The Da Vinci Code

[Sentential]

^^ You do realize the book is classified as ****FICTION****. It is *not* historical.

Although many of the concepts are true and loosly based off of fact. The words arent to be taken literly.

[Lighthouse]

From my understanding and my own interest in the same subject matter as Dan Brown, most of the historical accounts are true or at least researchable.  The story line of the main characters are fictitious but the research he has done is exhaustive.  If you are interested in some of the things he states in there, read, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird, The Nag Hammadi Library Edited by James Robinson, which is the Gnostic scriptures, if that's too much for you, read, The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (this an overview of the Gnostic Scriptures, is easy to read and fairly short, written in modern language.)  Also do a search on the Knights of Templar or Freemasonry (the Templars are the original Freemasons.)  Also, look into the Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism... these will all help you independently understand some of the research that Dan Brown has done.  This is a start and if you're interested in finding your own truth about whether the story line is based on fact or fiction, these will lead you to more resources to investigate.

Here's a link to an image of Da Vinci's Last Supper:
www.indiezelda.com/davinci/lastsupper.html
Have fun!

-Kerri

[Jenadots]

Hi, I read it too.  Lost patience with it in some parts, but the author does nicely blend mythology, theories, facts, and some of his own fictional ideas along with the Templars stories that have floated around for centuries.

What we know as fact is that there were women in Christ's followers.  We also know that much of the Bible has been edited and mistranslated and some of the more "uncomfortable" ideas for the translators - or the ruling Canon councils of the time were simply left out.  We also know there are other gospels that were left out entirely.

So it is plausible?  Yes, that is what makes for a good story.  Just enough historical truth to make it believable blended in with all the "what ifs" that have been around about Jesus being married - which does seem likely for his culture and his time.  Also, someone else on the cross and he left to sire a line of kings that ended up ruling Europe, even to this day.  And, of course, that the Grail is the blood line of his wife and children Templars to throw everyone off the real secret.  

In fact, history does record that the Templars were mostly eliminated when they became very rich and very powerful within the church, competing with both the Pope of the time and the Jesuits who were also rich and powerful within the Church.  Perhaps remnants of that sect still exist or perhaps not.  No one knows for sure.  

The book is very well presented but as to "facts", you will have to do your own digging and evaluating of the information you find.

[Kazbadan]

The facts are real but we must make an exaustive research in order to know if they are solid facts or just "aerial" ideas. I believe that much of what it is said in the book it is more solid than church or people would like to admit.

I told about the ideas in the book to some people that i know and they acted in a bad maner: "That´s crap", "That´s impossible to be truth, show me the proofs", " It´s ridiculous what you say because you are changing 2000 years of history!", etc. Do you know what? I am happy that they are chocked with that facts (son of jesus, Madalena, the mortality of Jesues, the stolen ideas from other religions, etc). Most people that i know follows catolic ideas because they believe that´s the way things work.

They will foloww GOd or Jesus because they are afraid of the consequences if they do not follow. In the other hand, they follow catolicism because they are used to that. Now, with a little shift in history facts they will see why do they folow Jesus, and they are making it because of the wrong reasons.

I believe that the truly ones that follow Jesus ideas are people interestd in the message, not in the prophet (the message that i hear in the phone it´s more important than the phone...if you get the idea). People that really follow Jesus, will follow the goodness and the compassion for the others because they believe that it´s important to cease with suffering. Now, that´s Christianism. Going to the Church in Sundays, or making a nice Christmas tree and give lot´s of presents....thats not christianism.


I didnt finished the book yet, but i think that it is missing something very nice for this "shift": the idea or possibility that Jesus it is, himself, a follower of Budhistic and oriental ideas. Myself read some banned gospels and i must say that they are incredibly beautiful, and they give an hint of such possibility (oriental formation).

This book it is passing another important message: history that we know may be in the most part wrong or very innacurate. The truthmay be hidden just because of convenience of some groups, like church. Of course that normal people would like to see that material hidden too, because they are the firsts admitingthat they are afraid to know the Truth.

sorry for the longpost and for the english mistakes, but i am portuguese...

[James S]

It's worth reading Runlola.

Even looking past all the historical info and interesting little facts about DaVinci that Dan Brown has put in, it's an excellent story.

He's got a great writing style, and cleverly gets you hooked into the storyline from the very first page. It's a very hard book to put down once you start.

- James.

[Kazbadan]

Yes, it´s a very nice book indeed. I didnt speak to muc about the story, but the story itself it is very nice too.

This is the perfect book for hollidays because you will be amusing yourself while learning some interesting facts about history among other things, like Maths for example.

