Da vinci code claims

Saruman

I have a question. Has anyone here who is a christian read this book? If so what do you think of the claims made?
This is not the first time these claims have been made, its just that its such a popular book that they are more mainstream than before.

By the way you cant refute what it claims without actually researching history. And i dont mean the bible as a source of history since this is precisely what the claims made in the book refute.

voxpop

There was a show on Channel 4 last week hosted by Tony Robinson which basically said most of the stuff in the Da Vinci Code was untrue.

D

didn't the author himself say that it was only a novel and that he embelished heavily?

Beruthiel

which claims do you refer to saruman?
there were so many in that particular book

hallelujajordan

I've read the book and watched Tony Robinsons documentary and my conclusions are that whether or not its true (and the only evidence that Robinson didn't tear apart completely was the last supper painting) there is little or no evidence to back up the claims. . . For example, the Priory of Sion, which is declared at the beginning of the DaVinci code as being an historical society with past members such as DaVinci and Newton, is actually revealed as being totally bogus and documents supporting claims about the Priory of Sion were revealed as being forgeries...

Bard

Enlighten yourself. Read this (Channel 4's 'Real DaVinci Code' home page) and this (Salon.com's 'The DaVinci Crock' article) and while you're at it take a look at WikiPedia's page on the DaVinci Code here.

Talliesin

Saruman wrote:

I have a question. Has anyone here who is a christian read this book? If so what do you think of the claims made?

On a similar note, the web comic "Clan of the Cats" makes references to early Christian history too. Obviously the burden of proof is on the Christians here to prove that the world isn't teeming with werewolves and people who turn into cats.

JustHalf

Talliesin wrote:

On a similar note, the web comic "Clan of the Cats" makes references to early Christian history too. Obviously the burden of proof is on the Christians here to prove that the world isn't teeming with werewolves and people who turn into cats.

Zing!

SkepticOne

I haven't read the book but I saw the documentary mentioned above. Robinson said that one of the core ideas in the book was that the Holy Grail was not a physical object but referred to the bloodline descending from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion was an organisation set up to preserve this knowledge. These ideas come from an earlier book by a different author, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", which were incorporated into the Da Vinci code.

The documentary apparently exposed the Priory of Sion as a hoax and identified the hoaxers. A lot of the support for the Grail as bloodline idea in the earlier book depended on the existence of this organisation.

I think it is important to read thrillers purely as entertainment. The writer of fiction is free to mix fact and fiction in anyway he chooses. If a sufficient amount of material is factual, there is a tendency to assume that purely made up detail is also researched fact.

Saruman

I wa talking about some of the more historical facts, historical i say because im sure there is some way to prove it one way or the other... Such as for instance Jesus only became the "son of God" after a vote by the vatican to make him such.

Oh and by prove i mean of course without the bible as a reference since it cant be used for obvious reasons without being biased.

SkepticOne

The Priory of Sion could have been shown to be true if decent documents were found referring to it from a variety of sources. But it was shown to be false. The claim that Jesus has descendents is a historical claim too.

But none of these should be regarded as claims in the normal sense since the entire book is a work of fiction and the author is not under any obligation to be historically accurate.

epgriffin

That documentary also spent a lot of time looking for a holy grail made of gold and jewels. He dismissed the claim in england that the guy had the chalice (the one that looked like an egg cup) because it didn't look the part. I'm fairly sure a carpenter back then wouldn't have been drinking from anything more than an egg cup and Tony Robinson should have realised that!
What I'm trying to say is that the book pleases it's target audience as did the documentary and neither of them should be taken as factual or anything other than the author/commentators personal opinions, beliefs, fantasies....... If you enjoyed their stories then they did what they set out to do.

SkepticOne

epgriffin wrote:

What I'm trying to say is that the book pleases it's target audience as did the documentary and neither of them should be taken as factual or anything other than the author/commentators personal opinions, beliefs, fantasies....... If you enjoyed their stories then they did what they set out to do.

