Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code by Dan Burstein (editor)
Reviewed by Jennifer West
Dan Brown’s
The Da Vinci Code has become an international bestseller to
the amusement of some, and the annoyance of others. Secrets of the Code:
The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code has
been compiled by Dan Burstein, an author of books on global economics
and technology.
Burstein was one of those readers who found himself fascinated by the
ideas raised by The Da Vinci Code. Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene?
Was she one of his disciples, and did she write her own gospel? Did they
have a child together? Were individuals such as Leonardo Da Vinci and
Isaac Newton members of secret societies that passed along “insider
information”? Was Leonardo a heretic and did he hide “forbidden” ideas
in his The Last Supper and other paintings?
There are no definite answers to these questions and this book will not
convince anyone who thinks The Da Vinci Code is fiction. But it is a
collection of interesting, at times fascinating, excerpts from original
works, articles written for this book, and interviews with scholars,
archeologists, theologians, art historians, philosophers and scientists.
I was interested to note that some of these scholars, whose works Brown
used in writing his own book, disagreed strongly with Brown’s own theories.