Elijah and the Da Vinci Code

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Well, I finished the damn thing.

What exactly was this huge secret the Priory of Sion was hiding, anyway? Certainly not the secret that Jesus was some proto-feminist cavorting with Mary Magdalene who taught the world... what is it that Dan Brown actually thought the teaching of Christ was about, anyway???

In any event, that's not the secret. Teabing already knew that. And certainly just finding the bones of Mary Magdalene would prove nothing. All they would show through carbon dating is that a bunch folks through the ages who are into ritual sex have been schlepping around the remains of a first century woman.

And then the French lady at Rosslyn Chapel tells that the actual Grail (Mary's bones) was never meant to be revealed and the concept is more significant than the reality. Brown demythologizes his own myth. (And on top of it, if the final aspiration of this new religion is to kneel at the bones of Magdalene, and then to not reveal them would be like me inviting a bunch of people to eucharist and then telling them I hid the elements somewhere in Europe. Good luck.)

But that is not the point of this post.

I really got pissed at a minor little thing in a late chapter when Langdon explains the meaning of the Star of David to Sophie. What he says is that it is the sexual union of the archetypical male (blade) and the female (chalice) celebrated by the Jews as the conjugal relation between two deities: the one the ancients pronounced "Adonai" (I have too much respect for the Name to write it in this context) and Shekinah.

This causal overthrow of Hebraic monotheism and the imputing of paganism into the faith of Israel angered me more than anything else. This is full-on clothes rending stuff. Where is the outrage? (What if Brown portrayed Krishna eating a hamburger? Would folks react nonchalantly about that?)

All I kept imagining was Elijah reading DVC and inviting Dan Brown up the mountain for a chat. It was a satisfying thought.

Perhaps that is not particularly nice of me, but it was an enjoyable little rant.