Posted on 02/29/2004 3:33:39 AM PST by JimVT
Christians try to debunk 'Da Vinci Code'
By Mark O'Keefe Newhouse News Service
After reading "The Da Vinci Code," Holly Jespersen wondered if Jesus Christ did in fact wed Mary Magdalene and father her child, as the novel claims.
"It definitely made me question all that I have been brought up to believe," said Jespersen, a Presbyterian who lives in Chicago.
Glen Gracia of Boston, a former practicing Catholic, had a similar reaction, questioning the validity of the Bible if, in fact, it was commissioned and manipulated by the Roman emperor Constantine for political purposes, as the book asserts. "I was basically floored," Gracia said.
Alarmed by reactions like these, defenders of traditional Christianity have launched a counteroffensive against author Dan Brown's fast-paced thriller, which is in its 48th week on The New York Times' fiction best-seller list. It has sold more than 6 million copies, is being translated into more than 40 languages and will be made into a Columbia Pictures film directed by Ron Howard.
Brown has stopped giving interviews. But on the book's first page, he makes an assertion that galls his critics: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."
Books and articles with titles like "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code" and "The Da Vinci Deception" have been or are about to be published. Preachers are giving sermons to church members who ask why they were never told there was a Mrs. Jesus. Web sites and discussion groups are humming over the book's "heresies."
In Seattle, about 500 people turned out Thursday night to hear the Rev. Michael Raschko, a theology professor at Seattle University, "help us separate fantasy from truth" about the book, according to a brochure circulated by parishioners from St. James Cathedral. The discussion was scheduled to be held at St. James but was moved across the street to a larger venue.
On Wednesday night, a similar forum on "the reality behind the fiction" has been scheduled at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue.
Some of the country's most influential clerics are joining in a collective Christian outcry.
In The Catholic New World, the Archdiocese of Chicago's newspaper, Cardinal Francis George calls the book "a work of bizarre religious imaginings" based on "a facade of scholarship" that exploits "gullibility for conspiracy."
When "The Da Vinci Code" was released last March, church leaders paid little attention. Brown was an obscure author, this wasn't the first time a novel had taken shots at Christianity — and it was, after all, fiction.
But as the book became a publishing phenomenon, religious leaders noticed that readers were taking the novel's historical claims as fact. "Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci," a November ABC special that seriously explored Brown's themes, made clear that this was a cultural force to be reckoned with.
Yet where some Christian leaders perceive a threat, others see an opportunity.
The book has sparked interest in early Christian history, with public fascination of topics like the Council of Nicea in 325.
"It's only a threat if people read this fictional book naively, don't think critically about it and don't pursue truth," said the Rev. Mark Roberts, pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church in Irvine, Calif. The plot centers on the search for the "Holy Grail" by a brilliant Harvard symbologist and a French cryptologist, who follow clues in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci.
For example, the feminine-looking person on Christ's right in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is supposedly not the apostle John, as is conventionally assumed, but Magdalene, described in the New Testament as a woman who had seven demons cast out of her, followed Christ and was the first to see him after his resurrection.
As the clues lead them through the museums and cathedrals of Europe, Brown's protagonists discover a centuries-old conspiracy, advanced by a patriarchal Roman Catholic Church bent on covering up the truth about the feminine roots of Christianity and the formative effect of its predecessor, pagan goddess worship.
Opus Dei, a Catholic organization based in New York, is portrayed as particularly sinister, with a corrupt bishop directing a devout albino assassin to do his dirty work.
George and other Catholics have accused Brown of prejudicially tapping into the public's suspicion of the Catholic hierarchy after the church's sex-abuse scandal.
"If someone were to say this is just a cute story, that would be fine," said Brian Finnerty, communications director for Opus Dei. "But to present this book as historical is fundamentally dishonest."
The greatest protest has been over the negative portrayal of central Christian beliefs, including:
• Christ's divinity. Brown writes that Constantine collated the Bible, omitting some 80 gospels emphasizing Christ's human traits in favor of four that made him God. This was supposedly done at the Council of Nicea, "in a relatively close vote."
But the actual vote was 300-2, said Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, and it did not determine Christ's divinity. That was attested to much earlier "by many New Testament passages, as well as by the earliest Christians and all the church fathers, even if there was some disagreement as to the precise nature of that deity," Maier said.
The Council of Nicea "did not debate over whether Jesus was only mortal or divine, but whether he was created or eternal."
• The Bible's inerrancy. Peter Jones, co-author of "Cracking the Da Vinci Code," says that in trying to establish that the Bible was cooked by Constantine and his cronies, Brown overlooks the fact that four-fifths of what is now called the New Testament was deemed divinely inspired in the first century — two centuries before Constantine and the Council of Nicea.
• Christ's celibacy. Even feminist scholars such as Karen King, a Harvard professor and leading authority on early non-biblical texts about Magdalene, have said there is no evidence Christ was married to Magdalene or to anyone else.
George and other traditionalists treat the claim as absurd. "All those martyrs the first 300 years, they were covering up the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene? Why in heaven's name would someone go to their death to protect that secret? It's absurd."