I think there's a major difference in intent between the two, though. The documentary can be criticised if it makes claims that can later be shown to be false. A work of fiction can't in the same way. What is put into a work of fiction doesn't even need to be the personal opinion of the author either. He can simply invent things to suit the story.

Talliesin

Saruman wrote:

I wa talking about some of the more historical facts, historical i say because im sure there is some way to prove it one way or the other.

Well some of the material was picked precisely because it can't be proven one way or the other.

But I'll take one point because it's a mixture of truth, untruth, myth and invention, and hence goes across the board of the material he used, and also because it's a matter that I'm quite familiar with (ironically because I'm a Witch and not a Christian, but still I get to play too don't I? ).

Now Brown at one point states that 5 million women were burned by the Church as witches.

Examining that statement we have the following allegations as part of it:

1. The accused were women (or at least primarily so).
2. The prosecutors and/or judges were agents of the Church.
3. Those convicted were burned.
4. The number burned was 5 million.

Now if we first look at the current understanding of the historical evidence we find a different picture:

1. The gender balance of the accused varies significantly from area to area and time to time. While there were many crazes which primarily targetted women (with women being 90% or more of those convicted) others were more balanced or, in the case of a craze in Iceland quite the opposite.
2. The early Christian church disputed the existence of Witchcraft and the efficacy of magic. As such you could actually be called before the Ecclestiastic Courts for heresy if you accused someone of Witchcraft. The Church implored secular leaders to repeal anti-Witchcraft laws or to lessen the severity of the punishment. When in the 14th Century this policy changed the Church was still often a force that calmed rather than incited the crazes, most notably in Spain where the Holy Inquisition (while at its most vicious in its treatment of Protestants, Jewish converts to Catholicism suspected of reverting to Judaism and later to Jews) claimed dealing with Witches fell under its jurisdiction and simultaneously refused to do so.
3. Punishments for Witchcraft varied considerably during the period in question. For the early part of the period in which the alleged behaviour was said to have occurred one could have gotten sentenced to a fine or a public penance. Executions for Witchcraft were generally by hanging in many periods and areas (notably in England and Wales witches were only burnt if accused of acting against their husbands, since that was petty treason, or of treason - of the four people executed in Ireland only one was burnt, again because she was also accused of treason).
4. The number killed in total (whether convicted by ecclestiastic or secular courts, and whether hung, burnt or executed by other means) probably numbers in the range of 40,000 to 60,000 with 100,000 being about the highest number that historians will concede as at all possible.

So, where does this disparity come from? Well at one point the generally accepted history was pretty much what Brown claims, the primary difference being that the number was normally put at 9 million rather than 5 million. Scholarship in a variety of fields (history, women's studies, psychology, political science, anthropology) built upon that accepted version of events and then a mixture of fictional and popular-audience non-fictional accounts lead to it becoming part of the popular imagination of life in the period. In the latter two cases the accepted history got mixed in with other sources in a rather muddled manner (e.g. I've come across the phrase "Kill them all, God will know His own" in accounts of the crazes, when actually that phrase came from the persecution of the Cathar heresy).

Later historical research found that the basis for this understanding of the history was a few exceptional cases, and a handful of rather dubious accounts from which the picture of 9million people, mainly women, was extrapolated. As more evidence of actual trials come to light the number of people believed to have been executed actually decreases, because less sensational data forms the mainstay of this extrapolation.

As I said the main difference between this, now disputed view, is that Brown gives a figure of 5 million rather than 9 million. I would suggest that Brown was deliberately giving a number lower than the number of Jews tha died in the Shoah as claiming that a worse massacre happened, when we know that it didn't, would be in rather poor taste.

So there we have a mixture of a story once thought to be true and an invention of the author of the book. That is a pretty standard story-telling technique.

Saruman wrote:

Such as for instance Jesus only became the "son of God" after a vote by the vatican to make him such.

