Thank you for your fine Currents section in the May 14 issue of The San Diego Union-Tribune. It was excellent! Contributing significantly to the success of your section was the outstanding column by Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post. As one of the leading writers of our country today, he has his finger on the pulse of our nation and its people. I thank you for including Weingarten's column and hope you continue to include his words.
William Neel
Chula Vista
I want to thank you for presenting an honest, unbiased look at the media circus behind “The Da Vinci Code” (“Factions Over Fiction,” by Sandi Dolbee, Currents, May 4).
I can't believe the heat Dan Brown has taken for writing a novel that suggests that we should open our eyes and dig a little deeper, rather than accept what we have been told to believe. “The Da Vinci Code” has given people the opportunity to see beyond the story of Christ as it is presented in the New Testament. Dan Brown provides us with a lot of facts and some theories. Sure, he got some of the facts wrong, as all of the books and Web sites that have come out since are quick to point out. But he got a lot more of the facts right, and this is probably just as troubling to the book's detractors.
What I hope this book does is get people to finding out more for themselves. To go beyond “The Da Vinci Code.” Dan Brown is a writer of fiction. This is a thriller, not a thesis. But he has presented enough of a case to warrant further investigation. So read the book. Enjoy it for what it is. Then go to the bookstore. Go to the library. Go on the Internet. Find out for yourselves. Who wrote the gospels, and who were they written for? How were the four gospels chosen, why were they edited and why were the other gospels left out? What is in the Gnostic gospels that were found at Nag Hammati? Who was Constantine, and what was his role in Christianity?
None of this is a secret. It's all out there. And now we have the Gospel of Judas. “The Da Vinci Code” may be “faction” (fact and fiction), but it can be the beginning to a greater understanding of the early days of Christianity.
Bryan Berry
San Diego
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