The Da Vinci Code

[THE RED]

Since seeing the thread on "What is a Christian" become so popular, i thought that I would try my luck on this and see what kind of responses it brought in.

The past two Sunday's my pastor has preached on the Da Vinci Code; both the book by Dan Brown and the upcoming movie staring Tom Hanks. The title of the sermon series was The Davinci Code: Fact or Fiction.

The pastor went on to say that the book is of course labeled as fiction, but on the inside, Dan Brown says that everything in the book is accurate. He also said in a telivised interview that if the book were changed to factual, what would be changed in it and he responded with nothing. He talks of the gnostic gospels, which are gospels plus the books of phillip and thomas, which are not included in the Bible. The pastor spoke out against these saying that they claimed absurd things and were simply not true.

All in all, the pastor stated that the Da Vinci Code plants seeds of doubt in many christians hearts about the truths of the Bible. Because the Da Vinci Code claims to be accurate, many people take it and believe it. It makes claims that Jesus was not divine and that he was married to Mary Magdalene.

I have not read the book, so I was wondering if I could get the input of any of you that have, and what you think about what the book says compared to what the Bible teaches.

[TechDawgFan]

I'm reserving my space for response. Read it. Have an opinion. Want to share. Don't have the time.

Chris

[TechDawgFan]

I'll tease with this. Anyone who says, as Brown does in his book, that Jesus' divinity wasn't applied to Him until after the Church deceided to do at at the Nicen Council doesn't hold up as non-fiction. Christ is who HE said He was and Paul and the apostles said it LONG before the Nicene Council!

Chris

[parisdog]

I am a strong Christian, and do not believe the book is true by any means. But it is entertaining reading, just like many other fictional books are.

[parisdog]

I am a strong Christian, and do not believe the book is true by any means. But it is entertaining reading, just like many other fictional books are.

[TechDawgMc]

I did a long post and then had a "database" problem. That's annoying.

Basically, the book's basic claim is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had kids, their blood line is the "Holy Grail" The Roman Church deleted that from history because it would have kept them from repressing women.

The "facts" are total hocum, and regardless of Brown's claims, he's just not dumb enough to think otherwise. He's selling books.

He's wrong on history; he's wrong on church history; he's wrong on art criticism; he's wrong on architecture and the description of places that still exist. In short, he made it all up. No scholar would take the material seriously enough to refute it. I heard a feminist art critic talk about the art descriptions -- she said, "I really wish it were true, but it's nonsense"

The book is a page turner. It's a cheap knock-off of Grisham. The movie will probably be a fun, "check your brain at the door" summer flick. Enjoy it for that. It's got no historical basis at all.

[TechDawgMc]

I did a long post and then had a "database" problem. That's annoying.

Basically, the book's basic claim is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had kids, their blood line is the "Holy Grail" The Roman Church deleted that from history because it would have kept them from repressing women.

The "facts" are total hocum, and regardless of Brown's claims, he's just not dumb enough to think otherwise. He's selling books.

He's wrong on history; he's wrong on church history; he's wrong on art criticism; he's wrong on architecture and the description of places that still exist. In short, he made it all up. No scholar would take the material seriously enough to refute it. I heard a feminist art critic talk about the art descriptions -- she said, "I really wish it were true, but it's nonsense"

The book is a page turner. It's a cheap knock-off of Grisham. The movie will probably be a fun, "check your brain at the door" summer flick. Enjoy it for that. It's got no historical basis at all.

[steltz]

NO
historical basis? comeon now. It is "based" upon history although there is alot of fabrication inbetween the history.

I did a long post and then had a "database" problem. That's annoying.

Basically, the book's basic claim is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had kids, their blood line is the "Holy Grail" The Roman Church deleted that from history because it would have kept them from repressing women.

The "facts" are total hocum, and regardless of Brown's claims, he's just not dumb enough to think otherwise. He's selling books.

He's wrong on history; he's wrong on church history; he's wrong on art criticism; he's wrong on architecture and the description of places that still exist. In short, he made it all up. No scholar would take the material seriously enough to refute it. I heard a feminist art critic talk about the art descriptions -- she said, "I really wish it were true, but it's nonsense"

The book is a page turner. It's a cheap knock-off of Grisham. The movie will probably be a fun, "check your brain at the door" summer flick. Enjoy it for that. It's got no historical basis at all.

