary Magdalene? Do secret writings not in the Bible really contain truths about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the sacred feminine?

Complete with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading in every chapter, this is the perfect book to accurately answer questions as well as inspire further conversation. It can be used either as a personal resource to expand one's knowledge of the issues raised by The Da Vinci Code or to lead a discussion for a book club, a church group or to discuss with friends who've read the book and have questions that need to be answered.

--That Constantine selected the books of the New Testament and invented the divinity of Christ.

--That the early Church covered up Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene.

--That Jesus originally designated her as the leader of his movement and that she in fact is the Holy Grail.

While these claims seem quite exciting, Amy shows that the truth is even more startling. The controversy over *The Da Vinci Code* provides an opportunity to learn the facts about Christian origins. Skepticism is good both for Christians and non-Christians. Amy's book will help any honest inquirer. Read it and decide for yourself.

66 of 75 found the following review helpful:


Death By A Thousand Cuts  Aug 07, 2004 By Thomas J. Burns
Unless my aging memory deceives me, I recall a story from Catholic school days about an ancient Christian teacher who suffered a peculiarly painful martyr's death: he was pierced hundreds of times by the styluses or pens of his hostile pagan students. In this work we get the martyr's revenge: from an articulate, scholarly, and dismayed author who administers a death by a thousand cuts to the premises and biases of the best selling "Da Vinci Code."

There are many ways this antidote to DVC could have been mishandled: the author could have written an ad hoc attack upon Dan Brown, or a cosmic wail against the anti-Catholic bias of the work, or a "preaching to the choir" methodology of uncritical defense of those areas of Catholic life and history that Brown played upon so well. The author successfully avoided these pitfalls, for the most part, with a terse but thorough dismantling of the major historical and theological flaws. Welborn, who did her graduate history studies at Vanderbilt University, clearly holds the upper hand.

The author addresses about a dozen topics that DVC manhandles with distressing consistency: the identity of Mary Magdalene, the determination of the canon or texts of the New Testament, the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Holy Grail, Leonardo Da Vinci, feminism in the Church, mystery religions, and Opus Dei. Each separate critique is deadly to a novel which depends upon an intricately developed puzzle. It would require only a few threads to unravel before the plot line becomes irrational. Welborn works with a tailor's shears. To cite just one area of critique, Welborn devotes a chapter to Brown's depiction of Da Vinci himself, and discovers that the moniker "Da Vinci" is not the artist's name. He was known then, and to experts today, as Leonardo. For those familiar with the story line of DVC, such a corrective makes quite a mess out of the intricate maze of word clues that Sophie Neveu seems to revel in.

I cannot find the exact word to describe the author's literary style, but it is distinctive. At this point in her career I get the sense that her avocation is the communication of "Catholic common sense." It does help the reader to know that Welborn is the author of a successful series of religious works for Catholic high school students, traditionally a notoriously difficult audience; and her blog site, "Open Book," is a daily watering hole for Catholics across the country that rivals Chris Matthews for hardball repartee. Welborn's avowed literary inspiration has long been the take-no-prisoners Flannery O'Connor, who would probably have weighed in herself on DVC, were she alive today.

At times I felt the author was almost annoyed that she had to do this book, disconcerted that basic tenets of Catholic history were unknown to so many readers of her faith, or that a best seller with such historical and theological flaws could go unchallenged. But in the final analysis, Welborn wrote this work because, in her own words, "culture matters," [p. 20] and she is correct. To pretend that music, art, literature, and film do not have agendas and influence is naive. Recently it has come to light that much of the technology employed by investigators on the popular television series CSI [Las Vegas and Miami, presumably] does not exist in real crime labs. Real life prosecutors are having difficulty making cases because juries expect levels of technical evidence they have come to expect on television. And I trusted Gil Grissom and Horatio Cane. Mon Dieu!

30 of 34 found the following review helpful:


Provides the big picture  Apr 28, 2004
Very readable book that should appeal to believers and agnostics alike - anyone honestly interested in the truth. Early church history is something most know little about, and the author (who has a BA in honors history and MA in Church History) has done an excellent job helping to fill that vacuum. She explores the sources of information Dan Brown used for his book and seeks to unravel fact from fiction in an fair-minded way.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:


Well Decoded!  May 29, 2005 By Dunstan Boyko
Yes. I know. It's Just A Novel. But that does not appear to be how the the author indended it to be viewed. It is also not how many of its readers have understood it. The author seems to think that it is based on Factual Information and Hidden Truths that the Powers That Be dont want you to know about and were previously only accessible by the Cognoscenti.

The amateur historian in me wishes to point out a couple things. First of all, the magnitude of his claims about Christian history and theology are breathtaking. Second, claims of that magnitude had better have bulletproof documentation to back them up.

Amy Welborn's book does an excellent job of finding holes in the allegedly sound historical basis for the novel in question. Welborn's book is breezily written, which can be an aid in understanding the book's points. It also provides review questions and recommendations for further study.

It is a good introduction to the controversy raised by The DaVinci Code. For those who want more detail, there are many others. For example, there is The DaVinci Hoax, also available here.

31 of 36 found the following review helpful:


Pretty good book  Apr 17, 2004
Amy Welborn does a fine job of dealing with the issues raised in the Da Vinci Code, but I must say, I found it less thorough than another book on the subject, "Fact and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code" (0971812861).

Welborn, for instance, doesn't spend much time on the way anti-Semitic strains in 19th century German philosophy and theology influences a lot of the "theology" in Dan Brown's book. She also doesn't spend as much time on the modern origins of Wicca as one might hope. Kellmeyer's argument from Scripture debunking the assertions about marriage between Mary Magdelene and Jesus are very compelling; Welborn's arguments are good, but she misses the points he makes.

Overall, the two books overlap on some points, but they complement each other well. If you buy this book, you'll need "Fact and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code" to finish fleshing out the answers.

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