Popular Literature Paper - Essay Example

the Church novel and movie, Angels and Demons, which was actually published before Da Vinci. Discussion At first glance Brown seems to be an unlikely candidate to write such a debatable book. The son of a church organist, he developed an early interest in the normally odd mixture of science and religion. He was educated in private schools and holds a degree from Amherst College. Prior to his breakthrough as an author he taught English at the same private academy he graduated from in New Hampshire.

There is no question that Da Vinci was commercially successful, for the novel has sold some eighty million copies and has been translated into forty four languages worldwide. Although banned in most of the Middle East, it was received quite well in some countries such as Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. Surprisingly (or maybe not!) the book and subsequent movie also proved to be a big hit in Israel. Da Vinci starts with a murder of the curator in the famous Louvre museum in Paris. After being accused of the murder by the Gendarmerie and with the help of the curator’s granddaughter, Langdon travels to various locations throughout Europe, winding up in Scotland.

Along the way the pair are marked for death and pursued by shadowy figures from Opus Dei, under orders from the Vatican itself, orchestrated by an unknown person known as the Teacher. The premise (and the reason for the resulting controversy) of the novel is that in Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper, the figure leaning against Jesus Christ is not John as is assumed by Christian scholars but Mary Magdalene. In the book’s theory Jesus and Mary had a love affair that produced a daughter.

Instead of the chalice suspected, it is revealed that the Holy Grail was the remains of Magdalene. Pursued by shadowy figures of the Catholic Church and betrayed by his own friends, Langdon and his French assistant come to a startling conclusion at Roslyn Chapel in rural Scotland, in that the granddaughter Sophie is a living direct descendant of the Christ. It is not unusual for religious leaders to marry and procreate. After all Muhammad had a total of twelve wives and Buddha married at sixteen.

In Greek and Roman religions their gods married both goddesses and mortals. Yet from the New Testament, the cornerstone of the Christian religion, they believe Jesus was pure and unmarried even though in the Catholic Church itself their nuns “marry” Christ symbolically and some even wear a wedding band! As well, a biblical scholar named Mark Roberts points out that he could have been married, for nowhere in the Gospels does it mention he wasn’t. Besides, like Roberts point out, many Christians confuse Mary Magdalene with the prostitute at the well, which she wasn’t.

Magdalene was actually the financier of Jesus’ ministry. He also points out and gives Biblical reference to the fallacies in the beliefs of many Christians that sex in of itself is a sin and their God having sex is unthinkable (Roberts). Brown mentions two groups in his book. One is Opus Dei, a very much real arm of the Catholic Church. Part of their controversy centers around the fact that their celibate members practice what is known as “mortification”, intentionally causing grievous injury to themselves as penance to God.

A rather gruesome scene in the novel describe one of Opus Dei’s members, trying to kill Robert and Sophie, who wears an apparatus on his body to daily