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Dan Brown has reproduced in fictionalized form some of the great myths of the postmodern world. His achievement, in fact, is so spectacular that it is hard to begrudge him his newfound millions. He has taken a set of ideas and speculative historical reconstructions, each of which is highly implausible in itself, and by weaving them together has not only created an exciting plot, but has also made the several implausible elements appear for a moment as though they just might be true. All the books of this type seem to be convinced that mainstream Christianity thinks of Jesus as divine, sustaining the church’s political power, whereas the secret traditions see him as just human. They fail to notice that if they are right it is hard to explain the rise of Christianity in the first place. If Jesus’ body is buried under a hill in France, why should anyone think he was divine? We may safely conclude that The Da Vinci Code is fiction in its characters and plot and in most of its other details as well. But its real importance lies elsewhere: in its reinforcement of the “myth of Christian origins.” This myth is well known and widespread. I have met it at Harvard, in Baptist churches in the South, all over the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature— this myth is anything but scientific or historical.