A great story - an interesting historical perspective , but definitively a fictional one. Some of the interpretations of the symbols in Art were extremely interesting but arguably stretched. The many facts in the book make you want to learn all about the truths of this world. I found myself searching PHI , looking at Art that I coincidentally downloaded a few weeks ago , reading my Louvre art book , pulling my Da Vinci notes from a previous book I read , reading the bible, reading the apocrypha (also downloaded previously) , looking up the Holy Grail . blah blah blah. This book definitely created a whirlwind of interest for me.
Dan Brown , vague on his own faith but admitting himself a christian , said that if people are taking interest and debating about religion due to his book then this is positive for religion. Apathy , in his opinion , is religions enemy.

Some rambling thoughts and notes I had about the book ...... (don`t expect a cohesive argument , I`m not knowledgeable enough)

He interspersed enough eye-opening-facts within a framework of far-fetched inferences to appear plausible , and justified the inferences with illogical and weak arguments. Ie; Jesus - a jew - is expected to be married because bachelorhood amongs jews were looked down upon therefore Jesus was married despite the lack of historical references validating this audacious claim.

The claim that Jesus was not divine and was just a teacher is a belief held by many; One cannot take the Bible which declares Jesus to be Lord , dozens of times and use the same book to hint at his lack of divinity. The christian argument for Christs divinity was that he believed He was God so either he is a Liar , a Lunatic , or God. The historical Jesus proved he was too great of a man and too great of a teacher to be a lunatic. Lunatics do not act the way He did.The christian stance is that you cannot call Jesus , just a good man and teacher, He must be called Christ or a Liar The Jews acknowledged Jesus called himself God and called him a Liar and blasphemer and evenually had him killed. I don`t believe Jesus was a liar , do you ? . The trinity is tough to swallow for most christians not to mention other religions. I won`t make pretend I can explain it well here , but poke around some Christian websites to get a better explanation of the belief in the Trinity.

Using the apocrypha to attack christianity is not new either. The fact that the church has not canonized the apocrypha is not a conspiracy but a decision based on historical reliability. As is usually complained by skeptics or those that are confused about religion :" The bible is man-made and written hundreds of years after the fact "- This is true of the apocryphal writings and gospels of Thomas , Phillip etc; This is not true of the canonized gospels we know as the new testament written between 34 -50 years of Christ`s death.

-Dan Brown`s books are obsessed with ancient societys which are ripe for conspiracy theories. Illuminati , Priory of Scion , Opus Dei , NAS , Cern, and the Masonic society (which the codes hidden in the dust jacket hints about , possibly his next book)

Most people have heard about the freemasons , if you ask any current members about it they will tell you that there are no ideas about taking over the world , or secret behind the scenes motives for the group. Most meetings are actually boring and tedious. Is it possible the ancient societies did originally have particular secret agendas and have now evolved into commonplace good will societies with no interesting stories?

**The Goddess , or Sacred feminine - I didn`t yet google the internet about her but I should. In the Doors movie , Didn`t Jim Morrison marry under the goddess to that dark haired chick reporter ? I know that the goddess in many different guises has been worshipped throughout history. Many sci-fi and fantasy books speak of Godesses etc;

I would assume many women reading this book would find it empowering. I agree that the world under Mens control has not been ideal. If women had the same stature in society as men , History may have been written very differently. This book offered many interesting ways that attitudes were changed over time. Left - Evil - Woman - Eve - apple - evil - etc;

<>Da Vinci is an enigma. An amazing man , his true life story might be missing the Illuminary or Priory angles, but is still interesting to look into. The advances he made for a man of his time was amazing. He was a genius in anatomy, optics , engineering , mechanical inventions , science , and obviously Art. Some of what he found and drew was not found and confirmed and understood until the 19th and 20th centuries. t is true that he was a prankster and not a great fan of the church. He had a much more naturalistic philosophy as many scientists did. He always sought patrons to support him so He could spend time working on what he wanted. He rarely finished anything , including many commissions for church and the Kings who took care of him.

-The Amon L`isa - is an interesting angle and explanation for the Mona Lisa smile. Some of Da Vinci`s character attributes like ; his genius , tendency to do what he wanted , intellectual pranks, keeping his life private , sacriligious experiments and disections etc would make him a great character to call a Priory of Sion. But that would take away from all the evidence there is that Da Vinci was agnostic , and probably wouldn`t worship a Goddess nor a God. He believed in evolution before there was a theory of evolution. His naturalist philosophy does not lend credence to his membership in a religious cult.