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In addition to the object of the female worship being identical in both books, the symbolic expression of that concept through the heroines in Da Vinci Code and Daughter of God is also identical.

It's key to understand this in context: most, if not all names in The Da Vinci Code, have some hidden meaning or symbolism. To a lesser extent, this holds two as well for Daughter of God and The Linz Testament.

See further section, below, for more on this.

Zoe means "life" in Greek. The corresponding Hebrew name (also meaning "life) is Eve. Indeed, Zoe and Eve are common matching names for identical twins. (http://www.babyworld.co.uk/babynamer/twinsnames.asp)

In the Gnostic Gospels (also know as the Nag Hammadi manuscripts) Zoe is the daughter of Sophia and was known as Eve when sent by her mother to give life to Adam.

"After the day of rest Sophia sent her daughter, Zoe being called Eve, as an instructor in order that she might make Adam, who had no soul, arise so that those whom he should engender might become containers of life." Nag Hammadi text, On the Origin of the World, (115:31-35). See also, (http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Hobgood-Oster.html)

Zoe can thus be interpreted as either the daughter of wisdom or the daughter of God.

Sophie Neveu's given name is Sophia, also spelled Sofia. Sophie is the familiar/diminuative form.

Sophia in Greek, means "Wisdom."

According to the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, Sophia had an equal hand in creating the world and is, thus, one form of the Goddess. (http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html)

Thus Sophia not only means "Wisdom" but is also equated by the Gnostics to the Goddess.

Zoe is to Sophia as Sophie is to Mary Magdalene

• Daughter of God's Zoe is, according to the Gnostic Gospels, symbolically the daughter of Sophia who is, literally a Goddess, but not the original. Symbolically, this makes her a granddaughter of the Goddess.
• Da Vinci Code's Sophie is, according to the book, the purest example of the bloodline leading back to the union of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ which makes her a grandaughter of the Goddess.

The material below is presented to show that Dan Brown carefully selected all his character names with regard to their symbolic impact. Further, the clever wordplay in names and other areas show that the connections drawn above are not coincidental.

In addition, Brown's publisher has conducted at least two promotional campaigns centered about having people solve codes and clever hidden meanings in words. Because the symbolism is such a highly promoted part of The Da Vinci Code, it is not a "stretch" to look for symbolic connections. Indeed, scholars have pointed out that many of the "deductions" made regarding the symbols in The Da Vinci Code itself are illogical stretches of their own.

CLEVER WORDPLAY, NAME SYMBOLS AND SIGNIFICANCE IN DV CODE

• Jonas Faukman, Langdon's editor. Faukman is an anagram of Kaufman. Jonas Kaufman is Brown's editor.
• Bezu Fache, top police investigator. Bezu is a name taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Fâche, in French, means "angry." Fache is constantly portrayed as angry. "Fache carried himself like an angry bull." (DVC:21)
• Marie Chauvel, Sophie Neveu's grandmother, is named for an actual historical figure, Marie Chauvel de Chauvigny, a bishop and head of the Église Gnostique Apostolique , the French Church of Gnostic Apostles (http://www.gnostique.net/ecclesia/succession.htm)
• Jacques Sauniere, the murdered Da Vinci Scholar. Actual priest interested in occult and Grail. Taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
• Andre Vernet, head of Swiss Bank. Emeritus French professor at Exeter, one of Brown's teachers.
• Edouard Desrochers, archivist in Paris. Exeter Academy archivist.

It would not be surprising if every name used in The Da Vinci Code had some clever wordplay or hidden meaning.

There is also speculation that Sophie Neveu's last name is a play on words meaning, variously, "New Eve" or "New Wisdom or "Wisdom New Eve."

"Robert Langdon, "bright fame long don" (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, "wisdom New Eve"; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, "zebu anger."; The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, "legal duce." The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman)." http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html

The promotional campaign has held two contests to solve the code. See: http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/davinci/

A good summary of those contests and their wordplay can be found at:

http://www.matt-thornton.net/printpage.php?topic=13

http://www.matt-thornton.net/topics.php?topic=14&subcat=90&prevlink=99

As part of this promotional challenge we have a number of fake web sites including:

www.robertlangdon.com

www.doubleknightbooks.com (a play on doubleDAY, Brown's publisher)

http://www.relic-bay.com

Perhaps the best example of Brown's own "stretch" of logic and rationality is the contention, as evidenced by the following passage from Da Vinci Code, is the contention that Disney is a promoter and evangelist for Goddess/Magdalene worship. It should serve as a prime example why it is difficult to stretch our own conclusions about similarities as far as Brown.

Significantly, this passage was lifted almost intact from Margaret Starbird.

"Throughout his entire life, Disney had been hailed as "the Modern-Day Leonardo da Vinci." Both men were generations ahead of their times, uniquely gifted artists, members of secret societies, and, most notably, avid pranksters. Like Leonardo, Walt Disney loved infusing hidden messages and symbolism in his art. For the trained symbologist, watching an early Disney movie was like being barraged by an avalanche of allusion and metaphor.

"Most of Disney’s hidden messages dealt with religion, pagan myth, and stories of the subjugated goddess. It was no mistake that Disney retold tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White—all of which dealt with the incarceration of the sacred feminine. Nor did one need a background in symbolism to understand that Snow White—a princess who fell from grace after partaking of a poisoned apple—was a clear allusion to the downfall of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Or that Sleeping Beauty’s Princess Aurora—code-named "Rose" and hidden deep in the forest to protect her from the clutches of the evil witch— was the Grail story for children.

Despite its corporate image, Disney still had a savvy, playful element among its employees, and their artists still amused themselves by inserting hidden symbolism in Disney products. Langdon would never forget one of his students bringing in a DVD of The Lion King and pausing the film to reveal a freeze-frame in which the word SEX was clearly visible, spelled out by floating dust particles over Simba’s head. Although Langdon suspected this was more of a cartoonist’s sophomoric prank than any kind of enlightened allusion to pagan human sexuality, he had learned not to underestimate Disney’s grasp of symbolism. The Little Mermaid was a spellbinding tapestry of spiritual symbols so specifically goddess-related that they could not be coincidence.

When Langdon had first seen The Little Mermaid, he had actually gasped aloud when he noticed that the painting in Ariel’s underwater home was none other than seventeenth-century artist Georges de la Tour’s The Penitent Magdalene—a famous homage to the banished Mary Magdalene—fitting decor considering the movie turned out to be a ninety-minute collage of blatant symbolic references to the lost sanctity of Isis, Eve, Pisces the fish goddess, and, repeatedly, Mary Magdalene. The Little Mermaid’s name, Ariel, possessed powerful ties to the sacred feminine and, in the Book of Isaiah, was synonymous with "the Holy City besieged." Of course, the Little Mermaid’s flowing red hair was certainly no coincidence either. (DVC:endCh61)