The Mrs. Jesus Controversy

Of Helen Clark, K Road and Celibate Priests; a Biblical Analysis on Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ as Portrayed in the Da Vinci Code.
by WEE Choon Wei


Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene

The enormously popular Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown in 2003 had captivated and brought a new phenomenon of spiritual interest amongst the masses. Hitting the 40million sales record worldwide and topping the charts of local New Zealand bookstores (Calvert-Koyzis, 2006; Tunnah, 2004), the mass media portrayal seems to imply that the novel is historically and factually accurate, thus encouraging an uncritical acceptance of popular ideas of the person of Mary Magdalene. Interestingly, the theory behind the novel draws inspiration from the earlier Holy Blood, Holy Grail, published in 1982 that was co-authored by a New Zealand-born author Michael Baigent. For the first time in the 21st century, issues of faith and biblical tradition had attracted such great interest in an egalitarian post-Christian New Zealand society.

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