I would say the burden or proof is on you. While there have been many debates on the nature of Jesus' divinity in the history of Christianity, and while the 4th Century saw this debated with particular force there is little evidence to suggest that any significant Christian group denied his divinity at the time.

Saruman wrote:

Oh and by prove i mean of course without the bible as a reference since it cant be used for obvious reasons without being biased.

That makes it a primary source. It is perfectly sensible to cite it (in particular Acts and Romans and the letters of Saint Paul) as evidence as it is documentation of the views of a particular group of people at the time (i.e. from the 1st century until the 4th century when the official canon was decided upon). It is biased evidence but is evidence none the less.

The Da Vinci Code on the other hand isn't even a biased source, it's an airport novel.

SkepticOne

I think people have been thrown by the fact that there's a page at the start of the book that lists 'facts' used in the book. It is important to remember that the book itself is a work of fiction and just because there is a page in the book stating 'facts' does not make them so. The existence of the page doesn't even imply that the author intends them to be believed as facts.

Thriller writers do indeed research material for their novels. Some of them go to great lengths to get things right. But the purpose of this research is to make the novel more compelling. You would not be able to suspend disbelief if the author had a character visiting the Louvre in London when you knew it was in Paris. And, even when you don't know in advance the details, the researched detail makes the writing seem more authentic.

I'm frankly amazed that people draw what they believe to be important conclusions from fiction. The suspension of disbelief is only supposed to be temporary for the purposes of entertainment. If you are going to draw conclusions, then you need to verify everything because you don't know what is researched material and what is part of the fictional story.

SkepticOne

epgriffin wrote:

That documentary also spent a lot of time looking for a holy grail made of gold and jewels.

What was supposed to be the grail itself was the dark cup in the middle. The ornamentation was, IIRC, Arabic and added later. I don't think it was suggested that the entire object was the grail.

The supposed grail itself (the dark object) was rejected, not because of the jewels added later (it is a common practice to embelish relics with ornamental casings), but because it dated from the third century.

epgriffin wrote:

He dismissed the claim in england that the guy had the chalice (the one that looked like an egg cup) because it didn't look the part. I'm fairly sure a carpenter back then wouldn't have been drinking from anything more than an egg cup and Tony Robinson should have realised that!

Why do you think that? I think the object was identified as a Roman vessel for holding oils or scents. It is possible that poor people used these for drinking out of, but it seems impractical. I'm not an archeologist, but I would have thought a larger wooden or pottery cup or bowl would have been more likely.

Although, Robinson did have opinions on things, these opinions were at least based on the work of archeologists and historians who were identified in the programme and who stand to lose if proved wrong.

Danno2000

Why would there be "codes" in the Bible?

For what?

Prophecy reveals enough, without the need for codes!

The same codes can be found in Moby Dick anyways! LOL!

mmcgaley

Saruman wrote:

I wa talking about some of the more historical facts, historical i say because im sure there is some way to prove it one way or the other... Such as for instance Jesus only became the "son of God" after a vote by the vatican to make him such.

Oh and by prove i mean of course without the bible as a reference since it cant be used for obvious reasons without being biased.

Actually, the epistle Titus (traditionally attributed to Paul) verse 2:13 says "our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ". The most conservative estimates I've come across have that letter written no later than the year 125. So not only did the earliest Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but they also believed that he was God. Don't believe everything that the Jesus seminar tells you

Godkickingboots

Actually...

Timothy 1 2:5 - " For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ"

Timothy is also traditionally attributed to Paul. Not sure when he's meant to have written it. In 125 AD Paul was writing letters to Titus? Wouldn't Paul have been over 100 years old? Nevermind, that's not important.

Which version of the Bible are you quoting Titus 2:13 from? I haven't seen that verse phrased in those words before.

