Mormon Take on The Da Vinci Code

A BYU religion prof with ancient scripture credentials, Eric Huntsman, has authored a two-part article on The Da Vinci Code. I tell you, this book has been the best thing to happen to Christian publishing in a decade--I swear every minister on the planet is writing their own rejoinder, trying to explain exactly why the 4th-century docrines of the Imperial Church are the only acceptable foundation for truly Christian doctrine and Christology. Here's the Mormon take on it:

Part One - Profiles Mary Magdelene in the canonical Gospels, noted in Luke as one from whom seven devils were cast out (Luke 8), but highlighted in John as the first disciple to whom the risen Christ appeared (John 20). She was perhaps the most faithful disciple, a fact we often overlook.

Part Two - Profiles Mary Magdelene in non-canonical sources.

Mormons are understandably more open to extra-canonical sources than exclusionary Christians, but there a lot of them (sources, not Christians) and one finds some fairly wacky ideas scattered among them. Selecting friendly passages can make them seem insightful, but IMHO taking them as a whole gives no clear picture except that there were an awful lot of Gnostics doing papyrus blogging in the 2nd century.

Here's Prof. Huntsman's commentary on the Mormon interest in the Jesus-Mary M. link:

[T]he proposition of Mary Magdalene’s being married to Jesus that appears in the novel is appealing to many Latter-day Saints. Our understanding of the importance of eternal marriage and the importance of families might incline us towards this position. Yet while our theology allows the possibility of a married Christ, our scriptures and official doctrine do not teach this. True, some nineteenth century Church leaders considered the possibility, but opinions do not constitute the doctrines that we are directed to teach each other and take to the world. The official teaching of the Church is what appears in the standard works and is taught by the current apostles and prophets.

Typical convoluted explanation of what Mormons do or don't believe, officially or unofficially, in the 19th or 21st century, publicly or privately, about a particular doctrine (here the relationship between Mary M. and Jesus) but overall it is a nice, well-written article that should be quite enlightening for anyone who has read The Da Vinci Code. [Full disclosure: I haven't read it yet, but I never miss the opportunity to put "Mormon" and "Da Vinci Code" together in one post title!]

Comments

[Arwyn]

My mom brought Da Vinci Code home from Costco just the other day. I'd been waiting for it to come out in paperback (student budget!), but since it's sitting all lonely on the counter and since I've finally finished The Devils, I think it wants me to pick it up...

[Clark Goble]

I finally read it a couple of weeks ago. Ugh. I thought the gnostic stuff was pretty poor. Standard secret sex sect stuff. Actually what's funny is that there was that pseudo-gnostic Mormon apostate group from back in the early 90's that rumored to have gotten a lot of people exxed. If even half the stuff I heard at the time was true, then it actually paralleled the secret society in Da Vinci Code fairly closely.

Overall though I thought the prose poor, the plotting weak and contrived and the ancient history less than engrossing as written. Want a really good secret conspiracy book? Check out Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum or The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

[danithew]

I read Da Vinci Code about a month ago and found it entertaining. It's not a great book. I wouldn't read it twice. It's a treat for when you want to sit back and not think too much -- a twinkie for the brain.

Dave, you were smart to get Da Vinci paired with Mormon in a post. You'll probably get a lot of sweet hits that way.