There is a portuguese writer, José Saramago, that wrote a book called "The Gospel of Chryst" (not shure about the translated name of the book. This is a good book, but "heavy" to read. Altought it is not based on hystorical facts, this book tells the story of Jesus in a manner that chocjed the Curch (you will read passages ilustrating, in some manner, a sexual relation between Maria, mother of Jesus, and Jose, the husbadn! the same for Jesus and Maria Madalena!).

Maybe you will like to read that book, but first i must warn of this: althouth Jose Saramago being a Nobel Prize, his style it is very hard. Only often he will use "." most the time he will uses ",", thus making the text hard to read.

Second i must warn that he his conected to the "left" polytical forces (comunism, etc). I have nothing against comunism (in theory it is a good system....but in the pratical life....) but i suppose that the main reason for his wrtitings in this book, it is related with such comunist ideas.

runlola:i know, i know... you are always trying to give me a good impression about you, and you didnt forget what i said about your avatars...ok, know you have a more female look. Know your are ok! []

[Gandalf]

Hi all!
I just finished 'The Da Vinci Code', and very enjoyable it was too!

I wasn't as blown away as a lot of people were by the ideas in the book, since I was already familiar with many of the theories, as I'm sure many of you are!

However, I was still amazed by all the little facts that Dan Brown threw in left, right and centre, such as the divine proportion, Venus tracing a perfect pentagram over the sky every 8 years, Da Vinci's subversive messages in his paintings, etc etc.. Amazing stuff and very true as I found out for myself!

Check out Da Vinci's 'the last supper' there is definatly something dodgy going on there with Peter, and the disciple on Christ's left is definatly female, also their clothes are inversions of each others, ying and yang. Peter's hand very is threatening to the woman's.
This DOES suggest that Da Vinci's Peter had less than kind intentions towards the woman, who is most likely to be Magdalene. The amazing thing is, the Gnostic tradition which talks of Peter's jealousy towards Magdalene was only discovered with the finding of the Nag Hammadi Library, containing the gospel of Thomas (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) in 1945, which means that Da Vinci was already aware of this theory back in the middle ages, which does suggest that the secret society he belonged to had info which was not available at that time to everyone else.

As for the main theory, as Dan Brown himself says, the idea is not new, he is only writing about theories that have been floating around in certain circles for centuries, he is just the first to bring them to the public light in a fictional thriller novel. However, he hopes that the ideas presented in the novel provide a springboard for further debate.

The idea that Christianity 'stole' many ideas form earlier religions is not as shocking as it sounds, as any theologian will tell you.
A great deal of the theological side of Christianity is derived from neo-Platonism, the last of the great pagan philosophies, which was a huge influence on the early Christian fathers. They took all the best features of Neo-Platonist thought and incorporated it into Christianity; they actually felt that Neo-Platonism complimented their Christian beliefs (for example, the concept of the 'trinity' was developed in the 3rd century AD through neo-platonist influence). This is not intended as a negative remark on christianity; rather it is to show that ALL religions borrow from earlier traditions AS WELL as introducing something distincly new; nothing exists in isolation.

The fact that December 25th, was originally the birthday of Mithras (indeed the celebration of 'Christmas' is itself a continuation of the pagan celebration of Mithras); that the days of the week are named after pagan gods (with Constantine choosing the day of the Sun, or 'Sunday', as the day of worship for his new Christian god) are all well known facts. This is why some Christian fundamentalists dislike Christmas: Oliver Cromwell banned it as 'a pagan festival', and it was illegal in some states in the USA until the late 19th century!
What a bunch of party killers!

The reason for all this borrowing was simple, it was very difficult for many people to give up their long held pagan traditions, so the early missionaries eventually hit on the idea that if they cant change them, then they can incorporate them.
A famous example of this was recently found in Ireland, where there is one saint called St Brigit, who it was later found was actually derived from a local pagan goddess Brigit. The Vatican has recently 'de-sanctified' her on finding this out!

The idea of Jesus being married is not as far fetched as it sounds (certainly not any more far fetched than being the son of god!), and from a historical point of view is very likely, as it was law for Jews to be married at this time, and he would not have been taken seriously otherwise, as to be ummarried was socially unacceptable.

As Dan Brown points out, historical evidence DOES point to the likelihood of Jesus being married and Magdalene is the most likely suspect. However when theologians rubbish this idea, it is NOT for historical reasons; it is for THEOLOGICAL reasons, as they feel that Jesus being married goes against his teachings.
However, what are his teachings and what isn't is very much up for debate.

The main theory in Dan's brown book does have merit, and is not actually his idea; it might be true or it might not; one of the points of the book is that it comes down to your own personal belief. The Priory and the Templers have their belief, and the church has its own; whatever you decide to believe is up to you.

I think that there is a far more fundamental issue to be addressed here, which the 'true or false' debate is obscuring:  The Da Vinci code is a phenomenom, it has taken the world by storm... why? Lets forget for now the debate as to how much of it is 'true' or not, this is not the real issue imo.

imo The success of the 'Da Vinci code' is only highlighting a far more fundamental shift in western religious thinking, it is revealing a yearning for the 'sacred feminine', which more and more people are wanting to re-capture and they feel a need for, and which the traditional established judeo-christian religions are not providing.
Although Judaism and chistianity both say god is genderless, or is made up of both genders equally, and we have female ministers etc (at least in protestant christianity, while orthodox judaism and catholic/orthodox christianity still doesnt), it is still almost impossible to see god in any other terms than male; try it yourself, I bet that within a few moments who will say 'he' or 'his' without realising it! ok you can say, well this is just tradition, but it is more than that, it is a mindest and perception of god as male, and more and more people are finding it difficult to connect with this interpretation.

This is the main reason for the success of the 'Da Vinci code' imo, and it is no accident that it was written in an age where there is an ever increasing interest in the feminine aspect of the divine, with the ever growing phenomenon of 'Wicca' and neo-paganism which has now grown to such a level as to be taken seriously, and with interest in Hinduism, which has always retained its connection with the feminine, providing inspiration for much of the 'new age' movement of the last 30 years or so.

Ok, i've bored everyone to death now, so I'll stop, if anyone actually got to the end of this post then well done!

Regards,
Douglas

[Nick]

Having just read through this thread, my next stop is amazon where I will order the book right away. Not sure why I've not read it yet, but will remedy that! Along the lines of christianity drawing from mithraism, for example, please read The Rock of Truth by Arthur Findlay. There is a review of this book in our other forum on early christianity.

By the way, Kazbadan, if you ever want this topic moved to our Member's Book Reviews section, please let me (or any of the moderators) know, and we'll do so. Thanks again for this excellent thread! [8D]


Very best,
Nick

[Lighthouse]

quote:Originally posted by Gandalf

Ok, i've bored everyone to death now, so I'll stop, if anyone actually got to the end of this post then well done!

I loved your post! []

Kerri

[Kazbadan]

Gandalf, i have a question: many people says that there is no evidence of Jesus as real person. There are no hystorical facts proving that he even existed (exception for the gospels or Nag Hammadi doc and the like). At least this is what many people say.

So, do you know evidences of his existence, as a real person?

About what you say that there is no big deal in marriage of Jesus, the daughter Sara, the ressurection being a stolen fact from Mytras, etc... i must disagree. For me there is no big deal in that facts, but at least in a religious country like mine, Portugal, any one that would say that things in public (tv,etc) would be considered crazy! Believe me! I know some people that says "The guy that writed that book that you read [refering to me and to "Da Vinci Code" ] must be insane! No perfect people says that!"!! F***!!!!! (sorry) How can they be so stupid!?

This people, (some are friends of mine) are the firsts saying that  they have an open mind and in the end they say this stupid things!! Ouch!

For that reasons i really would like to see scientists all over the world saying that Jesus was a mortal man that made sex with Maria!! What is wrong with that?

sorry for the long and emotional post

btw, Nick, if you want you can move the topic, but i post it here because i knew that the thread would be far more behind the book itself. thanks anyway.

[Gandalf]

Kazbadan_

You are right, there is very little historical evidence to prove Jesus actually existed, but the wealth of information about him in the cannonical gospels as well as all the others does lead most to accept that there was a real historical figure probably called Jesus who was a radical teather/philosopher/cleric who was around Judea in the early 1st century.
However, what he actually taught is more difficult to assess, and it is very difficult to seperate what he ACTUALLY taught from other doctrines which were introduced afterwards, some almost immediatly afterwards.
The whole idea allowing christianity to be taught to non-jews appears to be introduced by Paul; many historically based theologians say there is no evidence that Jesus himself ever supported the idea of preaching to non-jews. Rather Jesus's teachings were originally for jews only, and was concerned with their own way of life and the coming 'kingdom of heaven' which his sect believed was going to be their right.

Much of the NT story is based on early pagan myth, esp the 'death and rebirth' which is a recurrent feature of pagan myth, ESP in the east.
Mithras too died and was reborn after three days, demonstrating that Mithras, the unconquered sun, triumphed over death, and could provide the same for his followers. Mithras was also visited by three wise men, bearing gifts.

You will find the concept of death and rebirth in almost all earlier religion, and this was quickly incorporated into christian mythology in turn (although we are not allowed to call it 'mythology' of course!). The reason is simple, in order to appeal to people, the new religion had to contain familiar pagan elements that people would be comfortable with, otherwise it would never catch on.
What people always tend to ignore is the cultural enviroment in which 'Pauline' christianity grew up in; forget Judea from here on, Christianity was hellenised. Paul (or Saul to give him his original name) was a hellenised jew, the easiest way to spot hellenisation is the growing weight of theology growing around christianity.
The jews too had been hellenised since the 3rd century bc, and this greatly influenced their doctrines, although modern day nationalists would try to deny this.

By giving examples of the pagan influence in christianity, conservatives take this as an attack against their religion; it is not. It is just recognising that every religion takes on influences from earlier ones, as well as introducing something new. Conservatives dislike hearing this as they like to think that their religion sprung fully formed out of nowhere and everything before it is irrelevant; this is just untrue.

Such people will find that even the early church fathers will disagree with them in this point; Eusebius for example, quite openly states that several of the pagan's concepts 'got things right' without realising it, and they in turn 'paved the way for christianity' in what he calls the 'evangelical preparation'.

Concerning Jesus being married:
Sorry, when I said it was not really a big deal, what I meant was the theory was already known among scholars; but the general public were, up until the book came out, unaware of this theory; and for many of the devout, such ideas will be shocking; i have already heard the word 'heresy' being banded about, which thankfully doesnt carry the great weight of fear that it used to in the past; no one is going to be burned for questioning biblical texts!
However, everytime I hear someone using the word 'heresy' I wonder about them; the word still carries negative, fear driven connotations.

As I said earlier, maybe the Magdalene theory is true, maybe it is not, but at least we are allowed to question things and not get burned alive for it!
Regards,
Douglas

[Kazbadan]

Thanks for the information, nice reading!

[Nick]

Now I see what all the fuss is about. I started reading the book after work yesterday and could not put it down until bedtime. Will finish it this evening, I'm sure. Great book, and special thanks to Gandalf for the detailed historical and background information.



Nick

[Kazbadan]

quote:Originally posted by Nick

Now I see what all the fuss is about. I started reading the book after work yesterday and could not put it down until bedtime.

lol! We warn you! This book it is very good!

[Nick]

Hi Kazbadan,

I thought at this point the topic would be better served in our Members Book Reviews and Recommendations forum. In my view it would make a more suitable home. If you disagree, please pm me and we'll work something out.


Very best,
Nick

[Nick]

As I was intrigued by what I read in the novel, I decided to do some further reading along nonfiction lines. To that end, I bought a copy of a fascinating book I would recommend. It is called: The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince.

It is a thorough investigation into the mysterious worlds of the Freemasons, the Cathars, and the Knights Templar. It covers the authors findings from their research and travels regarding the actual historical role of Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and the Priory of Sion.

First published in 1997, the book comprehensively details their findings and present a fascinating view of the real motives and character of the christian church, as made known in the Da Vinci Code.


Nick

[Lighthouse]

Thanks Nick,

I'll add that to my Amazon Wish list []

Kerri

[Nick]

Hi Lighthouse,

You're quite welcome! [] The book is divided into two parts along with two appendices at the end. Part One is entitled The Threads of Heresy and has ten chapters, while Part Two is called The Web of Truth and has seven chapters.

The authors did a thorough investigative job all around, and back up their research with interviews, visits to sites, and extensive footnotes. Quite a convincing read!


Very best,
Nick

[Kazbadan]

"The Da Vinci Code", writed by Dan Brown, it´s an amazing book! If you want to read something good, that´s not "heavy", with a  nice story and a book that will teach you very interesting facts about history, you must buy it! It´s the perfect book for this holydays.

In the book you will read the story itself, and you will learn facts that may chock most of the christians, the problem is that the facts are real.

Here some interesting facts that i learned from it:
- why there is that superstition around friday 13.
- the Holy Graal and it´s nature.
- secrets about Jesus life: the relation that he had with Maria Madalena.
- facts about secret orgs. and other orgs. like Opus Dei.
- symbolic messages about Da Vinci paints and other nice facts: for example in his painting about the last supper of Chryst (how do you say it in english?) you will see, in the paint that one of the apostles it´s a women!
- Facts about Jesus life were stolen from another God (Mythras ot Mytra or Mitra). the 25 December, the ressurection after 3 days, the gifts that people gave to Him when he born; the 12 apostles,etc,etc. all of that were ideas stolen to that god called Myhtras!!
_many other interesting things you will learn with the book


When i read it i have the sensation that the author wants to passa message about things of our history, and he made it in the best way. The story itself it is very nice too. It seems that the story will go the movies (Columbia Pictures).

Read it because you will not get sorry!