The Da Vinci Protocols: Jews should worry about Dan Brown’s success

National Review Online ^ | 5/5/06 | David Klinghoffer

[wagglebee]

With less than three weeks before the May 19 release of the Sony Pictures version of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, worries continue to mount among Christians about both the book’s and the movie’s impact. But should non-Christians be concerned, too?

Absolutely. Jews in particular need to be aware of the gift mega-selling Dan Brown has given, in all innocence, to anti-Semites.

As everyone knows by now, Brown uses a gripping suspense story set in the present to inform us that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that he has descendants living in Europe today. Furthermore, the members of this surviving Jesus family have been protected for centuries by an altruistic secret organization, the Priory of Sion, which is locked in combat with a sinister, violent Catholic group, Opus Dei. That latter seeks to keep the secret of Jesus’ paternity from getting out. Behind Opus Dei stands the Catholic Church. For millennia, the church has perpetrated what the film calls “the biggest cover up in human history.”

Opus Dei, the real-life Catholic lay order, asked Sony to place a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie admitting that the story is fictional—a request the studio has so far refused. Brown himself states at the outset of the novel that his tale is grounded in “fact”: “The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization,” and so on.

Scholars have done a solid job of pointing out the fictions that interweave Brown’s “facts.” Notably, the “Priory of Sion” is “real” only in the sense that it really is the modern invention of Pierre Plantard, a peculiar Frenchman with royalist and anti-Semitic views. It dates to the year 1956, not 1099. Plantard’s hoax merely took the name of a medieval monastic order that had ceased to exist by the 14th century and which had nothing to do with legends about Jesus’ fathering children.

You may wonder if Brown’s readers find his tale convincing, not as fiction but as truth. Seemingly they do. A Barna Group poll found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said The Da Vinci Code aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”

But why should a non-Christian care?

Consider that the alleged conspiracy underlying the “biggest cover up in human history” bears a remarkable resemblance to another phony conspiracy, the famous hoax called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Apparently authored by Russian monarchist and anti-Semite Mathieu Golovinski in 1898, the Protocols tells of a secret society of Jewish elders that work to keep gentiles ignorant of a plot to rule the world through “Darwinism, Marxism, and Nietzscheism.”

In both conspiracy theories, an ancient world religion turns out to be a massive fraud perpetrated to gain or maintain power. In Dan Brown’s version, the “Priory of Sion” (“Sion” simply means “Zion” in French) is the good guys. They’ve been waiting for the right moment to reveal the secret about Jesus having children and to introduce the world to the worship of the “Goddess,” a.k.a. Mary Magdalene.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church plots to suppress forever the truth about the “sacred feminine.” Opus Dei is willing to go to any lengths, including murder, to keep the male church hierarchy in power.

Pierre Plantard (1920-2000), the French monarchist and anti-Semite who gave us the “Priory of Sion,” spent much of his life inventing minuscule esoteric organizations intended to “purify” France of the evil influences of modernity—and of Judaism. In 1940 he wrote of the “terrible Masonic and Jewish conspiracy” that threatened France.

The Priory of Sion was one group he started. The point of this occult order was to advance Plantard’s claim to be the surviving heir of the ancient Merovingian line of French kings, whose “holy blood” was guarded by the Priory. The idea that the Merovingians were the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was added on later.

Besides highlighting the word “Zion” or “Sion,” the two conspiracy theories share an understanding of how to deal with ideas you disagree with. Rather than taking traditional Christian beliefs at face value and arguing with them (as I do in my current book by the way), Dan Brown portrays the religion itself as resting upon a conscious deception. That excuses him from having to make arguments at all.

Anti-Semites do the same thing. Rather than coming out honestly against Darwinism or Marxism or modernity in general, they concoct a story about Judaism as a lie and a conspiracy. The Protocols remains a global phenomenon of staggering popularity, especially in the Arab world.

I emphasize that Dan Brown never intended to foment bigotry. Yet to the cause of conspiracy theorizing, he has done a wonderful favor, training his readers in the habits of paranoia and gullibility. For people committed to finding the truth through investigation and argumentation, that’s depressing.

As for Jews, we haven’t fared well when the culture we live in turns to entertaining fantasies and delusions at the expense of an unfashionable religion. The success of Brown’s book, now transformed into a movie blockbuster, is bad news.

— David Klinghoffer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and the author most recently of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.

[wagglebee]

Consider that the alleged conspiracy underlying the “biggest cover up in human history” bears a remarkable resemblance to another phony conspiracy, the famous hoax called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Apparently authored by Russian monarchist and anti-Semite Mathieu Golovinski in 1898, the Protocols tells of a secret society of Jewish elders that work to keep gentiles ignorant of a plot to rule the world through “Darwinism, Marxism, and Nietzscheism.”