[sik-m-boi]

steltz-

it mixes widely unaccepted history with an intriguing storyline and writen at a 7th grade level.

i read the book, i enjoyed it...it looks like a good movie...but his history is garbage. in the printing i read he even had dates incorrect (i heard this has been fixed in later printings).

he based the majority of his finding off of a book called "holy blood, holy grail" whose authors will not even claim to be true. they say they were simply putting forward a possible historical scenario...a hypothesis.

the thing that truly bothers me is the outright lies in the book (historical ones...not biblical ones): he says that it would have been outrageous for a jewish man (a rabbi no less) to be wifeless...FALSE!--john the baptist- no wife mentioned; paul- no wife. on top of that he claims that having a wife would in some way challenge Jesus divinity...HOW?--jews were allowed holy marriage, even if Jesus was married there is no reason this would challenge His divinity. AND on top of all that, the texts he references DO NOT SAY he and mary were married...if it were true (which i would like to reitterate i would have no problem with) i feel certain it would have slipped into one of these texts...there are a ton of them...i have a book called "the other bible" (nice title, huh?) with 7 different sets of texts contained in it and nowhere does it say what brown claims.

the book is a page turner. it's an interesting read. it's impressive that he was able to weave art history and a murder mystery. but it is not history and it loosely, loosely based on an extremely speculative "history."

[steltz]

All truths that are found begin with a hypothesis.

I'm not saying it is a perfectly written book or a senario. I am just saying don't desmiss the book as a bunch of lies and slander against the church. Take the book for what it is.

[sik-m-boi]

All truths that are found begin with a hypothesis.

I'm not saying it is a perfectly written book or a senario. I am just saying don't desmiss the book as a bunch of lies and slander against the church. Take the book for what it is.

i didn't dismiss it as a "bunch of lies and slander against the church" i said (paraphrased) "it's a bunch of inaccuracies and a slander against history." like i said earier...it CAN'T be a slanderf pn the church because even if it were all true (which is doubtful at best) it wouldn't change anything regarding Christ's divinity and that is the crux upon which his conspiracy lies.

[TechDawgMc]

NO
historical basis? comeon now. It is "based" upon history although there is alot of fabrication inbetween the history.

Well, there was a person named Jesus, one named Mary Magdalene, one named DaVinci. Beyond that, he's pretty well making it up.

Actually, "historically" speaking even that is pushing it. One of my favorite lines is when he has his "historian" say something like "it is a proven historical fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene" I laughed out loud. It's really not a proven historical fact that Jesus existed, much less that something like that was true -- as Sik-m-boi noted, even the 3rd century gnostic texts he quotes don't actually say what he says they say.

[TechDawgFan]

I sometimes miss the old days of BB&B when I could think about a post overnight before posting and still had something to contribute. Now, if you don't jump right in, the topic is totally discussed and there is nothing new to add!

Brown doesn't say anything that other people haven't said before.

The fact is that it doesn't really matter what Brown says or what anyone else thinks about the book. I've personally experienced the divinity of Jesus in my own life and Brown's words on printed paper can't change that!

Chris

[JAAgan]

From my perspective, the only Christian group that has any problem with this novel is the "historic" Catholic Church. If you weren't aware of the political nature of the Church in the years before the Reformation, you might be shocked when you trace down some of the germs of truth present in the mass of material Brown presents (although even those facts are so overwhelmed by literary license and hokum that you might not notice they are accurate.)

But as y'all have said and as I told the Sunday School class I taught Sunday, if everything Brown alleged WERE true, it would make no difference in what most of us believe as Christians, in the objective case, and as y'all have said in the case of our faith it really makes no difference because that's an experiential relationship.

[Dawgbitten]

There was a very wide disagreement of the divinity of Jesus in the days of the Nicen Council. Many of those that disagreed later became Muslim due to the pursuit of Christians trying to run them down and burn them at the stake for heresy.

The early Roman church was far from good guys doing the Godly thing for the better part of 1500 years. I attribute much of our loss of early history to them. I guess we are fortunate enough that some had the forethought to hide some of the other works of the first and second century so we could find them at a later time. It has also been claimed that Christians destroyed the Library at Alexandria as well. All in the name of erasing everything but Christianity.

I am guessing that by the end of the week the Vatican will start threatening ex-communication if any Catholic goes to see the movie.