A fiction based on falsehood.(Book Review)

TRUTH AND FICTION IN THE DA VINCI CODE by Bart D. Ehrman OUP, 11.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 207, ISBN 0195181409 [telephone] 10.99 [pounds sterling (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848

Shortly before the publication of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in Britain, the publishers. Transworld, kindly sent me an advance copy of the hardback edition. I glanced through it, recognised the recycled nonsense of the 1980s bestseller, The Holy Blood and the Holy' Grail, and sent it off unread to the Oxfam shop. It seemed to me unlikely that the public could fall for the same trick twice. How wrong I was: the novel was rapturously received in the United States, has sold more than 18 million copies in 42 languages and has spawned a dozen commentaries--among them The Rough Guide to the Da Vinci Code and Bart D. Ehrman's Truth …