The Da Vinci Code phenomenon continues to amaze. Its central allegations percolated for years in the pages of quack-history books, attracting little attention. Along came author Dan Brown, who slapped the label “fiction” on them and \u2014 presto! \u2014 millions of readers started asking, “Wow, is this true?” The short answer is, of course not. In her excellent new book De-coding Da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of The Da Vinci Code (Our Sunday Visitor, 124 pp., $9.95), Amy Welborn gives a sprightly, detailed, and highly satisfying account of the truth behind the pseudo-history.<\/p>\n
Welborn is a renowned Catholic blogger with a knack for explaining complex issues clearly. The reader of
\nthis book will come away with a lucid account of Christian origins, and a strong sense that, even after
\n2,000 years, the New Testament remains the most accurate and reliable source for the thought and work
\nof Christianity’s founder. Other, later writings from heretical sects \u2014 and fanciful conspiracy theories
\nabout how they were “suppressed” \u2014 make for the stuff of entertaining thrillers; but if you want “the Real
\nStory,” writes Welborn, it’s “as close as a book on your shelf. . . . Pick up that Bible.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s me all over…sprightly!<\/p>\n
Nice review. Captures what I was trying to do very well.<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t bother with Amazon right now. As I told you, the first printing is gone, which means delays in re-supplying. Barnes and Noble has it though, both online and at some point, in the stores. <\/a> There’s a good chance your local Catholic bookstore should have it too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a review in National Review (Dead Tree Edition) by Mike Potemra: The Da Vinci Code phenomenon continues to amaze. Its central allegations percolated for years in the pages of quack-history books, attracting little attention. Along came author Dan Brown, who slapped the label “fiction” on them and \u2014 presto! \u2014 millions of readers started…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
NR and Me - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/nr_and_me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NR and Me - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From a review in National Review (Dead Tree Edition) by Mike Potemra: The Da Vinci Code phenomenon continues to amaze. Its central allegations percolated for years in the pages of quack-history books, attracting little attention. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}