Last night I caught most of “The Spoken Word” on GPB – a talk by a historian on which facts are true in The DaVinci Code. It was interesting… and I did find out a bit more about some of the “lost gospels.”
The strength of The DaVinci Code still seems to be 2-fold: a fun, interesting mystery/puzzle AND it tapped into the missing, or at least buried, Feminine Divine. I really think that the second is the reason for the popularity and the talk. Whether or not people will admit it out loud, deep inside Christians have a sense that the current mainline Christian view is skewed. It makes some folks really angry that one can conceive of God as Mother. It makes some folks sad that we don’t often see the image of God(dess) as Mother/Sister. The common thread is that this idea really gets folks heated up… it touches a nerve somewhere.
The author of this book stayed away from theology – but did offer some assistance on where to look for the Gospel of Phillip and the Gospel of Mary. They will go onto my reading list.