The controversy leaves Jespersen confused. She is "still absolutely convinced that Christ is God," but thought Brown made a compelling argument that Jesus was married. Jespersen plans to attend an upcoming discussion on the book.
Regardless of what she learns, she's glad she read it, calling it a conversation piece that "has encouraged me to question what I have always accepted, just because it is what I was taught."
Seattle Times reporter Janet I. Tu contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
The book The Lovely Bones had a similar effect on gullible people. A woman I know actually said she "didn't know heaven was like that." OMG!! Can you believe it?
I didn't realize that the scriptures were written in 20th century English.
Compare Revelation to the Old Testament> book of Daniel. They're both examples of apocalyptic literature which is highly symbolic. In fact, Revelation is heavy on liturgical imagery, that is, the Mass.
Bingo! I have read the book, and I am astounded at the number of people who think that Leonardo Da Vinci somehow had some special knowledge about the events of the Bible which took place fifteen hundred years before his birth. Most people who think that he did also think that Da Vinci and Jesus Christ were contemporaries!
That being said, I found the book to be amusing entertainment, and I admit that I did enjoy looking at Mr. Da Vinci's artwork again to find the "clues."
Regards,
Just... just... aah!
Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
Prior to Constintine, the Romo-Byzantium empire had an official state religion which we would today call a form of paganism. The head of the religion was a Roman official, the Pontius Maximus, based at Rome. The Vestial Virgins served in the formal practices which also included a large group of priests.
As the empire expanded to the east, the official religion adopted some of the festivals and practices of the assimilated religious groups--the feast of Evergreens on December 25 during the week of renewal that begins on the winter solstice; the feast of Eashtar at the Vernal Equinox celebrating the egg and fertility.
In 325 AD, Constintine became a Christian and adopted Christianity as the state religion--the origin of the Roman Church.
The Council of Nicea was a political exercise--resulting in adoption of a number of the bureaucrats and practices of the pagen religion in exchange for agreement to the Roman Church and supremacy of the Bishop of Rome who also became the Pontinus Maximus, a title the Pope still holds.
On the other hand, whatever negatives were involved with its creation, God prospered the Roman organization in the west as the body of believers. During the period, to enhance its political control, credibility, and political power, the Roman organization concealed documents, created fictions, and did all the things modern political organization do to enhance their power. All in a period long before the printing press during which believers did not have access to their own copy of a Bible to study; most could not read; and most local churches did not have copies of the Bible either.
The truth prospered anyway by the Will of God--Jesus is Lord.
To the modern era in which we can not only study the translated Bible; but also copies or transcriptions of original Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts.
And the historical texts confirm the Bible we venerate. Again, as someone else points out, we find earlier and earlier copies and fragments of manuscripts, all of which, without exception, confirm the text of the words we now use. The Roman Church has a copy of a very early text (40-60 AD) "sayings of Jesus Christ from unknown scribe" which appears to be handwritten quotes from an oral rendition. Some Bible scholars contend the Unknown Scribe is really the writings of Mark but other quotes that do not appear in Mark's gospel (referenced in other gospels or elsewhere) are included.
Whatever, the credibililty of the Bible as we now have it as a collection of writings in general circulation at the end of the first century is soundly attested by evidence that would be accepted in any modern courtroom as proof.
Meanwhile, on another front, the Old Testiment is developing a sounder historical record also. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain copies of every book of the old testiment, particularly including a pristine copy of Issah dating at least 260 years before Christ, and a copy of Daniel including Daniel 9:24-27 and the prophecy that the Messiah would be "cut off but not for himself" 483 years after the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem. A prophecy that until the 1950's, the critics claimed was written after the fact.
You are welcome to believe or view the Bible anyway you like--but for the careful student of the evidence, the only conclusion available is that it is the revealed Word of God demonstrating his Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who was sacrificed for our sins, who rose from the dead, alive, on the third day, and who will come again in power and glory to rule the world.
Was Jesus married? There is no evidence one way or the other. I wonder how, as the perfect man, Jesus could have been perfect and not married. But there is no evidence that he was. God does not tell us. Lots of other things God does not tell us also. But it is very difficult to imagine some important element of God's Plan not revealed to us through the Bible and concealed through documents held in secret for 2000 years. So I consign this book to the nonesense pile.
Thomas is (purportedly) a collection of the sayings of Jesus, and contains no dragons or giant crosses or the like. Plus, given the difficulty of dating early Christian works, as discussed below, the provenance of Thomas is, for the moment, about as good as it is for any of the canonical gospels. One may debate whether it is divinely inspired or not, but the historical and archaeological evidence does not resolve that debate in and of itself.
Finally, if we look at the history of New Testament development, we find that by about 160AD we have a copy of the New Testament that is essentially what we use today....
There is no real support for such precise dating in the archaelogical and historical record, and such a contention is almost purely a matter of opinion, rather than of fact. The written gospels almost certainly predate the second century, but by how much, no one can really say with any certainty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.