{"id":8105,"date":"2004-01-21T10:51:41","date_gmt":"2004-01-21T10:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/thank_you_dan_brown.html"},"modified":"2004-01-21T10:51:41","modified_gmt":"2004-01-21T10:51:41","slug":"thank_you_dan_brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/thank_you_dan_brown.html","title":{"rendered":"Thank You, Dan Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from Publisher’s Weekly Religion e-letter:<\/p>\n

SPOTLIGHT ON… Thank You, Dan Brown<\/p>\n

Gnosticism Fever Moves Backlist to the A List<\/p>\n

The continuing popularity of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and
\nElaine Pagels’s “Beyond Belief” has prompted an unprecedented
\nresurgence of interest in gnosticism, as reported in BookLine last
\nsummer (June 24, July 8). In December, a 20-year-old title, Bantam
\nDell’s “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” (1982), landed on the “New York Times”
\npaperback nonfiction bestseller list. It didn’t hurt that a November
\nTV special on “The Da Vinci Code” highlighted the book and featured an
\ninterview with Henry Lincoln, who wrote “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” along
\nwith Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Also enjoying new life is Susan Haskins’s “Mary Magdalene: Myth and
\nMetaphor,” a 1995 Riverhead book that has seen steady sales since its
\nDa Vinci-inspired re-release in September. Continuum’s “The
\nResurrection of Mary Magdalene” (2002) by Jane Schaberg received a
\nrecent boost. And Harper San Francisco expects strong sales for “The
\nGospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion
\nof Jesus,” an April book by Marvin Meyer–with an initial printing of
\n30,000–that includes the Gospel of Mary and three other Gnostic
\ngospels in which she plays a prominent role.<\/p>\n

Clearly, of all the personalities associated with gnosticism, Mary
\nMagdalene tops the current popularity list. Karen King’s scholarly
\ntreatment, “The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman
\nApostle” (Polebridge, Nov. 2003) enjoyed an Amazon ranking of 200
\nearlier this month, sold out of its first two printings of 17,000 by
\nearly January, and a third printing of “at least” 6,000 was ordered.
\nInner Traditions alone has four titles about Mary Magdalene, two of
\nwhich were mentioned in “The Da Vinci Code” and are gaining new
\nrecognition as a result. Between its 1993 release (by Bear & Company,
\nnow part of Inner Traditions) and February of 2003, Margaret
\nStarbird’s “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar” sold 20,000 copies;
\nsince the release of “Da Vinci,” twice that number have sold, bringing
\nlifetime sales to 60,000. Another book cited in “Da Vinci,” Jean-Yves
\nLeLoup’s 2002 translation and commentary titled “The Gospel of Mary
\nMagdalene,” has sold 37,000 copies, with nearly 700 sold on Amazon
\nalone during the week before Christmas. Inner Traditions isn’t done
\nwith Mary yet. “The Chalice of Magdalene” comes out in March, “Gnostic
\nSecrets of the Naassenes” by Mark H. Gaffney in June and “The Church
\nof Mary Magdalene” by Jean Markale in July.<\/p>\n

Among the most ambitious efforts is Shambhala’s “The Gnostic Bible,” a
\ncomprehensive collection of gnostic writings including the complete
\ntexts of the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of
\nPhilip, the Secret Book of John and the Round Dance of the Cross–47
\ndocuments in all, plus background and introductory material by editors
\nWilliam Barnstone and Marvin Meyer. The 860-page hardback–which
\ncovers gnostic writings through the 13th century–was released in
\nDecember.<\/p>\n

The most unusual of the upcoming gnostic-flavored releases is almost
\ncertainly Jodere’s “Voices from Ancient Bethlehem: A Dialogue with
\nJesus and the Twelve Disciples” by a writer known only as the Scribe,
\na contemplative man who claims he has received direct communication
\nfrom Jesus and his disciples, much of which purports to clarify the
\nteachings of scripture. In one section, the Scribe maintains that
\nJesus calls the church a “monstrous organization” that he never
\nintended to establish, denies the purity and truth of the Nicene
\nCreed, urges the return of Mary to a place of honor as his mother and
\nconfirms that Mary Magdalene bore his son, who was named Benjamin and
\ncreated the Order of the Knights of the Grail. The Scribe continues
\nwith sections on the Holy Grail and the Knights Templars and
\nrevelations from Jesus’s “family circle”: Mary and Joseph, Mary
\nMagdalene and their son, Benjamin Martel, and Joseph of Arimathea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from Publisher’s Weekly Religion e-letter: SPOTLIGHT ON… Thank You, Dan Brown Gnosticism Fever Moves Backlist to the A List The continuing popularity of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and Elaine Pagels’s “Beyond Belief” has prompted an unprecedented resurgence of interest in gnosticism, as reported in BookLine last summer (June 24, July 8).…<\/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-8105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThank You, Dan Brown - 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\/01\/thank_you_dan_brown.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thank You, Dan Brown - 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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\/8105","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=8105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}