Christian Foes of 'Da Vinci Code' Debate How to Fight It

[Alatar]

I'll never forget the cold chill of dread when I heard Keanu Reeves say that he was petitioning to play Strider in the Lord of the Rings movies.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

*We have to get to a library - fast!*


Always a sound policy in times of doubt.

[WampusCat]

I'll never forget the cold chill of dread when I heard Keanu Reeves say that he was petitioning to play Strider in the Lord of the Rings movies.

[axordil]

I'll never forget the cold chill of dread when I heard Keanu Reeves say that he was petitioning to play Strider in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Little dude, I'm like, Aragorn, and my dad was, like, Arathorn, and if I can help out, like, by being alive and stuff or being, whoa, dead and stuff, I'll, like, do it.

OK, that was a little unfair.

[Primula Baggins]

Only a little.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

In my alternative Hollywood casting for LOTR I had Keanu down for Imrahil.

[Primula Baggins]

"Okay, dude, if you really want to sleep in a tent when there's, like, a palace and everything. . . ."

[Frelga]

"Okay, dude, if you really want to sleep in a tent when there's, like, a palace and everything. . . ."

[eborr]

I suppose the one thing more incomprehensible than Dan Browns book is the number of people who have believed it, of course this is where the Church have been the own worse enemies, they have given credibility to the guff by being agin it so strongly.

And whats this medieval French texts "Les Dossiers Secrets"

is that really the title of a medieval documents - they are usually called something like the "Codex of Arle" Le Dossier Secrets word form is just to modern to ring true

[tinwë]

I watched a program on the National Geographic channel last night called “Is It Real?” that was a little unsettling. The one hour show purported to tell the “truth” behind the Da Vinci Code, but the overwhelming majority treated it as if it was all factual, from the discovery of “treasure” by Bérenger Saunière at Rennes le Château, to the Dossiers Secrets, to the Priory of Sion as a monastic order formed in 1099 to guard the grail secret, to Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus. They even had supposed “experts” and “scholars”, including Richard Leigh of HBHG fame, to attest to the factuality of the claims.

Some of the claims about Da Vinci’s artwork were debunked right off, as were the stories of Mary Magdalene, but it was not until the last five minutes of the show that the Sion hoax was revealed. If a person had only seen the first 45 minutes they might very well come away thinking that all of this stuff was true.

One point of interest - Richard Leigh (who looks like he came straight out of Easy Rider) said that the HBHG did not claim anything as “fact”, only as possibility. He says it was Brown who stated the claims as fact.

Whatever.

I have to say that I really can’t stand these sorts of tv shows that purport to tell the truth by throwing in all sorts of misleading teasers. Throughout this show the narrator keeps saying things like “What if Mary Magdalene really was married to Jesus? Was she the bearer of his child? Could the Priory of Sion really have kept her secret for over one thousand years? Was Pierre Plantard really the Grand Master of the powerful Priory?” Ugghh.

I thought National Geographic was supposed to be respected scientific society. Whatever.

Eborr, the Dosierre Secrets were forgeries deposited in the French National Library by this Pierre Plantard person, and later “discovered” by him and used by him to prove that he was heir to the throne of France. Really!

[Jnyusa]

Les Dossiers are not medieval, eborr. That was the material that Plantard and his gang planted in the Biblioteque Nacional to be 'discovered' by modern 'historians.'

this is where the Church have been the own worse enemies,

Voronwë said something about this earlier that I really agreed with but I didn't pursue it because it was a little sidetrack. The church (religions in general) is/are their own worst enemy in another way as well.

They want people to believe unverifiable stories on faith - just not this unverifiable story. This elevates the HBHG story from utter nonsense to alternative unverifiable truth.

To get people to react with proper emotional outrage they must first raise the status of HBHG to 'heresy' - a status that it could never achieve on its own, imo.

In other words it is the conditions for religion that create the conditions for heresy, and I don't think that one can ... put forth ... a religion, any religion, without simultaneously making people vulnerable to counter-claims. Every religious revolution that we've seen in history has not been a rejection of religion but a substitution of one belief system for another. There will always come someone with a new 'vision,' and some of the people prepared to be believers will believe in that one instead of the previous one.

Those who adhere to the new system will call it 'renewal' or 'reformation' and those who adhere to the old system will call it heresy, but I don't think it is possible to avoid this kind of change taking place pretty routinely over time.

The Mary Magdelene thesis resounds with lots of people right now (even though, as Jewel said, it's been around for a long time) because they have been getting the goddess message from many diverse sources over the past twenty years or so. This started before the priest scandal got underway, but that scandal underscored the inherent danger in a males-only hierarchy.

Imo, the only effective counter-movement the Church could launch right now would be a Marianist revival. That is the only piece of Catholicism that really speaks to the underlying demand. If they choose the other path of discrediting Magdalene, it will be self-defeating. Protestants don't have a Marianist tradition to tap into but, as we've seen from the reports of some posters, they've also been able to change with the times more readily by admitting women directly into the hierarchy.

