PETER FLINT has given The Da Vinci Code a well-deserved drubbing in a recent lecture in Seattle. The Seattle Post Intelligencer has a summary. Excerpt:

Flint said Brown's treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls isn't much better. Teabing describes the scrolls as Christian Gospels that were found in 1950 in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. Teabing also says the documents "speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms" and "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications" in the modern Bible.

Aside from the location of the discovery, the rest of the assertions are erroneous, Flint said, because the scrolls are Jewish texts that do not mention Jesus.