'As a historian, this stuff makes me bounce up and down with rage. It is either ignorance dressing itself up as authority, or plain lying.'

Steve Tomkins has read the book and seen the film but definitely won’t be buying the Da Vinci Code t-shirt.

In case you’re not familiar with the original book, the New Testament is the story of Jesus teaching, working miracles, dying and rising again. Well, it’s not as if I need to fill you in on the Da Vinci Code, is it?!

You’re statistically almost certain to have read it. And since an estimated 19 squillion people aren’t going to read a book that no one likes, we can assume you enjoyed it too.

I’m afraid that you and I are therefore not going to get on.

I was finally persuaded to read DVC last summer. And I think I got what all the fuss was about. Yes, it was clumsy, vapid and crass, but it had very short chapters and each one ended with a cliffhanger. The world was full of hopeless addicts in denial saying, “I’ll just read one more before I put it down”.

Luckily for me, the fifth chapter doesn’t have a cliffhanger, at which point I ripped the book out of my own hands and threw it across the room - saved!

I know what it’s all about because my wife took it on holiday, and insisted on reading it aloud. (Yes, darling, I was banging my head against the wall in my enthusiasm, wasn’t I?!)

The film is both better and worse. It has all the boundless implausibility of the book, all the genius-characters-written-by-neanderthal-author silliness. (“I’ve got it! What if this meaningless sequence of letters is actually a message, somehow rearranged?” “You mean...” “Yes. An anagram!” “Gasp!”).

And it is far too long, with no short chapters. But then it is liberated from the clunky narration of the book, and it had Audrey Tautou, who’s really very nice (see, we can all be shallow), though her entire role is to say: “I don’t understand. Tell me some more”.

So, they’re both worse than the other, is what I’m trying to say.

When it comes to the religious dimensions of Dan Brown’s story, there are three positions you can take.

1. The Open-minded: “It’s far fetched, but perhaps there’s some truth in what he’s saying.”

2. The Paranoid: “It’s peddling lies, it’s distorting the truth, the Da Vinci Code is evil.”

3. The Hey Relax, It’s Only a Book, Man: “Hey relax, it’s only a book, man”

I have to say, I come down firmly on the paranoid. The Da Vinci Code makes the most laughable, fantastic claims: that Constantine decided which books to include in the New Testament; that he invented the idea of Jesus being God; that the Gospel of Mary has the remotest claim to be authentic; that it has Mary as Jesus’ wife; that the whole ancient world had one pair of symbols for male and female; that Gnostic gospels are interesting.

Not as a Christian, but as a historian, this stuff makes me bounce up and down with rage. It is either ignorance dressing itself up as authority, or plain lying.

Which brings us round to: ‘Hey, Relax, It’s Only a Book, Man’. How can fiction lie? By giving the impression that the fictional story is built around true historical findings, and by categorically stating that in the preface of the book.

Interestingly, I think the film somewhat distances itself from these claims, putting them in Teabing’s mouth and having Langdon arguing against them, at first. Perhaps it makes Brown’s ideas less convincing than in the book.

But the number of people I have heard talking about what they have learned about the history of Christianity from the Da Vinci Code is appalling, and convinces me that it is not “just a story”.

The most frustrating thing is that when someone insinuates a murky 2000-year-old conspiracy, the truth buried in the mire of centuries, then any attempt to explain how the accepted facts are very well established by the evidence will always leave the lingering doubt, “But then you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?