You see Darrell Bock everywhere these days. He's on Good Morning America and PrimeTime Live. He's in major newspapers. And everywhere he is, Bock is talking about Jesus. His book Breaking the Da Vinci Code (Nelson, 2004) is a debunking of the popular novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. A New Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, Bock is responding to the new curiosity about Jesus. He says church leaders should capitalize on this odd and unexpected opportunity.

What makes The Da Vinci Code worth talking about?

It's an entertaining novel, but about midway through it gets into various aspects of Christian history and that's where problems come in. Brown makes claims like Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, had children, and they ended up in the south of France. He suggests the church suppressed this knowledge because it would undercut Jesus' divinity; the Council of Nicea was responsible for making official the doctrine of Jesus' divinity by a very close vote. He claims there ...