How you too can become a millionaire like the author of The Da Vinci Code
By Rachel Alexander
web posted May 15, 2006
The Da Vinci Code has been at the top of reputed bestseller lists since it came out three years ago, selling 40 million copies worldwide. It is the most popular fiction book of all-time and has made its author Dan Brown a millionaire. His secret? Writing the book in a style that sounds like the manner of speaking the Bible was written in, using holy-sounding words and phrases. It is a brilliant tactic, because most people are not familiar with the Bible enough to determine whether Brown is telling the truth or not. It sounds like official church jargon. Brown arrogantly states in the forward that the information he relies upon in the book is all fact, and has said on talk shows that he wouldn't change a thing in the book if he were to convert it to a non-fiction account.
Of course, his book has been easily refuted by clergy and Bible scholars all over the world, which wasn't too difficult considering Brown wrote it off the top of the head, not based on scholarly research, and freely admits he got the idea for the main theme – that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus – from his wife.
Since others much more knowledgeable than myself have exhaustively repudiated his drivel I won't bother going into detail but will point out some of the most obvious flaws. Brown claims that the Bible has been revised so many times over the years that it is no longer clear what is accurate. This is simply not true. The New Testament (which contains the story of Jesus) has been preserved from when it was written in the first century. Although some translations have changed a few words here and there over the past two thousand years (nothing substantive), early versions are still available to ensure the accuracy of the translated versions.
Brown contends there were other "lost" or apocryphal scriptures that should have been included in the Bible. If this is true, this lends weight to the possibility that the new information he writes about could be true. However, the first four books in the New Testament which discuss the life of Jesus were written in the first century by Jesus' disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and were accepted for the next couple hundred years after that by everyone as the only authentic true accounts of Jesus. There were a few books written well after the life of Jesus that were never accepted as historical, mainly because they were not firsthand accounts (although they were cleverly named after acquaintances of Jesus), were not written by Jesus' apostles, and contained numerous historical inaccuracies. Why some random guy making up stories about Jesus in the 21 st century would have any more credibility than them makes no sense.
So if you too would like to become a millionaire, write a book just like The Da Vinci Code! Entitle it something like "The Riddle of Aristotle" or "The St. Augustine Enigma." Be clever, the more mysteriously religious the title, the better. Put cryptic-looking pictures and symbols with religious overtones on the cover. Use only religious names throughout the book, preferably ones associated with the Romans, Greeks, or Jews. Even better if they are names mentioned in the Bible but are not commonly known names like the books of the Bible, because those wouldn't be as believable. The names of lesser-known apostles are obscure enough – Bartholomew, Simon, and Andrew. Holy-sounding female names include Naomi, Evangeline, Ashira, Dara, and Jabez (oops, that last one is male, but most people won't know the difference).
Use lots of pious-sounding proper nouns and other words (consult a Catholic dictionary for a comprehensive list), that most people associate with religion but aren't really sure of their meaning, such as "apocryphal," "ecumenical," "ecclesiastical," "papal," "Babylonia," and "Tertullian." Put your own spin on official-sounding events in church history, such as inventing a bizarre real meaning behind the Council of Trent in the 16 th century, and focus on rulers with Christian names, such as Martin Luther and Roman Emperors Titus and Antoninus Pius. It doesn't matter when they lived or what they actually did, as long as their names sound vaguely like they could have been associated with early Christians it will sound legitimate.
Ask your significant other to suggest a controversial plot, preferably something that will annoy the Catholic church, because once offended, Catholic church outrage will provide you with all the free publicity you need to become a bestseller. When you become a millionaire from book sales, please remember to credit me. In fact, you could credit me in the book – discovering the lost book of Rachel would work perfectly. 
Rachel Alexander is the founder of the wildly popular Intellectual Conservative.