You have no idea what all the earliest Christians believed. No-one does. Nor do you know they were all in agreement with each other. Paul's warnings about other Jesus' and other gospels shows that they very probably weren't. Paul was a gnostic. So far as I understand from what I've studied, he believed Christ to be the Logos of Jewish mythology, either a personification, or mediator, of a covenant with god or an archetypal perfect man, not God in a human form. It's a little unclear to me, but I can't find anything in the writings of Paul to suggest he believed in the Jesus of Nazareth the synoptic gospels describe. But I would be ecstatic if you had a reference or a purer translation of Paul's writings to blast apart my theories.

As for the spurious claims made by The Da Vinci Code, Tony Robinson (though I can never see him as anyone but Baldrick) made short work of those. Like as said, almost everything is a load of rot and hoax. Very lucrative rot and hoax.

While I'm here I might as well plug the Jesus Seminar as well. It's a really interesting study, though there are fanatics on both sides of the fence.
Just keep an open mind, educate yourself before you open your mouth, and don't believe everything mmcgaley tells you.

pooka

Godkickingboots wrote:

Which version of the Bible are you quoting Titus 2:13 from? I haven't seen that verse phrased in those words before.

There's a link - New International Version on www.biblegateway.com. Compares with most other English versions there. A brief look at the Greek leads me to the conclusion that it's fine. There are of course other translations, some of which can be seen by viewing the verse in the Contemporary English Version, also at www.biblegateway.com.

You have no idea what all the earliest Christians believed. No-one does.

Well, I think that's going a little far - we have some idea of what most of the early Christians believed. This from the gospels, which I'm sure you won't dispute are very early documents which came to be normative in the early church, and from the early Fathers such as e.g. Irenaeus, who claimed to have been instructed in the faith by Polycarp, who knew the apostles.

Paul was a gnostic. So far as I understand from what I've studied, he believed Christ to be the Logos of Jewish mythology, either a personification, or mediator, of a covenant with god or an archetypal perfect man, not God in a human form. It's a little unclear to me, but I can't find anything in the writings of Paul to suggest he believed in the Jesus of Nazareth the synoptic gospels describe. But I would be ecstatic if you had a reference or a purer translation of Paul's writings to blast apart my theories.

This is all an interesting, if radical, reading. Do you have some references that I can follow regarding this?

While I'm here I might as well plug the Jesus Seminar as well. It's a really interesting study, though there are fanatics on both sides of the fence.

Yes, the Jesus Seminar stuff is worth reading, and reading critically.

Just keep an open mind, educate yourself before you open your mouth, and don't believe everything mmcgaley tells you.

I'm all for having an open mind and being educated, but let's try and be civil as well - this being a board for discussion of belief, it's easy for things to get heated, so please (everyone) moderate your tone. Thanks,

Cian

mmcgaley

Godkickingboots wrote:

Actually...

Timothy 1 2:5 - " For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ"

This is orthodox Christian doctrine, as is the doctrine that Jesus is God.

Godkickingboots wrote:

Timothy is also traditionally attributed to Paul. Not sure when he's meant to have written it. In 125 AD Paul was writing letters to Titus? Wouldn't Paul have been over 100 years old? Nevermind, that's not important.

That's the reason I said "(traditionally attributed to Paul)". Modern scholarship shows that it is unlikely that the author was Paul.

Godkickingboots wrote:

Which version of the Bible are you quoting Titus 2:13 from? I haven't seen that verse phrased in those words before.

As the link I posted shows, I was quoting from the New International Version.

Godkickingboots wrote:

You have no idea what all the earliest Christians believed. No-one does. Nor do you know they were all in agreement with each other. Paul's warnings about other Jesus' and other gospels shows that they very probably weren't.

Actually, I have really a very good idea what the earliest Christians believed. I can tell from the writings they left behind, and their behaviour as recorded in contemporary Christian and non-Christian writing. This is pretty much how we know anything about anything we haven't actually personally witnessed.

Certainly there were disagreements between Christians, the new testament outlines some of those disagreements, but I am in agreement with those Christians who formed the new testament and the creeds. That is, orthodox Christians (note the lower-case 'o').