Jn

[halplm]

Well, I saw it. I would have enjoyed it with all the codes and clues and putting the peices together, except for two things.

One, it was clear at least to the characters (and thus author) that this discovery would make Jesus simply a man, and not divine... and all of the talk about the history of the church was just slightly wrong, and just enough to make the church and christianity look bad.

Two, all of the bits about Opus Dei... while it was made clear through dialogue that this was a "radical" group... it was still PRESENTED like just a simple interpretation by some in the church. Perhaps its just my own perceptions... but it seemed like a lot o fit was commentary on the Church.

In addition to those two issues which bothered me about the film... It was also clear in all conversations that they were hedging their bets. They wanted to present the whole story as a viable conspiracy theory, and "possible history" but at each t urn they said things like "that's absurd" or "that's sillly" or "everyone knows that's not true" leaving open the chance for the author (or director or whatever) to go back and say... "See, the characters were just as skeptical, it's only a story..."

It just seemed devious and deceptive to me... and I really was trying to watch it like any other holy Grail type story...

[Parmamaite]

One, it was clear at least to the characters (and thus author) that this discovery would make Jesus simply a man, and not divine.

That's quite interesting, is that view also in the book? In Holy Blood Holy Grail, the authors conclude that their theories (or rather hoax) doesn't say anything about the divinity of Christ. And for once I agree with Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, I don't see how Jesus' marital status can disprove his allegded divinity.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

One, it was clear at least to the characters (and thus author) that this discovery would make Jesus simply a man, and not divine.

That's quite interesting, is that view also in the book?

I did not get that from either the book or the movie.

[anthriel]

See, VMan, you've written that before, and I really thought that that concept WAS in the book.

Wasn't there a bunch of chatter at some point about how the Church had had a big organizational meeting (Nicea, maybe?) where the "idea" of Christ being divine (vs. just a good guy, OR a prophet) was "sold"?

It seems to my recollection that the promotion of this package deal on who Christ was was ONE of the biggest reasons that the "fact" of his marriage was suppressed so strongly... that if it were known that he was married, he would be more difficult to "sell" as divine.

It really stands out as one of the things that made me pause about the book... but it was so long ago that I read it! Could I really have remembered this so badly? If so, I need to mentally apologize to Dan Brown. That "we're gonna choose to make Christ divine, suppress any truth that might challenge that, and hoodwink the people" sub-story was easily the worst thing about the book to me, and it stuck in my craw, if you know what I mean.

I'd be embarrassed to admit that my craw had been all jammed up all this time by mistake.

[Alatar]

I have to be honest, I didn't get that from the book. Haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't judge that. In the book it seemed similar to what happened with the Immaculate conception. It was a commonly held belief that the church chose to endorse.

[anthriel]

So that conference thing where they decided the divinity of Christ WAS in the book? It's just that the impact on each of us was different?

[Alatar]

I took it more as a decision to officially recognise the fact as one of the tenets of the faith. As I said, much like the Immaculate Conception was only recognised officially by the Catholic Church in 1854.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was officially defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. When Fundamentalists claim that the doctrine was "invented" at this time, they misunderstand both the history of dogmas and what prompts the Church to issue, from time to time, definitive pronouncements regarding faith or morals. They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it.

From: http://www.catholic.com/library/Immacul ... _Assum.asp

[tinwë]

Well, I haven’t seen the movie, but I did read the book again (all of this discussion peaked my interest - it took me all of four days to read it this time, compared to the two months it took me to claw my way through Foucault’s Pendulum. Not sure what that says about me, in fact I don’t really want to know).

The section of the book in question is when the Teabing character is explaining the “conspiracy” to Sophie. He says “Jesus’ establishment as “the Son of God” was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.” He goes on to explain the purpose of this vote much as Anthy described - it was meant to make Jesus devine so that the Church would have absolute authority, and he says the vote was relatively close.

The statement is nowhere close to being true. The Council of Nicaea did vote on the nature of Christ’s divinity - whether he was the same as God or similar to God. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of him being the same as God, with only two votes out of some 300 or so for similar. But the idea that this was first proposed at Nicaea, by Constantine no less, is absurd. The New Testament texts proclaiming Christ’s divinity had already been around for over two hundred years.

edit for spelling

[Voronwë the Faithful]

*SPOILER*





But (at least in the movie; it has been a while since I read the book), Langdon (who would be much more likely to represent the author's views), makes it clear that the idea was not first proposed at Nicea, that it was a widely held belief, but not universally held until the "debate"was resolved at Nicea. And that is (so far as I know; I am certainly no expert) historically accurate.

Remember that Teabing is the real villian in the story, more so then any of the Christians.