A very interesting insight.

[wagglebee]

Ping.

[Meadow Muffin]

IT'S A NOVEL..................IT'S A NOVEL.....

[spanalot]

Thank Hollywho for another attack on Western Civilization.

[neodad]

biggest cover up in human history

I stopped reading after that. We all know it's WMD's./sarc

[Cicero]

I emphasize that Dan Brown never intended to foment bigotry.

I doubt this very much.

[wagglebee]

No, it's not WMD's, the big cover-up is starting the WOT to make money for Bush's and Cheney's oil pals.

[livius]

A Barna Group poll found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said The Da Vinci Code aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”

Good grief.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

It is a novel novel. Only the guilty dog barks while no man pursueth...or some such. I enjoyed the novel and I am enjoying - hugely - the apologies.

[Alter Kaker]

This Klinghoffer guy isn't a Jew, he's an evangelical Christian who davens. There's nothing wrong with that, but he should be honest with his readership.

[Ben Mugged]

Its a story. A fantasy. Pure fiction. I saw the same intellectual energy wasted on Harry Potter.

[wagglebee]

A Barna Group poll found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said The Da Vinci Code aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”

I'm fairly certain that adherents of "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" would say the same thing.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

introduce the world to the worship of the “Goddess,” a.k.a. Mary Magdalene

The Democrats would never go for this, they already have Hillary.

[DustyMoment]

What a boatload of crapola. We went down this same road prior to the release of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. So far, all the prediction of doom and gloom for Jews have failed to materialize.

[bigcat32]

Did you know that one can be Christian and Jewish?

[lexington minuteman 1775]

And "War of the Worlds " was a fictional radio invasion from Mars. The problem as I see it. Is that the average person in America is so Biblically illiterate and so uninformed of the historical church that fiction and non-fiction will blend together. I am surprised real groups like Opus Dei have not gotten an injuction to either stop the movie of get the "disclaimer."
If that fails, I would try a multi billion dollar defamation of character suit after the movie comes out.

[Radix]

Someone gave me a copy of the Da Vinci Code a couple of Christmases ago.

I read it in a three days or so if I recall correctly.

Total rip off, complete garbage, and absolutely plagiarized in lots of spots.

This is the sort of stuff that makes for best sellers and blockbuster movies nowadays.

It is shameful.

[safisoft]

This Klinghoffer guy isn't a Jew, he's an evangelical Christian who davens. There's nothing wrong with that, but he should be honest with his readership.

No, Kinghoffer is not a Christian. I am not sure where you got that from, but Kinghoffer wrote, "Why the Jews Rejected Christianity."

[wagglebee]

From what I can find, he was raised as a non-practicing Jew who has moved toward orthodox Judaism.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684823411/702-9727943-7399250

[familyop]

The beautification and canonization of Escriva were controversial within the Catholic Church (mostly having to do with the internal issues of Catholicism), and most who criticize Opus Dei are Catholics.

Information like the following comes from the critics of Opus Dei.

http://www.answers.com/topic/opus-dei
Fr. Vladimir Felzmann, a former Opus Dei member who is presently working as a priest in a parish in England, quoted Escriva as saying that Adolf Hitler “couldn’t have been such a bad person. He couldn't have killed six million. It couldn't have been more than four million.” Felzmann quotes Escriva as having said: "Hitler against the Jews, Hitler against the Slavs, this means Hitler against communism."

Opus Dei and Francisco Franco supported each other.

Opus Dei, to be brief, was involved with Augusto Pinochet.

I haven't found anything of current antisemitism from Opus Dei, though, except for British Education Secretary Ruth Kelly's support of neo-Nazism.

The cilice, a spiked chain worn around the thighs of members for the purpose of "corporal mortification" (pain, "self-discipline"), is often mentioned by critics. Here's a photo of a cilice.




The cilice originated in Cilicia in Asia Minor, according to Rev. Michael Giesler, an Opus Dei priest. http://www.crisismagazine.com/julaug2005/giesler.htm

It would be very interesting to see where the research all the way back to Cilicia, in Asia Minor, goes. ...pre-Christian, likely?

Whips, Spiked Garters and Bloodshed...My Terrifying Life in Ruth Kelly's Religious Sect
The Mail on Sunday, UK
http://www.odan.org/media_roche.htm

The secret life of Opus Dei (with more mention of Ruth Kelly)
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1398731,00.html

Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who became a Russian spy, was a member.

Internal complaints from former members
http://www.odan.org/

Opus Dei has about 80,000 members as of the most recently known public mention (see Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook), so other information supporting Opus Dei (and rebutting that above) is very easy to find. See the enormous amount of information injected into our government archives, or see the following for starters.

Opus Dei Web Site
http://www.opusdei.org/