"...the things it talks about aren't really important, either, except to a few specialists."

The DaVinci Code is about the putative offspring of Jesus Christ, whose descendants would be walking among us. If this proved true, wouldn't it be important to a few billion Christians?

Yes, starrsville, but that exact and justifiably expressed cynicism is exactly what has distorted facts concerning and relating to events that can be authenticated- and to the point NOW in 2006 where individuals can write their own invented distortions of history (as the recent individuals who have made a bundle denying that there was a Halocaust)-with the result of getting a popular following as if it were a viable reality. It has gone way too far the other way in the last 10 years, especially in Academia, where everything is becoming "relative" and few time truths or cultural realities "matter" in context at all.

Again, I do not object to any book or how any author chooses to entertain or relate his/her tale, but I do object to reactions that don't discern real implications between fiction and non-fiction.

And Robespierre, what billions of Christians believe or think is essentially not considered in any miniscule iota any more outside of extremely small enclaves of Christians themselves- this thread is a perfect example of that.

There may be just a few exceptions, as when an elderly, highly marketed, sympathic Polish Pope who has become a media figure dies, or some other popular visual event or aspect transpires within a ancient and appealing visual location. Christian "cartoons" can be drawn without censure. And the thought processes relating to this absence of censure not even noticed by the majority of Christians themselves.

Quite different within other religions in 2006, huh! Just think it behooves us in West. civ. populations to understand the logic jump that has been made in some of these posts.

Looked at the website starrsville posted, and at the Last Supper page. "The mysterious hand holding the knife" belongs to Peter. He's holding it as an allusion to the later event where he attacks one of the guards who come to arrest Jesus. That motif is not unique to Da Vinci. And as for "the person accompanying Christ": SO not a woman. Again, clear artistic precedent for John the Evangelist being shown thusly.
I'll get off my soapbox now. ;-)

IMO this thread proves one thing; that Dan Brown wrote a story which has kept people talking and arguing for years...every author's dream.

So very true, intrepid.