Book Review: Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code by Bart Ehrman

May 10, 2006 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009). Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (559)

The books eight chapters are divided into two parts:
Constantine and the New Testament, and Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Dr. Ehrman
makes it clear in the Introduction that while he found the novel to be “a
terrific page-turner” (xix), he found many historical inaccuracies that needed
to be dealt with.

In part one, Dr. Ehrman expounds on the role of Constantine
in early Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library, the
non-canonical gospels, and the formation of the New Testament Canon. Part two
investigates our sources for the historical Jesus and what they say about him,
his relationship with Mary Magdalene, and the view of women in early
Christianity.

Dr. Ehrman sums it up quite nicely: “The problem is that
people who read a book like this have no way of separating the historical fact
from the literary fiction… [The author’s] a novelist, not a scholar of history.”
(189) I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the author throughout the
book, and even enjoyed some of his quips. In speaking of the Gnostic gospels he
notes, “the Jesus portrayed here is not merely human; he is a superhuman
wunderkind.” (52)

There were however significant points where I disagreed,
such as: “In fact, we don’t have any document written by a single eyewitness to
the life of Jesus.” (103). Even if Dr. Ehrman believes the evidence for Matthew
and John having written their respective Gospels is weak, there’s still a
reasonable chance they actually did write them. On pages 116 to 117, he rants a
lengthy list of differences between the Gospels. Some that he offers do
(initially) appear to be serious challenges to agreement between the Gospels,
but some are also very easily resolved.

From a literary perspective, Bart Ehrman did a good
job of bringing academic discussions to a layman level. Even having studied the
Dead Sea Scrolls in college, I found his discussion of them and the Nag Hammadi
Library intriguing. In some cases, I think, he waters things down a bit too
much in that he becomes very repetitive with his points- as if a non-academic
reader could not keep up with his line of reasoning. Overall, Truth and
Fiction in the Da Vinci Code is a great read for those looking to find out
what a non-Christian thinks of Dan Brown’s novel. Though it has its weaknesses,
it stands together well with other critical works that show the problems with The
Da Vinci Code.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: The Da Vinci Code, Fact or Fiction?
2. Book Review: Breaking the Da Vinci Code by Darrell Bock
3. Book Review: The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code
4. Book Review: Exploring the Da Vinci Code
5. Book Review: The Gospel According to the Da Vinci Code
6. Book Review: Discussing the Da Vinci Code Curriculum Kit

Posted in Book Reviews, Main Page, Roger's Posts, The Da Vinci Code