Sir, You report (August 8) that among the more controversial claims of The Da Vinci Code is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that they had a child.

Dan Brown’s novel does not make claims: it’s fiction. The “controversy” that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married does not even originate with Dan Brown, but dates from the earliest years of the Christian Church.

The denunciation by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales of the novel’s flawed logic and history is sheer silliness. Fiction is either good or bad fiction. It cannot be good or bad fact.

HENRY JONES
Bloomsbury, London

From Dr Robert A. Davis

Sir, The cynical attempt to position the whole Da Vinci Code phenomenon as a speculative but nonetheless legitimate contribution to historical study richly deserves to be disowned by those now profiting most from it.

As the shelfloads of trashy pseudoscholarship in our high street bookshops attest, it is now extremely difficult to find an orthodox account of the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail or the origins of the New Testament outside a major university library.

More disturbingly, increasing numbers of students have been manoeuvred into the “must be some truth in it” position by the skilful publicity behind The Da Vinci Code — a tendency all educated opinion should view with alarm.

ROBERT A. DAVIS
(Head, Department of Religious Education)
University of Glasgow

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