{"id":7886,"date":"2004-02-21T07:56:58","date_gmt":"2004-02-21T07:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html"},"modified":"2004-02-21T07:56:58","modified_gmt":"2004-02-21T07:56:58","slug":"the_da_vinci_con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html","title":{"rendered":"The Da Vinci Con"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the NYTimes Book Review, Laura Miller debunks the “fact” of the Priory of Sion<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

The ever-rising tide of sales of ”The Da Vinci Code” has lifted some pretty odd boats, and none odder than the dodgy yet magisterial ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. A best seller in the 1980’s, ”Grail” is climbing the paperback charts again on the strength of its relationship to Dan Brown’s thriller (which has, in turn, inspired a crop of new nonfiction books coming out this spring, from ”Breaking the Da Vinci Code” to ”Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code”). ”The Da Vinci Code” is one long chase scene in which the main characters flee a sinister Parisian policeman and an albino monk assassin, but its rudimentary suspense alone couldn’t have made it a hit. At regular intervals, the book brings its pell-mell plot to a screeching halt and emits a pellet of information concerning a centuries-old conspiracy that purports to have preserved a tremendous secret about the roots of Christianity itself. This ”nonfiction” material gives ”The Da Vinci Code” its frisson of authenticity, and it’s lifted from ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” one of the all-time great works of pop pseudohistory. But what seems increasingly clear (to cop a favorite phrase from the authors of ”Grail”) is that ”The Da Vinci Code,” like ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” is based on a notorious hoax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the NYTimes Book Review, Laura Miller debunks the “fact” of the Priory of Sion The ever-rising tide of sales of ”The Da Vinci Code” has lifted some pretty odd boats, and none odder than the dodgy yet magisterial ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. A best seller in…<\/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-7886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Da Vinci Con - 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\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Da Vinci Con - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the NYTimes Book Review, Laura Miller debunks the “fact” of the Priory of Sion The ever-rising tide of sales of ”The Da Vinci Code” has lifted some pretty odd boats, and none odder than the dodgy yet magisterial ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. A best seller in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-02-21T07:56:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Da Vinci Con - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Da Vinci Con - Via Media","og_description":"In the NYTimes Book Review, Laura Miller debunks the “fact” of the Priory of Sion The ever-rising tide of sales of ”The Da Vinci Code” has lifted some pretty odd boats, and none odder than the dodgy yet magisterial ”Holy Blood, Holy Grail,” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. A best seller in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-02-21T07:56:58+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html","name":"The Da Vinci Con - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-02-21T07:56:58+00:00","dateModified":"2004-02-21T07:56:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/the_da_vinci_con.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Da Vinci Con"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. 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\/7886","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=7886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}