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Expert on early Christian 'heresies' comments on 'The Da Vinci Code'

May 17, 2006

MajellaFr.thumb.JPGProfessor Majella Franzmann, an internationally renowned authority on religious movements that competed with orthodox Christianity in the first few centuries of its existence, says today’s fascination with books such as "The Da Vinci Code" is partly a means of “moving away from the authority of the Church”.

“Also,” she said, “people are becoming aware of some of the complexities in the history of early Christian groups, and the immense variation in the way that these groups interpreted Jesus, his life, and his teachings.” Professor Franzmann (pictured here), who lectures in Religious Studies at The University of New England, has written two books on interpretations of Jesus within this "heretical" literature: "Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Writings" (1996), and "Jesus in the Manichaean Writings" (2003).

“For many people, it’s a case of finding new information that may be quite liberating in that it presents an alternative view to that proposed by the institutional Church,” she continued.

She has been surprised, nevertheless, at the readiness of many readers to accept propositions put forward in a work of fiction. “It’s a very strange thing that people are taking the novel seriously,” she said. “After all, most readers are familiar with the methods of historical fiction, which uses historical material merely as a backdrop to a fictional plot. Why, in this case, are people taking it a step further and wanting to make fact of the fictional part?”

Professor Franzmann, who found "The Da Vinci Code" “a good read”, said naive readers might not be aware how easy it is for an author to base an argument – true or false – on an isolated passage from a text. She was referring to the text in the "Gospel of Philip", from the Nag Hammadi Library, which states that Jesus used to kiss Mary Magdalen on the mouth. The author of "The Da Vinci Code", Dan Brown, uses this text as one of the bases for his theory of a liaison between Jesus and Mary Magdalen. “Dan Brown is ‘proof-texting’ here,” she said. “That is, he’s taking a single line from a text that may or may not be intended to be interpreted literally, without being aware of the difference that knowing the whole text might make to its interpretation. In this case he has wrongly interpreted the verse as referring to the physical rather than the spiritual plane.”

“In 'The Da Vinci Code', in particular, the fact that such arguments are put into the mouth of a fictional character should act as a warning,” she said.

Speaking on the eve of the eagerly awaited Australian release of Hollywood’s version of "The Da Vinci Code", Professor Franzmann said the book – and, she hoped, the film – could raise more awareness in the general public about the development of religious groups in the early centuries of the Christian era. “The institutional Church has its own view on that history,” she said. “But there are other views, from as early as the third and fourth centuries, espoused by groups that didn’t survive to become institutions in their own right.”

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 17, 2006 03:24 PM