The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction [Paperback]

Robert M. Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2005

Was Leonardo Da Vinci a member of the 'Priory of Sion', a secret society reaching all the way back to the Crusades" Does his famous painting, "The Last Supper", contain a hidden code about this society's most precious secret? Did Jesus father children by Mary Magdalene? What was the Holy Grail? The best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown has stirred the popular imagination by cleverly interweaving theories about such questions with a fast-paced fictional narrative. Many readers have been so swept away by the drama of this murder mystery that they have accepted Brown's fictional reconstruction of Christian origins and medieval history as established fact. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, a member of the prestigious Jesus Seminar, examines the creative uses of history in Brown's novel, showing that, however intriguing Brown's fictional speculations may be, the real facts behind the novel are even more fascinating. What does the best historical evidence say about the possibility that Jesus might have survived the crucifixion? How did the Gospels come to be accepted as the established accounts of Jesus' life and why were other Gnostic traditions suppressed? How did the Roman Emperor Constantine figure in the development of Christian dogma? What was Mary Magdalene's role in early Christianity and how was it adapted in later attempts to develop a 'sacred feminine' element in Christianity? These are some of the important questions about Christianity that Dr. Price pursues in this engrossing discussion of Christian history. Price combines sophisticated historical analysis with completely accessible and witty prose in this enlightening, factually based analysis of Brown's speculative bestseller.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers who have followed The Da Vinci Code will find [The Da Vinci Fraud] equally engrossing" -- Midwest Book Review, MBR Bookwatch, Vol. 5 No.1, January 2006

About the Author

Robert M. Price (Selma, NC) is the editor (with Jeffery Jay Lowder) of The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave and The Journal of Higher Criticism. He is also the author of The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?, Deconstructing Jesus, The Widow Traditions in Luke-Acts, and Beyond Born Again.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (September 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591023483
• ISBN-13: 978-1591023487
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert M. Price (Selma, NC), professor of scriptural studies at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is the editor (with Jeffery Jay Lowder) of The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave and the Journal of Higher Criticism. He is also the author of Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For? and many other works.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very worth the effort, September 14, 2005

By 

Carl Matthew Spicer (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction (Paperback)

I came on this book after reading the triptych review on Earl Doherty's website (The Jesus Puzzle). This fascinating review covered Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (a rather ordinary by-the-numbers thriller--but with a world class "hook"), Ki Longfellow's extraordinary and exquisite The Secret Magdalene, and Price's The Da Vinci Fraud. After reading Doherty, whom I greatly admire, I bought the Price and the Longfellow books. (Dan Brown doesn't need my money, or my time.) The book by Longfellow belongs in any truth seeker's library, or for that matter in the library of any lover of fine literature...but I do wish all those who now salivate over the bloodline of Jesus and the Magdalene would stop long enough to read Mr. Price's book. The endless debate over this possiblity or that, the titillation over mysteries that are not so mysterious if all involved would stop for a moment and look at some "hard facts." Price presents his hard facts in a straight forward fashion, and after a while these facts, building one on the other, are hard to refute. Just as Earl Doherty tears away the walls of accepted dogma, brick by brick, so too does Price. Doherty is the more accessible, the more sympathetic in the reading. But Price has a lot to say about the historicity of Jesus, about the true basis for the legend of the Grail, about the Christian Church's absorbtion of other people's myths which they then call their "truths", and a great deal of it of much value. My god, how the world would change if only people had eyes to see and ears to hear.

This book takes a bit of patience in the reading, but it's well worth the time and effort. In fact, clearing away the centuries of lies and obfuscations and tyranny over our own inner worlds is worth any effort.

Highly recommended.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History is a story, January 20, 2006

By 

calmly - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction (Paperback)

A fun ride with Price in which he sets up a powerful conclusion including: "Since historical judgments are based on ever-new discoveries and reevaluations, opinions about the past must remain tentative and provisional".

A few months ago a housing development issue in my city caught my attention. After meetings at city hall, with a neighborhood group, speaking with many individuals, searching records on the Web I still don't understand what happened. People who'd been at the same meeting described it differently to me. How then can I hope to be clear about many events at different times in history going back thousands of years?

It took me 100 pages to become absorbed in "The Da Vinci Fraud" but by then I was largely hooked. However, a later chapter about Gospels that were excluded from the canonical Bible seems fragmented. Footnoting seemed sparser than it should be for a book refuting another based on history. But trying to establish history may not have been the point of a book that, after all, demonstrates the danger of relying on historical claims. All in all, a tour de force packed with eye-openers and a killer conclusion.

Even the best we can do with history can't remove the uncertainties we face in the present.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So Much For That Happy And Unified Band Of Early Christians, February 16, 2006

By 

Peter Kenney (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction (Paperback)

THE DA VINCI FRAUD is an interesting book which not only refutes many of the misleading claims found in Dan Brown's DA VINCI CODE but also gives a broad overview of the origins of Christianity as well as the events leading up to the formation of the New Testament Canon.

Price has an informal style which belies a wide knowledge of the history of early Christianity. He has a knack for mixing speculation with facts to increase the reader's interest.

In disputing Brown's work, Price gives his own version of the truth about the Templar Knights, Constantine, the Holy Grail, Mary Magdalene and the Resurrection of Jesus. The most absorbing part of the book, however, is the author's discussion of Gnosticism and also the Gospels which were not included in the Bible.

I enjoyed THE DA VINCI FRAUD particularly for its extensive treatment of the politics of forming the New Testament. I found it helpful to have already read Elaine Pagels' THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS and Karen L. King's THE GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALA.