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The DaVinci Code: What We Know and DON'T Know About Religion
(This essay was originally posted here on May 19th)
Today, the DaVinci Code madness starts all over again.
Actually, the madness has been building for several months now, ahead of the release of the DaVinci Code movie today. (In theaters around the planet, to read the press release)
As many of you know, I have the theological training (seminary degree) and literary training (journalism degree) to be more than a little dangerous. And since this is a book/movie/cultural phenomenon that is both literary and theological event, you might expect me to have a few thoughts.
:)
This is an interesting book precisely because it blends mystery, suspense, theology, sex, history, into a potent and captivating brew. But I hear many people asking questions that we don't often ask about works of fiction. Folks are asking: "Is it true?"
(click "Read More" below...)
That's an interesting question, to my mind, because, as I said, we don't usually ask it about works of fiction. When Tom Wolfe writes about college students in modern America, we don't say, "Hmnn...is THIS character actually a real person? Did what they do in the book actually happen?"
Usually, Wolfe's writing is close enough to real-life people that we can accept the general idea that such things ARE possible, without having to debate whether or not they are literally true.
But, for some reason, we treat the DaVinci Code differently. We ask ourselves:
"IS it true?"
"What if it IS true?"
"How can I know whether or not it is true?"
First off, let me say that, as a work of fiction, I personally loved the book. Dan Brown knows how to write a good thriller. He knows how to keep the attention of his readers. I found myself --as the cliche goes-- unable to put it down. It's a good book.
But let me say early in this essay that, as a work of a theology, as a primer on Christian history, as a source of any kind of "factual data," the book is horrible. Just lousy. It really is.
To some people (Christian people, mostly), that makes the book evil, or misguided, or points to some kind of anti-Christian "agenda." I don't really get that, but I see how other folks might. It's just a work of fiction that glosses the historical record, and flat out makes up other stuff.
But there is a deeper point I want to make in this essay. The deeper point is not that the book is pro-Christian or anti-Christian.
The deeper point is this: Most of us don't know enough about Christianity to be able to judge one way or the other!!!
To me, this is the sad part. Most folks in our society don't know enough about one of the great religions of our world to know whether or not this book is "telling the truth." They've got hunches. Perhaps they've got guesses. Perhaps they've even got what they hope is the answer to this question. But they don't really KNOW.
They don't know enough to know whether they know or not!!
So, to the dear reader of this blog, I hope you will take this as a challenge to your own life. I hope you will ask yourself: Do YOU know enough about Christianity to know whether or not this book is telling the truth? Do YOU know enough about Christian history? Theology? World history?
You don't have to go to seminary to get this kind of education. All you have to do is to choose to make religion something you study-up on. You have to decide that --whether or not religious faith is important to you as an individual-- it's still important enough to the culture that you ought to know something about it.
I first heard this argument when I was in college at UT, and taking American History. My professor --whose name escapes me at the moment-- decided that he would teach American history from the perspective of America's religious history. His thesis was that unless you fully understood what was happening in the religious community at any given point in the past, you could not fully understand what was happening in American history. I think he's absolutely right.
How can we understand the Abolitionist Movement, without understanding the impact of the faith community?
How can we understand child labor laws, the temperance movement, union organizing, women's right to vote, without understanding what religion was saying at the time?
How can we understand what Martin Luther King believed, without remembering that he was a preacher first and foremost?
How can we understand the question of gay marriage, without understanding what various religious faiths are saying about gay people today?
So, if you have questions about this book, ask yourself this question: Do you know enough to know what you know? And if you don't, what are you going to do about it? Is there some reading you can do? Are there some sources you can consult?
Because, unless you do your own thinking, you're left to take my word for it. (Or, the word of some other so-called expert...)
And you CAN do that. But isn't that a little dangerous? Isn't it dangerous to leave your theological-thinking to the so-called experts? Ironically, isn't one of the allegations of the book that somebody somewhere has a secret knowledge that you DON'T have? Isn't the point of the protagonist's quest that the search for the truth is important?
I hope you'll consider the question: Do I know enough to know what I know?
And if you don't, I hope you'll get yourself educated!
And, if you're still interested in knowing what I know, I'd be happy to tell you now.
(If not, you can stop reading now, and go off and enjoy your day...)
---------------------------------
The DaVinci Code mixes real, factual and historical people, places, and things; with fanciful and hypothetical allegations that can never (at least not now) be proven or disproven.
There is a good "FAQ" about the DaVinci Code in the Dallas Morning News, and you might just start here.
Here is another story, written by Morning News religious writer, Jeffery Weiss, that talks about the DaVinci Code backlash. You can read it here.
In one section of this second story, Weiss says this:
The book's plot revolves around a centuries-old conspiracy to hide the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene – and their descendants. The conspirators included Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci, who cleverly hid clues to the secret in his paintings. (Hence the title.)
The very first sentence in the book implies this is more than a mere tale. "Fact: The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization." This arcane society, according to Mr. Brown's telling, has been the keeper of the secret about Jesus and Magdalene.
(snip)
The book reeks of truthiness and smartiness – the appearance of being truthful and smart without necessarily being either. The protagonist is a Harvard professor (in a department that doesn't exist). The fast-moving plot is propelled by a series of clever puzzles based on famous works of art.
So, what about the "facts" in the book? Lot's of folks are talking about them. (In another place, Weiss points out that over 44 authors have written books, debunking the DaVinci Code!!!)
Among the "facts" that are clearly not factual is the story of the "Priory of Sion," which is referred to repeatedly as an actual, historical group that counted Isaac Newton and Leonardo DaVinci as members. In truth, the "Priory" was likely invented by a Frenchmen as a hoax in the 1950s. Yes, there are documents in French libraries that point to its origins. But that same French guy from the 1950s put them there.
We can thank good-old 60 Minutes for uncovering this story for us all, and you can read their report here.
That's really the heart of the whole book right there. And once you accept that the "Priory" is a made-up, fictional organization (and I hope you will) it becomes much easier to accept the rest of the book as fun fiction (which I hope you will).
But, here is other truthiness from the book:
-- The glass pyramid at the Louvre has 673 glass panes, not 666.
-- The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jews and say nothing about Jesus.
-- They were discovered in 1947, not the 1950s.
-- The irrational number Phi is not precisely equal to 1.618.
-- If the figure to the left of Jesus in The Last Supper is really Mary Magdalene, as the book claims, then Leonardo left out an apostle.
-- If it's really John, as most art historians claim, Leonardo was neither the first nor the only artist to paint him as a beardless, long-haired young man.
-- Mr. Brown's best "proof" of a romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene comes from the Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels.
Again, from a literary point of view, none of this a big deal. Books play hard and fast with the truth all the time.
W.P. Kinsella's great book "Shoeless Joe" became the basis for the movie "Field of Dreams." In the book, the lead character --who happens to be named Ray Kinsella-- encounters the ghost of an old country doctor named Archie "Doc" Graham....or, "Moonlight" to his fans. The claim is that he was a major leaguer at one point. And, if you break out your "Encyclopedia of Baseball" you will be pleased to find that there actually WAS a real Archie Graham, who really was a pitcher.
Did he retire to become a country doctor?
Beats me. Don't care, really. But it makes a great story.
Let me take this line of thought further (since this is one of my all time favorite books/moves, and the line of thinking fits...). In the movie version, the character played by James Earl Jones is named Terrance Mann. He is portrayed as an aging and broken 60s radical. But, in the original book, the character is J. D. Salinger...meant to be the reclusive writer of "Catcher in the Rye!!"
So, did W.P Kinsella, or Ray Kinsella, or anybody for that matter, kidnap J.D. Salinger and take him on a cross-county adventure?
No. Of course not. (In fact, the grumpy Salinger was so upset by the book that this is probably why they changed the character...ie, in real life, the real-life Salinger stayed a reclusive, old grump)
When reading this book, do we stop to ask "Is it true?!"
No. We accept that's it's fiction.
But for some reason, there are readers of DaVinic Code who seem ready to believe that the same kind of fanciful story --told about religion, instead of baseball-- IS true.
By the way, in some deeply spiritual way, I think Field of Dreams IS true. It's just not LITERALLY TRUE. There is a difference between what is true, and what is literally true. We have a hard time understanding this in our time, because we put such trust in "facts." (And assume they never change, and that they are somehow "truer" than other kind of more, metaphorical truth...)
And this gets me to my final points:
What IS true about the DaVinci Code, then? At what level can we say that it points to things that ARE "true?"
Here, I'll do my own quick Q and A:
Is there a grand conspiracy to hide the fact that Jesus and Mary were married?
Doubtful. Like the idea that there is some broader conspiracy around the Kennedy assassination, it defies credulity to imagine that such a fantastic secret could be kept for 2,000 years. Some person who was keeping the secret a secret would have spilled the beans, somewhere back in time. Or, somebody tasked with keeping the secret-keepers quiet (in the book, "Opus Dei") would have been unable to keep it to themselves. People talk. Somebody would have talked!!! Heck, we can't even keep secret government programs secret in our time...what makes us think that a HUGE secret like this could remain secret for 2,000 years?!
But nobody has talked. And so this is perhaps the best, most common-sense, argument you can make against the idea that Jesus and Mary were married and had children.
Does the Church Keep Too Many Secrets?
Absolutely. And that's where some of the attraction of this book comes from. Whether it's what we now know of the clergy abuse scandals, or the very real existence of Vatican archives that almost no one ever sees, the Catholic Church keeps too many secrets. Nature abhors this kind of vacuum. And, into this vacuum, steps the DaVinci Code....full of all sorts of truthiness.
Did the Church Suppress the Gnostics?
Yes. Or, better said, what became the Catholic Church and what became the Gnostic movement battled with each other over several centuries. The Gnostics should not be thought of as a poor, abused small people without opinions to aire, or axes of their own to grind. They were, in fact, quite opinionated about Jesus, the nature of God, the history of the church, etc...
These two groups fought as virtual equals for some time. The Christian Church eventually became far more powerful. And as they say, the telling of history usually belong to the victor. That is to say that many Gnostic writings probably were destroyed. However, a surprising number of them also do still exist.
Who were the Gnostics and why don't I know more about them?
Well, when you learn American history, why don't you learn more about King George? When you learn about Alexander the Great, why don't you learn more about all the folks he conquered?
We just don't usually learn our history that way. The telling of history, as they sometimes say, belongs to the victors. Over time, over history, we drop the references to the groups that fall off the historical screen..and we continue to tell, retell, and expand on the history/story of those who "win."
Most scholars agree that most of the Gnostic writings we have today were written after the original Gospels and letters of Paul. And this is one of the reasons that scholars aren't more interested in them. (Some are!) Scholars assume that they either embellished those original stories, or intentionally told the stories in a different way to make their own point.
In other words, the Gnostic writings are different, and in part because they were written to be responses to the the early Church and what they believed. They were written to set themselves apart from the early church, with whom they saw themselves in conflict and competition.
In those days, nobody on any side of any debate wrote anything down right away, by the way. There are no eyewitness accounts. There is no front page "Jerusalem Herald" story. There is no digital video tape. The stories --both from Gnostic side and the early Christian side-- were told orally and then, over time, were written down in the forms we have today.
Many modern people are attracted to the early writings of the Gnostics, because they claim that the Gnostics were more egalitarian in their beliefs and included a role for women not present in the early church. That's true if you read some of the Gnostic writings. But there are others where it is said that a woman cannot get to heaven, unless she becomes like a man. And that's not real egalitarian, is it!!?
Other are attracted to Gnostics because the Gnostics claimed to have "secret knowledge" (much like Dan Brown's book!!!), and so folks fancy that, if there IS secret knowledge out there somewhere, they'd like to have it, thank you very much.
We don't know all there is know about Gnostics, because much of the record has been destroyed. We can surmise their beliefs, and if folks want to try to become card-carrying Gnostics, have at it. But, they'll be recreating something that we have no firm record of, and any rituals or beliefs they claim to follow will be, in part, made up from modern assumptions.
Bottom line: There is nothing in the Gnostic tradition that can seriously debunk the Christian story completely. OR! vice versa.
Has the Catholic Church/Christian Church Suppressed the Role of Women?
Absolutely. No question. Women served as priests in the early church. There is even historical record of women serving as bishops. But, over time, women's roles became minimized in these areas, and there was suppression of women. Many scholars today are rediscovering that history, and you can read more about it here.
That is one of the attractions of the book for a lot of folks, it seems to me. In that it re-discovers a role for women in the history of the church has has, in truth, been suppressed. In my opinion, and the opinion of many scholars, the DaVinci Code gets the story of women's real role wrong...but there's that "nature abhors a vacuum" thing again.
Because so much of the church is unwilling to really talk about the appropriate historical place of women --in either the ancient church, or today-- the Da Vinci Code comes along to fill the vacuum and give people an interesting story.
---------------------------
---------------------------
Well, that's more than enough opinion on this subject...and not that you even asked!
One closing thought, from the Jeffery Weiss story.
Weiss says that we certainly do not try to get all our knowledge about science from the TV series "Star Trek." For some reason (perhaps its campy production values?) we tend to assume it's really fiction.
But with the DaVinci Code, folks from all walks of life --from faith and no faith-- seem ready to believe it's fanciful claims.
-- Perhaps it's because of the "truthy" way the book presents its "facts?"
-- Perhaps because we like a good scandal?
-- Perhaps because the real-life Church (Catholic and otherwise) is often so secretive about its own past and history?
-- Perhaps because folks like to imagine that some "new" religion (like the Gnostics) might really have some "secret" knowledge?
-- Perhaps because we've got a broad hunch that the Church did suppress women?
Perhaps for all these reasons and more, many many folks seem to want to believe this book is factually true.
But the sad part is that most of us are just guessing.
And we don't know enough to know what we know about it, and what we don't.
Usually, Wolfe's writing is close enough to real-life people that we can accept the general idea that such things ARE possible, without having to debate whether or not they are literally true.
But, for some reason, we treat the DaVinci Code differently. We ask ourselves:
"IS it true?"
"What if it IS true?"
"How can I know whether or not it is true?"
First off, let me say that, as a work of fiction, I personally loved the book. Dan Brown knows how to write a good thriller. He knows how to keep the attention of his readers. I found myself --as the cliche goes-- unable to put it down. It's a good book.
But let me say early in this essay that, as a work of a theology, as a primer on Christian history, as a source of any kind of "factual data," the book is horrible. Just lousy. It really is.
To some people (Christian people, mostly), that makes the book evil, or misguided, or points to some kind of anti-Christian "agenda." I don't really get that, but I see how other folks might. It's just a work of fiction that glosses the historical record, and flat out makes up other stuff.
But there is a deeper point I want to make in this essay. The deeper point is not that the book is pro-Christian or anti-Christian.
The deeper point is this: Most of us don't know enough about Christianity to be able to judge one way or the other!!!
To me, this is the sad part. Most folks in our society don't know enough about one of the great religions of our world to know whether or not this book is "telling the truth." They've got hunches. Perhaps they've got guesses. Perhaps they've even got what they hope is the answer to this question. But they don't really KNOW.
They don't know enough to know whether they know or not!!
So, to the dear reader of this blog, I hope you will take this as a challenge to your own life. I hope you will ask yourself: Do YOU know enough about Christianity to know whether or not this book is telling the truth? Do YOU know enough about Christian history? Theology? World history?
You don't have to go to seminary to get this kind of education. All you have to do is to choose to make religion something you study-up on. You have to decide that --whether or not religious faith is important to you as an individual-- it's still important enough to the culture that you ought to know something about it.
I first heard this argument when I was in college at UT, and taking American History. My professor --whose name escapes me at the moment-- decided that he would teach American history from the perspective of America's religious history. His thesis was that unless you fully understood what was happening in the religious community at any given point in the past, you could not fully understand what was happening in American history. I think he's absolutely right.
How can we understand the Abolitionist Movement, without understanding the impact of the faith community?
How can we understand child labor laws, the temperance movement, union organizing, women's right to vote, without understanding what religion was saying at the time?
How can we understand what Martin Luther King believed, without remembering that he was a preacher first and foremost?
How can we understand the question of gay marriage, without understanding what various religious faiths are saying about gay people today?
So, if you have questions about this book, ask yourself this question: Do you know enough to know what you know? And if you don't, what are you going to do about it? Is there some reading you can do? Are there some sources you can consult?
Because, unless you do your own thinking, you're left to take my word for it. (Or, the word of some other so-called expert...)
And you CAN do that. But isn't that a little dangerous? Isn't it dangerous to leave your theological-thinking to the so-called experts? Ironically, isn't one of the allegations of the book that somebody somewhere has a secret knowledge that you DON'T have? Isn't the point of the protagonist's quest that the search for the truth is important?
I hope you'll consider the question: Do I know enough to know what I know?
And if you don't, I hope you'll get yourself educated!
And, if you're still interested in knowing what I know, I'd be happy to tell you now.
(If not, you can stop reading now, and go off and enjoy your day...)
---------------------------------
The DaVinci Code mixes real, factual and historical people, places, and things; with fanciful and hypothetical allegations that can never (at least not now) be proven or disproven.
There is a good "FAQ" about the DaVinci Code in the Dallas Morning News, and you might just start here.
Here is another story, written by Morning News religious writer, Jeffery Weiss, that talks about the DaVinci Code backlash. You can read it here.
In one section of this second story, Weiss says this:
The book's plot revolves around a centuries-old conspiracy to hide the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene – and their descendants. The conspirators included Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci, who cleverly hid clues to the secret in his paintings. (Hence the title.)
The very first sentence in the book implies this is more than a mere tale. "Fact: The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization." This arcane society, according to Mr. Brown's telling, has been the keeper of the secret about Jesus and Magdalene.
(snip)
The book reeks of truthiness and smartiness – the appearance of being truthful and smart without necessarily being either. The protagonist is a Harvard professor (in a department that doesn't exist). The fast-moving plot is propelled by a series of clever puzzles based on famous works of art.
So, what about the "facts" in the book? Lot's of folks are talking about them. (In another place, Weiss points out that over 44 authors have written books, debunking the DaVinci Code!!!)
Among the "facts" that are clearly not factual is the story of the "Priory of Sion," which is referred to repeatedly as an actual, historical group that counted Isaac Newton and Leonardo DaVinci as members. In truth, the "Priory" was likely invented by a Frenchmen as a hoax in the 1950s. Yes, there are documents in French libraries that point to its origins. But that same French guy from the 1950s put them there.
We can thank good-old 60 Minutes for uncovering this story for us all, and you can read their report here.
That's really the heart of the whole book right there. And once you accept that the "Priory" is a made-up, fictional organization (and I hope you will) it becomes much easier to accept the rest of the book as fun fiction (which I hope you will).
But, here is other truthiness from the book:
-- The glass pyramid at the Louvre has 673 glass panes, not 666.
-- The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jews and say nothing about Jesus.
-- They were discovered in 1947, not the 1950s.
-- The irrational number Phi is not precisely equal to 1.618.
-- If the figure to the left of Jesus in The Last Supper is really Mary Magdalene, as the book claims, then Leonardo left out an apostle.
-- If it's really John, as most art historians claim, Leonardo was neither the first nor the only artist to paint him as a beardless, long-haired young man.
-- Mr. Brown's best "proof" of a romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene comes from the Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels.
Again, from a literary point of view, none of this a big deal. Books play hard and fast with the truth all the time.
W.P. Kinsella's great book "Shoeless Joe" became the basis for the movie "Field of Dreams." In the book, the lead character --who happens to be named Ray Kinsella-- encounters the ghost of an old country doctor named Archie "Doc" Graham....or, "Moonlight" to his fans. The claim is that he was a major leaguer at one point. And, if you break out your "Encyclopedia of Baseball" you will be pleased to find that there actually WAS a real Archie Graham, who really was a pitcher.
Did he retire to become a country doctor?
Beats me. Don't care, really. But it makes a great story.
Let me take this line of thought further (since this is one of my all time favorite books/moves, and the line of thinking fits...). In the movie version, the character played by James Earl Jones is named Terrance Mann. He is portrayed as an aging and broken 60s radical. But, in the original book, the character is J. D. Salinger...meant to be the reclusive writer of "Catcher in the Rye!!"
So, did W.P Kinsella, or Ray Kinsella, or anybody for that matter, kidnap J.D. Salinger and take him on a cross-county adventure?
No. Of course not. (In fact, the grumpy Salinger was so upset by the book that this is probably why they changed the character...ie, in real life, the real-life Salinger stayed a reclusive, old grump)
When reading this book, do we stop to ask "Is it true?!"
No. We accept that's it's fiction.
But for some reason, there are readers of DaVinic Code who seem ready to believe that the same kind of fanciful story --told about religion, instead of baseball-- IS true.
By the way, in some deeply spiritual way, I think Field of Dreams IS true. It's just not LITERALLY TRUE. There is a difference between what is true, and what is literally true. We have a hard time understanding this in our time, because we put such trust in "facts." (And assume they never change, and that they are somehow "truer" than other kind of more, metaphorical truth...)
And this gets me to my final points:
What IS true about the DaVinci Code, then? At what level can we say that it points to things that ARE "true?"
Here, I'll do my own quick Q and A:
Is there a grand conspiracy to hide the fact that Jesus and Mary were married?
Doubtful. Like the idea that there is some broader conspiracy around the Kennedy assassination, it defies credulity to imagine that such a fantastic secret could be kept for 2,000 years. Some person who was keeping the secret a secret would have spilled the beans, somewhere back in time. Or, somebody tasked with keeping the secret-keepers quiet (in the book, "Opus Dei") would have been unable to keep it to themselves. People talk. Somebody would have talked!!! Heck, we can't even keep secret government programs secret in our time...what makes us think that a HUGE secret like this could remain secret for 2,000 years?!
But nobody has talked. And so this is perhaps the best, most common-sense, argument you can make against the idea that Jesus and Mary were married and had children.
Does the Church Keep Too Many Secrets?
Absolutely. And that's where some of the attraction of this book comes from. Whether it's what we now know of the clergy abuse scandals, or the very real existence of Vatican archives that almost no one ever sees, the Catholic Church keeps too many secrets. Nature abhors this kind of vacuum. And, into this vacuum, steps the DaVinci Code....full of all sorts of truthiness.
Did the Church Suppress the Gnostics?
Yes. Or, better said, what became the Catholic Church and what became the Gnostic movement battled with each other over several centuries. The Gnostics should not be thought of as a poor, abused small people without opinions to aire, or axes of their own to grind. They were, in fact, quite opinionated about Jesus, the nature of God, the history of the church, etc...
These two groups fought as virtual equals for some time. The Christian Church eventually became far more powerful. And as they say, the telling of history usually belong to the victor. That is to say that many Gnostic writings probably were destroyed. However, a surprising number of them also do still exist.
Who were the Gnostics and why don't I know more about them?
Well, when you learn American history, why don't you learn more about King George? When you learn about Alexander the Great, why don't you learn more about all the folks he conquered?
We just don't usually learn our history that way. The telling of history, as they sometimes say, belongs to the victors. Over time, over history, we drop the references to the groups that fall off the historical screen..and we continue to tell, retell, and expand on the history/story of those who "win."
Most scholars agree that most of the Gnostic writings we have today were written after the original Gospels and letters of Paul. And this is one of the reasons that scholars aren't more interested in them. (Some are!) Scholars assume that they either embellished those original stories, or intentionally told the stories in a different way to make their own point.
In other words, the Gnostic writings are different, and in part because they were written to be responses to the the early Church and what they believed. They were written to set themselves apart from the early church, with whom they saw themselves in conflict and competition.
In those days, nobody on any side of any debate wrote anything down right away, by the way. There are no eyewitness accounts. There is no front page "Jerusalem Herald" story. There is no digital video tape. The stories --both from Gnostic side and the early Christian side-- were told orally and then, over time, were written down in the forms we have today.
Many modern people are attracted to the early writings of the Gnostics, because they claim that the Gnostics were more egalitarian in their beliefs and included a role for women not present in the early church. That's true if you read some of the Gnostic writings. But there are others where it is said that a woman cannot get to heaven, unless she becomes like a man. And that's not real egalitarian, is it!!?
Other are attracted to Gnostics because the Gnostics claimed to have "secret knowledge" (much like Dan Brown's book!!!), and so folks fancy that, if there IS secret knowledge out there somewhere, they'd like to have it, thank you very much.
We don't know all there is know about Gnostics, because much of the record has been destroyed. We can surmise their beliefs, and if folks want to try to become card-carrying Gnostics, have at it. But, they'll be recreating something that we have no firm record of, and any rituals or beliefs they claim to follow will be, in part, made up from modern assumptions.
Bottom line: There is nothing in the Gnostic tradition that can seriously debunk the Christian story completely. OR! vice versa.
Has the Catholic Church/Christian Church Suppressed the Role of Women?
Absolutely. No question. Women served as priests in the early church. There is even historical record of women serving as bishops. But, over time, women's roles became minimized in these areas, and there was suppression of women. Many scholars today are rediscovering that history, and you can read more about it here.
That is one of the attractions of the book for a lot of folks, it seems to me. In that it re-discovers a role for women in the history of the church has has, in truth, been suppressed. In my opinion, and the opinion of many scholars, the DaVinci Code gets the story of women's real role wrong...but there's that "nature abhors a vacuum" thing again.
Because so much of the church is unwilling to really talk about the appropriate historical place of women --in either the ancient church, or today-- the Da Vinci Code comes along to fill the vacuum and give people an interesting story.
---------------------------
---------------------------
Well, that's more than enough opinion on this subject...and not that you even asked!
One closing thought, from the Jeffery Weiss story.
Weiss says that we certainly do not try to get all our knowledge about science from the TV series "Star Trek." For some reason (perhaps its campy production values?) we tend to assume it's really fiction.
But with the DaVinci Code, folks from all walks of life --from faith and no faith-- seem ready to believe it's fanciful claims.
-- Perhaps it's because of the "truthy" way the book presents its "facts?"
-- Perhaps because we like a good scandal?
-- Perhaps because the real-life Church (Catholic and otherwise) is often so secretive about its own past and history?
-- Perhaps because folks like to imagine that some "new" religion (like the Gnostics) might really have some "secret" knowledge?
-- Perhaps because we've got a broad hunch that the Church did suppress women?
Perhaps for all these reasons and more, many many folks seem to want to believe this book is factually true.
But the sad part is that most of us are just guessing.
And we don't know enough to know what we know about it, and what we don't.
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"Do YOU know enough about Christianity to know whether or not this book is telling the truth?"
Yes - but I haven't read the book, so I don't bother.
I HAVE read most of Baigent and Leigh's stuff.
Therefore, I can see the errors in your post.
First of all, Baigent and Leigh basically exposed the so-called "Priory of Sion" years ago as a probable hoax - not "60 Minutes." After wrestling with the situation, they came down on the side of the notion that it was a "conspiracy dedicated to inventing a conspiracy", in a sense.
It was Brown's book that treated it as real. Fine, for fiction.
As for the likelihood that Jesus and Mary were married, well, Jesus had to be married to someone. A rabbi had to be married. In fact, in those times, pretty much every male had to be married because the Jews were busy trying to expand their population to conquer their neighbors - like everybody else in those days and pretty much like they are now.
"The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jews and say nothing about Jesus."
Bullshit.
Anybody who can say that is totally clueless. Oh, yeah, you can say that the name "Jesus" does not occur there. That is utterly irrelevant. The story that is told there DESTROYS the origin of the Christian Church totally.
For those wishing a more precise description of these facts, read Baigent and Leigh's "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception."
