Preaching Another Jesus: Decoding Dan Brown's DaVinci Code Hoax [Paperback]

Shawn McDonnell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2004

Preaching Another Jesus: Decoding Dan Brown's DaVinci Code Hoax. "Abetted by his carefully-applied image of scholarly piety, Dan Brown has pushed his way into many Christian homes on an allegedly missionary agenda. THE DaVINCI CODE has been consumed by millions worldwide as revelatory history, and a moving call for us to return to the rich spirituality of the early Apostolic Church. But deferring to Brown's teachings is like inviting a Jehovah's Witness into your kitchen. Broadly stated, their objective may seem noble, and Christian, but as soon as they start in on the specifics it becomes clear they are preaching another Jesus. A large population of nominal Christians have been led into a false promise of enlightenment by a smug and supercilious armchair provocateur, 'teaching things which [he] ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.'" - From the Foreword to PREACHING ANOTHER JESUS

Product Details

• Paperback: 130 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (October 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1411613279
• ISBN-13: 978-1411613270
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,815,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too polemic and too expensive, March 1, 2006

By 

A Reader from Michigan (Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Preaching Another Jesus: Decoding Dan Brown's DaVinci Code Hoax (Paperback)

The positives:
1) McDonnell addresses 10 issues in "The Da Vinci Code" with some information that hasn't been published in book form so far. These issues include "suppression" of gospels, dating and reliability of the New Testament gospels, the gospels and the "sacred feminine," Jesus' "marriage" to Mary Magdalene, Peter's ouster from power, the "sacred feminine" in the Old Testament, Constantine and the deity of Jesus, Mary Magdalene as the holy grail, the Priory of Sion, and the secret message of Leonardo's painting, "the Last Supper."
2) McDonnell has obviously taken time to do research on a wide variety of complicated topics. However, McDonnell's a bit disorganized in presenting all of the detailed material in a short amount of space. Tracking down the source material may also prove to be difficult (see below).

The negatives:
1) The price is high for a short, large-font publication--probably due to its independent publisher.
2) The polemic and sarcastic tone not only targets "The Da Vinci Code," but also Roman Catholicism. It's better to focus on refuting only one party at a time. (I speak here as a Protestant evangelical.)
3) The enthusiastic style is unfortunately immature, with so many words italicized that it's hard to pick the book titles out from the prose.
4) Most disappointingly, the documentation is formatted very poorly. Book titles and article titles are both italicized in the bibliography (article titles should be enclosed in quotes). It's hard to tell what is a full-length book, what is a periodical article, and what is an online article. Many of McDonnell's sources are from web sites. He does not include in his notes or bibliography the web address or the date the material was accessed.

I can give readers sites for a few of his references. Paul Smith's material may be accessed at http://priory-of-sion.com. Matt Slick's material is available at www.carm.org. James Patrick Holding's article may be found at http://answers.org/issues/davincicode.html.

With all of the foregoing qualifications, the book may be useful to someone who already has a balanced library refuting "The DaVinci Code" and is looking for more secondary source material.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good information, but with an agenda., November 29, 2005

By 

Tim O'Neill "Bibliophilius" (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Preaching Another Jesus: Decoding Dan Brown's DaVinci Code Hoax (Paperback)

It's good to see an independent researcher using an online self-publishing resource to present another contribution to the cottage industry which has grown up debunking Dan Brown's silly pseudo history. The reviewers (who all seem to be in dire need of remedial spelling classes - 'ludacris'?!) who shriek that Brown's book is 'FICTION' seem to have missed the fact that Brown has repeatedly presented the 'history' in his book as valid, legitimate and plausible. They have also overlooked the fact that *many* readers have taken the 'facts' in the book seriously - a recent Canadian survey found 1/3 of DVC readers believed its version of 'history'.

McDonnell's book is a good, brief survey of the many and various errors and distortions in the novel's historical claims and for this he is to be highly commended. This is a good quick reference guide which packs a lot of information into a brief format.

On the downside, the author's overuse of italics and capitalisation for emphasis gets rather irritating after a while. It is as though he feels the reader isn't going to get what he is saying unless he SHOUTS about once every five words. Secondly, no-one buying this book should do so under the impression that his analysis is coolly unbiased and objective. McDonnell has a clear Christian agenda, and a defiantly conservative one at that. Add to this his problems with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which actually puts him at odds with most of the Christians who would be the primary audience for his book.

There are a number of highly intolerant, bigoted sideswipes in the direction of the Catholic Church, and at one point - when he discusses the Knights Templar - McDonnell veers from real history into weird, Nineteenth Century Masonic pseudo history and declares that the Templars' real purpose was to excavate under the Temple Mount for the Ark of the Covenant! This is every bit as silly as anything Dan Brown tries to pass off as history and seriously undermines McDonnell's claims to scholarly analysis.

For a truly objective, scholarly and entirely non-Christian analysis of much of the same material, I'd recommend Bart D. Ehrman's *Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine*.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but there are caveats, August 3, 2005

By 

N "Beau" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Preaching Another Jesus: Decoding Dan Brown's DaVinci Code Hoax (Paperback)

I bought this book, because it purported to not use biblical evidence to dispel Brown's claims as many other Da Vinci debunkers have done. After all when arguing over the Code, it's nice to not have to also argue for the historicity of the Bible. McDonnell does a bit of that but in a fitting manner and some were new to me (like Gesthemane).

I have not double checked the author's facts but assuming they are true, he does lay down a solid case against the Code. There are a couple quibbles though. His attack on the use of the imaginary department of Symbology in the novel was uncharitable at best. I suppose in a novel like Brown's, one gets the feel as to what the author is proposing as actual history and what elements constitute mere storytelling. It appears that Brown wants his novel to be more of a historical novel than a true fictional novel (why else the FACT page at the beginning?)

My main problem with Preaching Another Jesus, is the author's heretical views on Christian dogma or more specifically the Holy Trinity. For this reason, I would caution lending this book to a non-Christian friend, because while escaping one pitfall, one may be lead into yet another. However, for the secure believer, the book is a fun short read (however pricey).