Posted on 05/08/2006 5:08:09 PM PDT by 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.
and they're doing it a BIG favor - such a plethora of free publicity.
On the one hand, they're screaming that it's anti-religious and then quote a poll that says: "poll found that 53 percent of the book’s readers said The Da Vinci Code aided their “personal spiritual growth and understanding.”
So which way is it?
I suspect it's the old 'ox gored' thing. Added to the very real, documented facts of the cover-ups, purges, book burnings, re-writings, additions, subtractions, and 100's of thousands slaughtered in the name of 'religion' - and the more recent discoveries unearthed added to the accessibility of research and information to any and all = and there are a lot of long kept secrets and deceptions coming to light. (Some crawling out from under rocks.)
It is making some folk very nervous and they are attacking. What they don't, however, seem to yet fathom is that the old tactics that worked so well for millennia, no longer do.
It's the old putting new wine in old goat skins thingy = the skins are spitting open - the wine is spilling out all over the place.
There's another analogy to all the screaming: "Methinks they doth protest to much." - which means people will, should, look at the finger pointer to see what they don't want looked at...
Probably. I hadn't thought of it that way...
I tend to think that when indulging in conspiracy stories, even if known to be false, one must actually believe a little of it. Otherwise, there would be no compulsion to continue with it. You write about what you are interested in.
Yep. Crapola is accurate. It's a G-d D-mned movie. A fiction. A tale. An entertainment. Not the Gospel. Jesus wept. Small minds can't keep the difference straight.
Especially when calling someone else out as a liar - LOL
That rather deep sixes his stance and claims
The problem is, it is not really being treated as such, and as you will see below, Mr. Brown is trying to have it both ways. This excerpt from James P. Holding:
One the first things a reader of The DaVinci Code will see, in prefatory material and under a heading in bolded, capital letters, reading “FACT”, is this statement:
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.
Mr. Brown tries to say "it's only fiction" while claiming that endless falsities and outright lies are "FACT", so it is hyper-simplistic to say it's just a work of fiction. He's trying to write something akin to a historical novel which will lead the uninformed to think, yes the main characters are fiction but, hey, this guy really knows what he's talking about! Maybe he's onto something! Here's some more from Holding, which says it better than I could:
Don't tell me that it's absurd to waste so much time "attacking" a fictional work. First of all, Brown claims that his book is ROOTED IN FACT, so he has claimed to mix fiction with non-fiction. Beyond that, great works of fiction have been known to cause massive social upheaval; if you doubt that, I have three words for you: Uncle Tom's Cabin.
I'm not the one who has problems seeing this is fiction -- other people do. That's who we're trying to inform. Where's your open mind? Second, Brown himself is quite plain about his intentions to challenge beliefs and compel changes of mind; as Olson and Miesel note in The Da Vinci Hoax [18] he plainly acknowledged positively an interviewer's question, on a June 9, 2003 interview on Today, on whether he wanted to "challenge certain long-held beliefs or truths about religion." Just fiction, my foot: Brown is out to start socio-religious upheaval. Tell that excuse to someone else.
For more details, here's the link: http://www.tektonics.org/davincicrude.htm
Chuckle
The worst novels for Jews have been written by Jews. The neurotic self-haters of Philip Roth, the perverted Satan-worshippers of Isaac Bashevis Singer...
Actually, Opus Dei and Francisco Franco did not "support" each other. The Opus Dei newspaper in Madrid was the only paper Franco ever shut down. Opus Dei was very forward looking, very engaged in planning for the future of Spain (which is why they still run a big business school and university in Northern Spain), and Franco found them threatening.
Pinochet was probably a good thing to happen to Chile, particularly after its brush with Communism under Allende. Why do you think Chile is doing relatively well now? Opus Dei was responsible for much of the education that produced a stable, modern political class.
And the practice of wearing a chain or belt, or using a discipline, is quite ancient in Christianity. It was simply to remind yourself of your sinfulness, and to train yourself not to seek comfort but to unite your sufferings with those of Christ and learn patience and humility.
Hardly something I would consider sinister.
BTW, perhaps you shouldn't get your info about Opus Dei from former Opus Dei members. There's usually a good reason that they're "former," most often that they simply weren't up to the spiritual and intellectual demands of el Opus.
Oops, not that I thought that 'Passion' was stupid. But the lefties sure gave it a LOT of free publicity.
Would they really want their "character" to be in the spotlight?
One might ask them why they did NOTHING for decades about the pedophiles running rampant in the church = they did nothing until it was forced on them and even then, they have done no more than they are forced too = certainly, they still haven't shown an iota of the alarm and ire that they are over this novel.
Gotta make you wonder (altho I don't.) The history is there for people to research nd read. But the church still uses it's age old control of the masses admonition - DON'T READ, DON'T WATCH, LITTLE CHILDREN.
Evidently, evolution is now a Zionist plot... It does go far to explain the vehemence of our opposition.
Prior to this book, very few non-Catholics had ever even HEARD of Opus Dei.
Interestingly, Discovery Channel had a program on last week that completely debunked this Novel. The program did so in no uncertain terms. You are correct... nothing but fictional entertainment, and a cash cow for those involved in its production!
LLS
Don't confuse folks with the facts - it will give them a headache
It's interesting that your post is almost identical to another one.
Why Jews Should Worry About ‘The Da Vinci Code’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1627100/posts
Obviously, National Review changed the title, so the search missed it.
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