Errors in 'Da Vinci' covered

If there is one topic of particular interest to Latter-day Saints in "The Da Vinci Code," it is the assertion that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, because many believe it could well be true.

Formal doctrine and scripture unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that, in order to obtain the highest level of "exaltation" in the afterlife, members must be "sealed" or married in one of the faith's temples for "time and all eternity," and that such unions are a central part of God's plan for humanity.

So while the question of Christ's marital status isn't new among Latter-day Saints, a trio of LDS scholars who have fielded numerous questions about it since the book's release three years ago decided to address the topic head-on in the first LDS book to answer queries sure to be raised again with the film's premiere next week.

"What Da Vinci Didn't Know," a 124-page book explaining what LDS doctrine does and doesn't say about Christ's marital status and other issues, has been published by Deseret Book. Authored by three Brigham Young University religion professors — Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Andrew C. Skinner and Thomas A. Wayment — it contains a list of factual errors in the book and details the historical documents and context used by author Dan Brown.

In discussions with students, family members, friends and strangers about the novel, the authors found "excitement fades" when they outline how the book was based more on "imagination than solid historical foundation."

They sometimes find they are not just correcting misinformation but dismissing "a precious facet of a reader's inner life, having given him or her some sort of 'gnosis' or special knowledge. Somehow, pop history, obtained with little effort or thought, helps some people define themselves and their relationships to others," they write.

Skinner, a professor of ancient scripture at BYU with a master's degree in theology from Harvard and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Denver, said part of the reason is the general decline in readership of non-fiction works and primary source documents among the population in general, rather than Latter-day Saints in particular.

"There is a lot of truth out there, but not all truth is of equal value ... That's certainly true with documents that were produced in the Christian age up to about 600 A.D.," including the Gnostic gospels, on which parts of Brown's novel were based. "Some of them are spurious — from an LDS point of view, we know them to be patently false. It takes more effort than it used to, to keep up with all information we're being deluged with," Skinner said.