What Do I Read Next?
Last Updated on July 29, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 487
- Digital Fortress (1998), Dan Brown's first novel, explores the secret world of the National Security Agency. The title refers to an unbreakable code that former programmer Ensei Tankado uses to paralyze TRNSLTR, a computer used to monitor private terrorist communications.
- Professor Robert Langdon makes his first appearance in Dan Brown's second novel, Angels and Demons (2000). Already a famous symbologist, Langdon is recruited to interpret a symbol that has been branded on a murdered scientist. As the novel progresses, he is called to interpret further murder scenes and comes to discover the symbols that connect them are all related to a group known as the Illuminati, an ancient secret society formed in opposition against the Catholic Church.
- Brown's third novel, Deception Point (2001), is a political thriller that begins with the NASA discovery of an object in the Arctic that would solidify the status of the space agency. Intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton is sent to verify its authenticity, but when she finds the discovery has been staged, she and her academic colleague Michael Tolland are hunted by assassins before they can notify the president of the United States of their find. The book follows them as they work to learn the truth behind the scientific deception.
- Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1983), by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, is the bestseller from which Brown draws many of his theories. The book combines history and speculation about the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion.
- Margaret Starbird examines the evidence of the idea that Mary Magdalene played a central role in Jesus' ministry in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail (1993). Most strikingly, Starbird argues that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus and that the Holy Grail is the secret of their relationship.
- In The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ (1998), Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince present their view of what secret societies such as the Freemasons, the Cathars, and the Knights Templar believed about the roles of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and John the Baptist.
- In The Gnostic Gospels (1989), Elaine Pagels imagines what Christianity would be like if the Gnostic texts were included in the Bible. Her book is considered one of the most accessible guides to the philosophies of Gnosticism and its implications for Christianity.
- Marvin Meyer, Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, summarizes the history of Mary Magdalene's changing reputation and explores his theory that she had an intimate relationship with Jesus in The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus (2004).
- The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus (2005), compiled and translated by Marvin Meyer, is a complete collection of the Nag Hammadi library, the set of ancient papyrus manuscripts found in the 1940s. These fragments include many of the Gnostic texts to which Brown's novel refers, from the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary to the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.
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