It lays out with precision the facts of the discovery of the scrolls, their translation, their concealment from archaeological experts for nearly forty years by the Catholic Church - called the "archaeological scandal of the 20th Century" - and the anti-Semitism (calling Greenbaum! If he wants to see REAL anti-Semitic remarks, read the quotes of the Catholic priests in this book!) of the priests charged with concealing the scrolls.
They concealed them for precisely the reason I state - the scrolls destroy the very basis of the Catholic Church and thus all Christianity: the notion that Paul - the "inventor of Christianity" - was a follower of Jesus or that Jesus was anything other than a good Jew who had no intention of founding a new religion - let alone one that would persecute his own people for the next two thousand years.
May 21, 2006 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt that reading Baigent and Leigh's books would lead to anymore understanding of early christianity than Dan Brown's novel. There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus was married or was not married. In fact, there is only anecdotal evidence that Jesus existed, like the rest of christianity's tenets, even that rests ultimately on faith.
As to the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is no mention of Jesus in any scroll that has been found and translated to this date. The scrolls are a collection from many centuries before and after the birth of Jesus. The most likely explanation is that the scrolls were moved to the caves during the Jewish rebellion against the Romans, for safe keeping. The scrolls are leather, copper, papyrus and clay, for the most part, and one reason they've been so closely held, is that to unroll them to tease out text, is to destroy them at this time, although there has been much success with new technology. The catholic church did not "control the Dead Sea Scrolls", the committee controlled some scrolls.
The first real breakthrough in the availabilty of the scrolls as research came when an unauthorized translation (from Hebrew to English) came from a graduate student at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, of several of the scrolls. Even that translation is bitterly disputed and always will be. That's just the nature of a subject that is still more craft than absolute knowledge. In other words, you can have a "best" translation, but it isn't the only translation and is only the "best" until more research is available.
As to what "Jesus intended" no one knows - we can merely guess at it.
May 21, 2006 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, Baigent and Leigh's book, "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception", lays out IN DETAIL exactly how the scrolls were found, how they were treated, and who was in charge of them and how they finally were allowed to be published in public. The entire forty year story is there in detail.
Read the book.
Especially the part where one of the Catholic priests charged with translating the scrolls actually absconded with one of them and has never been heard from since.
Not to mention the EXTREMELY anti-Semitic remarks publicly made by the Catholic priests connected with the scrolls.
I would also say it is disingenuous to say that "no one knows" what Jesus intended - ahem, it seems to me that an entire multi-billion person religion seems to believe they can know what he "intended". The issue is whether what THEY believe has anything to do with what HE believed.
And the only way to determine that is by analysis of not only his supposed words as recorded by his supposed biographers, but also by analyzing the relevant material about the movements and beliefs of his time based on all available material about those times, both from supporters and opponents and disinterested observers from those times.
And in that respect, the Christian concept of Jesus comes off badly. There is NO evidence that Jesus - or the personage generally referred to as "Jesus", since "Jesus" is not a name, but a title - was anything other than a Jew and a fanatical follower of the Jewish Law of the time.
The idea that he wanted to start a new religion and then persecute his own people for killing him is nothing short of ridiculous on the face of it.
As far as anyone can tell, the so-called "Christian religion" was started by Paul who, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, was a Roman double-agent tasked with undermining the Jewish resistance to the Roman occupation.
Hardly a defining witness to the nature of Jesus, I'd say.
Especially since Jesus own brother supposedly opposed Paul's teachings, and when confronted by Paul, Paul was nearly killed by Jesus followers, and then "checked in" (as we say in Federal prison) to Roman protection, demanding to be sent to Rome to have his case heard as was his right as a Roman citizen. When Jesus followers heard this, forty of them swore never to eat, drink or sleep until they had killed him. News of this plot leaked, and Paul was escorted out of town by Roman soldiers.
And THIS character is the founder of the "Christian" church.
Some centuries later, the descendants of Jesus went to Rome to see the Bishop of Rome (who hadn't taken to calling himsef "Pope" yet) and demanded that as representatives of the original "Christian" religion, they should share in the Roman Church's wealth.
The Bishop told them to "kick rocks."
People really need to get a clue about how the Christian religion is one of the biggest frauds in human history.
As Aleister Crowley used to say, "The Christians to the lions!"
May 21, 2006 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have actually read this book (The Dea Sea Scrolls Deception) and found it to be highly NON-credible.
Many other scholars have also found Baigent and Laird's book to be full of holes too. You can read some reader reviews at Amazon that point to the many holes and inconsistencies in their arguements. There is much more where this came from in the wider academic community.