Godkickingboots wrote:

Paul was a gnostic. So far as I understand from what I've studied, he believed Christ to be the Logos of Jewish mythology, either a personification, or mediator, of a covenant with god or an archetypal perfect man, not God in a human form.

What on earth are you basing that on? The first of Paul's epistles (in NT, not chronological, order) starts with:

Romans 1

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God– 2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit[a] of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

I'm amazed that you can read the writings of Paul and believe that he did not think Jesus was a real live human being, or that he thought Jesus was anything less than God.

Check out Philipians 2:6-9 (in three different translations).
The NIV puts it:

6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death–
even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,


a. Philippians 2:6 Or in the form of
b. Philippians 2:7 Or the form

Godkickingboots wrote:

While I'm here I might as well plug the Jesus Seminar as well. It's a really interesting study, though there are fanatics on both sides of the fence.
Just keep an open mind, educate yourself before you open your mouth, and don't believe everything mmcgaley tells you.

The Jesus Seminar certainly is an interesting phenomenon, but in my opinion voting is not the ideal way to do theology.

[edited for formatting]

Godkickingboots

Thanks for the info on the NIV pooka. The versions I checked had the verse referencing God and Jesus seperatly. And good work on checking the Greek, would that I had the wherewithall and means to do it I could sort out a lot of this kind of thing myself.
I agree the gospels are really, really early texts as Christian texts go, but there's still a lot of blank decades and facts and historical(or not) figures we don't know much of anything about. And yes, the Jesus Seminar should be read as critically as anything else you ever read, no more or less. Even if they're 99% wrong, there's a lot of interesting stuff they dig up along the way.
As for Paul's idea of what and who Jesus was, I read a book called, simply, "Jesus", which gave the most thorough explaination to the Logos I've come across. I can't, frustratingly enough, remember the author, though the book is in Ballyroan Library if it's any convienience to anyone. An excellent book, and comfortingly unbiased. Apart from that, I've seen brief explainations in various religious dictionaries and encyclopedias, and I know there's plenty of info on-line if you want to wade through the crap. Can't be more help other than to egg you on and say it's worth looking at. That word again is "Logos".
Apologies if the mmcgaley comment came across as overtly hostile. The folks at the Seminar aren't present to defend themselves.

And now, back to the Da Vinci Code! And all it's wonderful silliness. Sorry for the thread-jacking.


Wow, sorry mmcgaley, didn't see your post on the second page there, wasn't ignoring you or anything. Indeed, I was as incredulous as you when I first read about Paul's purported ideas, and may well be I'll dismiss what I "know" in favour of more conventional, church-approved theories in due time and study, but I'm fair convinced at the moment. Nice response and good luck with your research.

pooka

Godkickingboots wrote:

And good work on checking the Greek, would that I had the wherewithall and means to do it I could sort out a lot of this kind of thing myself.

Ancient Greek is great fun, I'd recommend taking it up. The Royal Irish Academy run a 2-week intensive course in Attic Greek - the Greek of Plato, Aristophanes, Thucydides, etc. - every summer. I did it a few years ago and it got me hooked. I'm now studying Greek with the Open University, which I can't commend highly enough. The books of the New Testament are actually written in Koine or 'common' Greek, but it's relatively easy to move from Attic to Koine Greek.

That word again is "Logos".

Yes, I'm familiar with the word (ho ho). It is Greek, meaning among other things 'word', 'message', 'saying', 'talk', and 'teaching'. It is used in the early verses of St. John's Gospel to refer to Jesus, and if I recall correctly Paul seems to have had access to John's gospel.

Indeed, I was as incredulous as you when I first read about Paul's purported ideas, and may well be I'll dismiss what I "know" in favour of more conventional, church-approved theories in due time and study, but I'm fair convinced at the moment.

A book I can recommend from 'the other side of the fence' to the Jesus Seminar is 'Hidden Gospels' by Philip Jenkins. There's a review of it with ISBN etc. at

Hidden Gospels: How the search for Jesus lost it's way.

Enjoy,

Cian