Released in March 2003, the book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown quickly made The New York Times bestseller list. A year later, it was declared a bestseller in 100 countries, while Doubleday, its publisher, called it “the all-time bestselling adult novel.”

Why such interest? The author claims to have given the world a fictional, fact-based conspiracy theory alleging “scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony” (p.341).

Because a “good read” combined with bad history is not something to stake your life on, we have asked RBC research editor Dennis Fisher to help us sort out the facts from the fiction.

Martin R. De Haan II