As for the assertion that they, not 60 Minutes, broke the "Priory hoax," I did not intend to claim that 60 Minutes actually "broke" the story. But I knew that pointing readers to their investigation would be a quick and easy way to have folks understand the issues.
Despite what you may believe, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not mention Jesus at all, and this is one of B and L's more aggregious mistakes in their work.
Actually, I see B and L's work much the way I see the DaVinci Code...there is some truth in there, but it's surrounded by such "truthiness" that it's hard to figure it out.
There truth in their work is that the Catholic folks who became custodians of the scrolls WERE too secretive with them. And, as I've stated, nature abhors a vacuum. They also have been shown to be anti-Semetic, which clearly should not be condoned by anyone.
But there is absolutely nothing in the scrolls that destroys the very nature of Christianity....as it is with the DC, this is an interesting idea to many people, but not credible based on the real facts and evidence.
Eric's Music Website: http://www.ericfolkerth.com
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May 22, 2006 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
. . . there are readers of DaVinic Code who seem ready to believe that the . . . story . . . IS true.
Note: I've cut parts of Eric's sentence, and thus, I'm not sure I'm fairly reflecting his meaning, but I've got to ask, "Is there any evidence that the above assertion is accurate?"
And rather than asking whether, if there are any such readers, they form a significant subset of the Da Vinci readership, I would rather ask whether we can possibly know what such readers would understand the word "true" to mean within the context of their reading experience.
Or to ask the question as simply as possible (and dismissing talk of theories of correspondence or coherence), "What is Truth?"
N.B. Few Biblical "facts" (and no important "facts" such as Birth, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection) or the "facts" of very early Church history can meet the test -- legal or scientific or quotidian -- which we ordinarily apply to the analysis of a fact when seeking to determine whether it is true.
May 21, 2006 2:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
You wrote:
"Or to ask the question as simply as possible (and dismissing talk of theories of correspondence or coherence), "What is Truth?"
N.B. Few Biblical "facts" (and no important "facts" such as Birth, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection) or the "facts" of very early Church history can meet the test -- legal or scientific or quotidian -- which we ordinarily apply to the analysis of a fact when seeking to determine whether it is true."
It's an excellent point. There is NO "fact" of the early church that can meet the test that we ordinarily apply to things we call "true." That's another part of what it's so pointless for folks to push the Davinci Code as "true," or as fundamentally changing the nature of belief. The "truth" is, that even if it were all true, there'd probably be a significant number of folks for whom it would make no difference to their faith whatsoever.
Music Website: http://www.ericfolkerth.com Blog: http://www.ericfolkerth.com//B1082610743/index.html MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/ericfolkerth
May 22, 2006 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for the assessment.
Can you recommend a book that does this?
Love the comparison to Field of Dreams!
May 21, 2006 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
There aren't all that many current books that do place religion at the center of all of American history -- though lots that look at the place of religion in American history, if that makes sense. One that might be of interest is Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People. It's an older book, but with a new preface by David Hall (who I quite like). In the interests of full disclosure, I haven't read it.
For a narrower look (New England Puritans, mostly), Perry Miller is a classic, especially his essay collection Errand Into the Wilderness His introduction remains one of the most powerful arguments for considering religion as a force in American history.
PSA: There is now a Users' Help Forum.
May 22, 2006 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You realize, of course, that there is a fundamental difference between a millenia-long continuous conspiracy to cover something up, and a single broad conspiracy to assassinate someone.
The first conspiracy has to be continuous and perpetual over thousands of years, while the second only involves the act itself and coverups at the time.
As you know, there is talk all the time about the Kennedy assassination and about 9/11. Many crackpot theories go out about both. Consequently, when someone presents evidence or when people in the know actually talk, the information is dismissed as conspiracy theory. So it is very possible to cover up such conspiracies in the government.
As far as the millenia-long coverup conspiracy goes, why would participants encode their participation in their work? Also, how would one really decode such codes?
-- Insane George W. Bush comment #394: See, free nations do not develop weapons of mass destruction.
May 22, 2006 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a different view of the movie I suggest reading Juan Cole this morning (Mon May 22).
He talks about a future Church that is:
May 22, 2006 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that The Da Vinci Code is fiction -- and that's what is often missing from discussions about it. Dan Brown isn't the most elegant writer, but he can spin a good story. He does, however, rely on common plot twists throughout his oeuvre. Many people I know thought Angels and Demons was a better book (it's the first book featuring Langdon). I preferred the Da Vinci Code because of its Parisian setting.
What I think has happened, in part, is that a lot more people read this than the usual fiction readers -- just as a lot more people read Harry Potter than the normal fantasy readers. And in that, people forget that they're reading fiction -- or don't have the background/experience to know that what a character states definitively just might not be true.
PSA: There is now a Users' Help Forum.
May 22, 2006 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink