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197 of 212 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the DVC Debunkers, July 6, 2004
I've read quite a few books of the Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG) genre over the last two decades, and generally enjoyed them -- not as history, but as a fun, pseudo-historical modern mythos. I enjoyed that aspect of The Da Vinci Code (DVC) as well, (although the book had flimsy caricatures in place of characters, logical errors and a weak story). However, with his great success and his absurd insistence that the HBHG background material is factual, Dan Brown has popularized the HBHG bunk as real history, and done so on a huge scale. So when DVC generated a shelf-load of rebuttals, I was interested in them too. The Da Vinci Hoax appears to be the best of the lot. There are several areas of HBHG lore with which I have more than a little familiarity, so I use those as checkpoints. In those areas, Olson and Miesel cite good sources and say all the right things. Having now checked some of their sources with which I wasn't previously familiar, they too seem reliable. My only criticism is that a few of the early discussions in their book have some Christian apologetics thrown in. It is certainly understandable that many of the people motivated to debunk HBHG and related anti-Catholic materials (like DVC) are themselves devout Christians, as are many who would purchase such debunking books. However, such pro-Christian side arguments tend to obscure main issue, the historical problems with the HBHG lore, making it seem as if the debate were between committed Christians and neo-Gnostic Magdalene-bloodline true believers. However, that is a minor criticism directed to only a few passages, (as opposed to some of the other DVC debunking books, which are swamped by Christian apologetics). Despite the number of other DVC rebuttals on the shelves, this book was very much needed. It provides a serious and documented analysis of all the main historical points of Brown's misleading bestseller, with useful and reliable references.
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262 of 285 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best of the lot, June 25, 2004
Up till now, I thought Darrell Bock's Breaking the Da Vinci Code was the best book on exposing the errors of Dan Brown's multi-million selling foolishness. This new book is slightly better, primarily because it's more comprehensive. For one thing, it extensively quotes not only the main characters in Brown's book as they relate their version of "history," it also has quite a few quotes from the author himself from various interviews. These quotes are then examined for accuracy in relation to a wide variety of expert opinion. In every case, the quotes Brown has his characters utter, as well as his own quotes, are shown to be either simply false or the opinions of a tiny minority of authors whose views have been found wanting at the bar of history and scholarship. This book, which is about twice as long as Bock's book (which is limited pretty much to the time before Constantine and the Council of Nicea), also covers a good deal more ground. Topics addressed include Holy Grail myths, the real Templars, the Priory of Sion silliness, and errors in interpreting not only Leonardo's Last Supper but his take on art, the occult, and Christianity in general. If you think The Da Vinci Code--the foundations of which are a synthesis of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Templar Revelation, The Chalice and the Blade, Drawing Down the Moon, and the works of Margaret Starbird and other marginalized and/or discredited books--accurately depicts what really went on in Western history (which no serious person does who has any familiarity with the available materials), then you will not like any of the books debunking Dan Brown's ridiculous book, least of all this one. But if you want to find out what really happened, this gives as complete an accounting as you'll find anywhere. In sum, this critique is extensive, even exhaustive, and in the end entirely persuasive.
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40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything Dan Brown's book is not, April 27, 2006
Dan Brown's anti-Catholic bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, has gone beyond mere market success to become a cultural phenomenon. Indeed, it was the hype surrounding the book which first induced me to read it. After a few pages, I quickly understood that Mr. Brown had written the kind of book that would have resulted in a fatwa issued against him, had he targeted Islam instead of Christianity. However, in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we Catholics today use the keyboard, not the scimitar, when rebutting our attackers. Admirably, Olson and Miesel have risen to Dan Brown's challenge and written, in The Da Vinci Hoax, a book which is a devastating critique of Brown's noxious anti-Catholicism and an exposition of the true history of Christ and the Catholic Church.
The Da Vinci Hoax is more than just a standard debunker. It is everything that Dan Brown's work isn't. First, it's well-sourced. Dan Brown had the luxury of being able to make outrageous claims about the Catholic Church while using the cover of "it's just fiction" to hide his sources. As it turns out, most of the "history" presented in Brown's book is lifted from a couple of crack-pot pop-conspiracy works of almost no scholarly value. The Da Vinci Hoax on the other hand, provides copious footnotes and allows the interested reader to check the primary sources themselves, if they are so inclined.
Second, The Da Vinci Hoax is educational. As Olson and Miesel knock down Dan Brown's spurious claims one after another, the reader is given a wonderful lesson in early Church history and in the history of the various heresies and conspiracy theories that have grown up around the Church from the very beginning. They also address the bogus claims Brown makes about Da Vinci himself, the so-called Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, St. Mary Magdalene, Constantine, and many others.
Third,The Da Vinci Hoax is well-written. It may be dense with facts, but the prose is cheerful and occasionally humorous. A good reader could probably make it through the book in a couple of nights.
In attempting to explain the cultural phenomenon Dan Brown's book has become, Olson and Miesel write: "The Da Vinci Code is custom made fiction for our time: pretentious, posturing, self-serving, arrogant, self-congratulatory, condescending, glib, illogical, superficial, and deviant." Given how our 'elites' in the major media and entertainment industry have fawned all over Dan Brown and his book--and how they tend to behave in general--I'd say that Olson and Miesel have hit the nail squarely on the head.
The Da Vinci Hoax is a "must-have" for any serious person who is sick of hearing Dan Brown's drivel praised to the heavens by the ignorant.
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