CONTROVERSY MAGNIFIED `THE DA VINCI CODE' OPENING REKINDLES EMOTIONAL DEBATE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

While some Catholic and Protestant groups have expressed the requisite outrage and gone through the motions of urging a boycott of the movie version of ``The Da Vinci Code,'' which opens Friday, you get the feeling that Sony Pictures hoped for bigger headlines, a la last year's response to Mel Gibson's ``The Passion of the Christ.''

Instead, the religious response has - with the exception of the occasional flare-up and call for a lawsuit - been something of a collective shrug and yawn. If anything, biblical scholars are happy to have Dan Brown's book around. If nothing else, it has been a conversation-starter and, for many, an opportunity to sell some books of their own.

``The book is just a bunch of nonsense,'' says Monsignor Francis Maniscalo, communications director for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Maniscalo's group is opting for education instead of boycotts, producing a Web site, pamphlets and a documentary, ``Jesus Decoded.''

Maniscalo says he'd rather people be talking about early Christianity without having to ``clear away all the underbrush that Brown's book has created,'' but he's happy for the discussions, nonetheless.

Others agree.

``A few years ago, if I told someone my Ph.D was in early Christianity, their eyes would glaze over and that would be the end of the conversation,'' says Bruce Fisk, an associate professor of New Testament at Santa Barbara's Westmont College. ``Now they want to know what I think about `The Da Vinci Code.' ''

Adds Darrell Bock, author of ``Breaking the Da Vinci Code'': ``I've been on the road since January. The origins of the church have become part of the cultural discussion in a non-threatening way. For that, I'm grateful to Dan Brown.''

Granted, not everyone shares that view. Brown's 2003 book - and if you're not one of the estimated 100 million people who have read it and you want the movie to be a pure experience, you might want to stop reading here - is a clumsy page-turner that revolves around a centuries-old conspiracy that has the Catholic Church hiding the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

It's a novel, yes, but given the number of historical figures and events cited, millions of readers have swallowed the story, hook, line and sinker.

A Canadian survey commissioned last year by National Geographic found that 32 percent of the book's readers believed in its assertions.

Christian pollster George Barna reported last year that 53 percent of American adults said ``The Da Vinci Code'' helped their ``personal growth and spiritual understanding.''

And a few days ago, a Catholic Digest poll showed 73 percent of American Catholics saying the book ``did not affect their faith or opinion of the church in any way.'' Which means, as Maniscalo notes, up to 27 percent of Catholics may feel differently.

Why has ``The Da Vinci Code'' struck such a chord among readers? Bock, who teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary, cites a number of factors, including an increased interest in spirituality and gender issues. Fisk, too, says the book's success is due to a number of reasons, ``the least of which is the novel's literary merit.''

``Dan Brown is attacking everything he sees as problematic within organized religion and its claim to have a singular version of the truth,'' Fisk says. ``The church would do well to listen to the historical arguments, which are easy enough to refute, but also the anti-clerical sentiment. It's not a book against Jesus. It's a book against the church, charging that the church is increasingly irrelevant. And Christians should think hard about that.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glennwhipp(at)dailynews.com

Are you clued in?

Haven't cracked ``The Da Vinci Code,'' but looking for a jump on Ron Howard's movie, which opens Friday? Here's a roundup of the major players and places from Dan Brown's mega-seller, as well as a look at whether the novel's assertions are accurate. (Warning: contains spoilers.)

The Priory of Sion: The first sentence in the ``Code'' reads: ``FACT: The Priory of Sion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization.'' In the book, it is this society - whose members supposedly included Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli and Victor Hugo - that keeps the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene a secret.

What the experts say: The Priory, a repository for all manner of conspiracy theories, was a hoax created in 1956 by French anti-Semite Pierre Plantard. (``60 Minutes'' just ran a segment on the group. If you missed it, you can see it summarized atwww.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1552009-page2.shtml)

The Priory of Brion, however, is real, a band created by former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant in 1999. And, as we all know, Zeppelin members worshipped the devil. Which brings us to ...

The Louvre Pyramid: The book claims that ``this pyramid, at (French) President (Francois) Mitterrand's explicit demand, has been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass - a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan.''

What the experts say: The I.M. Pei-designed glass pyramid, added to the entrance of the Louvre Museum in 1989, has somewhere between 673 and 698 glass panes (depending on the count made by the Louvre and Pei, respectively), making it an unlikely tourist spot on the Antichrist's next vacation itinerary.

Da Vinci's Last Supper: Brown says that the figure seated to Jesus' right (our left) in Da Vinci's 1498 masterpiece is actually Mary Magdalene and not the apostle John, which, naturally, heightens the connection between Mary and Jesus, but also leaves the painting one disciple short.

What the experts say: There is unanimous agreement among art historians that the person is John, a young man that other artists of the period - Castagno and Ghirlandaio - rendered as an androgynous or feminine figure. The figure in Da Vinci's painting is also clearly wearing male clothing.

``Unmentioned at the Last Supper in Scripture (or in any of the Apochryphal gospels), the Magdalene is almost never included in depictions of that event,'' says Robert Baldwin, an art history professor at Connecticut College. ``Only two images including her are presently known to me. Both add her as a 14th figure, placed submissively at Christ's feet in front of the table.

``Leonardo could have added the Magdalene to his `Last Supper,' but he would not have removed one of the disciples.''

Jesus married Mary Magdalene: The book's hero, Robert Langdon, a Harvard scholar specializing in religious symbols, says it would have been unusual for Jesus to be a bachelor because Jewish men of the time were always married. Later, it is argued that Jesus' spouse is Mary, using the gnostic Gospel of Philip as proof.

What the experts say: Many Jewish men from the first century remained single and celibate - the Apostle Paul comes to mind. As for the Gospel of Philip, it is damaged and, thus, incomplete in its brief depiction of the relationship between Jesus and Mary.

There's also the gnostic Gospel of Mary, which is used in ``The Da Vinci Code'' to support the idea that Jesus entrusted the church to Mary after his death.

``The Gospel of Mary doesn't say that at all,'' says Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina and author of ``Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code.''

``The Gospel of Mary is about Jesus appearing to Mary after the resurrection and giving her a revelation,'' Ehrman told beliefnet.com, ``and there's a debate among the disciples about whether Jesus would actually reveal something this important to a woman.''

Rosslyn Chapel: The 15th-century Scottish church said to be the location of Mary Magdalene's remains before they were moved to the Louvre Pyramid.

What the experts say: Brown doesn't even purport to believe this, though that hasn't negated a huge spike in visitors at Rosslyn. The Louvre has also been forced to rope off the exact spot mentioned in the book, lest anyone be tempted to go digging.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) `CODE' TALKERS

Everybody's got something to say about `The Da Vinci Code'

(2) It doesn't stop with the book and the movie. Want more of `The Da Vinci Code'?

(3) ``Mona Lisa'' by Leonardo Da Vinci

(4) Inside the Louvre

(5) The Louvre Pyramid

(6) Da Vinci's ``The Last Supper''

Box:

Are you clued in? (see text)