Everybody likes a good conspiracy theory: shadowy secret organization holds some incredibly important information and/or wields vast power over most of the world’s governmental organizations (see also: The X-Files, most of the right-wing militia fringe, and the current Vice President).
Now, anybody who’s into conspiracy theories will recognize the driving conspiracy behind Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code quite early on. Let’s test your CQ (c’mon: Conspiracy Quotient) out with one phrase: Priory of Sion. Got it? Good.
Okay, one more hint: if you’ve read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, you know the whole basis of the conspiracy.
(I knew I was over the whole conspiracy theory thing when I read the follow-up to HBHG, The Messianic Legacy, and found myself far more intrigued by the bits concerning Biblical interpretation and what information was found in the Gnostic Gospels than I was by anything having to do with the modern-day conspiracy stuff.)
All right, enough background—on to the book. The Da Vinci Code is extremely entertaining. The best description I’ve heard of it is “Eco-lite,” which should give you an idea of the flavor: lots of esoteric information, with very little of it in other languages so you don’t feel like a moron the way you do with Eco. Robert Langdon, an American symbologist, is in Paris to give a talk. The curator of the Louvre Museum, Jacques Sauniere, asks to meet him for drinks but poof! gets murdered before they meet. Robert teams up with Sophie Neveu, a master cryptologist—and, conveniently, the curator’s granddaughter—and together they go on the run to solve the murder and uncover what Sauniere wanted to tell them before he was killed.
Brown propels the story along, even as he manages to spill a lot of cocktail-party information along the way. You know, the kind of tidbit that’s so much fun to toss off at a cocktail party: are you aware of the reported symbology in Leonardo’s The Last Supper? The story’s also written in “real-time”—once it kicks off, we see everything that happens, from Robert and Sophie’s run to a sinister Bishop with Opus Dei to an assassin trailing Our Heroes across Paris.
The Da Vinci Code: entertaining, with no academic requirements whatsoever before diving in.
And hidden here is an extra-special note for people who’ve read Holy Blood, Holy Grail:
The unfortunate thing about the whole Priory of Sion/Christ’s bloodline story is that it is, unfortunately, a hoax. A hoax dreamed up by the main character in the conspiracy, Pierre Plantard. The whole Priory-Merovingian-Knights Templar thing, totally made up. So sad.
Brown managed to write a very entertaining book about somebody else’s fiction. Hey, he’s #14 on Amazon, so he’s doing okay.
Though I am not a Roman Catholic, I do love history so I am aware of many of your questions. Perhaps I can shed some light on some of them:
l)Why do we celebrate Jesus’s birthday On Dec. 25 when it is clear he was born in the summertime?
My answer: The exact date of Jesus’ birth is debateable so why do so many Christians celebrate his birth on Dec 25, the Roman holiday of Saturnalia? To answer that, we must first take a closer inspection of the feast of Saturnalia. The festival was celebrated with a lot of merriment from Dec 17-25. Then on Dec 25, a select member from the community was sacrificed to the Gods as a ward against evil. Since Biblical scripture gave no indication of the exact day of Jesus’ birth, Christians chose December 25 to celebrate the birth of Jesus in an effort to surplant the brutality of Saturnalia. A great many Romans who converted to Christianity drew many of their Christmas traditions from Saturnalia and many of those practices are still prevelant today. However, it is safe to say that most of these traditions (such as gift-giving) are more cultural than religious. If you have ever been to a RC church on Dec 25, you will see none of the Saturnalian traditions being practiced. Some Christian communities don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus on Dec 25 and some don’t celebrate it at all. So Christmas, the T.V. tradition you see all around you in December, is a cultural celebration and should not be confused with the religious tradition of Christian churches.
2)Why isn’t Jesus mentioned by historians of his time?
My answer: I think this notion comes from a perception that Jesus was a big and famous man while he was alive. You have to remember that Jesus was the son of a carpenter and not many Jews of his day took him too seriously. His crucifixion didn’t make much of a dent in their lives, after all, other men were being crucified just as he was. To the Hebrews, he was just another fanatic being executed – really nothing to write home about. It was his followers who took his teachings to heart, spread his word, gave up their lives for him (many were even brutally tortured and killed in his name), so it is natural that his followers would be more keen on writing about the carpenter son than any other people of his day.
3)Why are only 4 gospels part of the bible when there are many others that contradict these 4.
My answer: It is hard for me to answer this question because I am not aware of the “many others” that contradict the 4 (if you are referring to the Nag Hammadi texts, you should really read them as they are quite interesting). You will have to think of the mindset of the people who decided upon the gospels. These were people who were being stoned, crucified, fed to lions for what they believed in. They certainly were not the impressionable kind. The 4 gospels that made it into the New Testament as we know it, were written during the lifetime of Christ by either his disciples or assistants to his disciples. The Nag Hammadi texts were written at least 100 years after Jesus’ death for a group of people (the Gnostics) who believed in the escoterics of Biblical stories and not the stories themselves. Now, if you were an early Christian about to be boiled alive for your beliefs, which books would you take with you to death – ones that were written by Jesus’ disciples or ones that were written 100 years later?
4)Was Jesus married and a father?
My answer: Most likely not, otherwise early Christian teachings would have celebrated his marriage. After all, it was Jesus who pointed out in many many sermons the importance of men respecting their wives and the important roles children play in society. In fact, Jesus had many women followers as well (you will have to read the Bible for all their names). On a similar note, The Da Vinci Code points to a certain Gnostic scriptures (I think it was the Gospel of Philip) where the disciples disapproved of Jesus kissing Mary M on the mouth. Well, it makes no sense to me tht they would be so surpised. Some of the disciples were married (like Simon Peter) so why would they suddenly be so shocked if Jesus did kiss his wife? Anyhow, all of this is irrelevant because the Gnostic texts were never meant to be studied literally, anyway.
5)If Jesus was a Rabbi and the Messiah why wouldn’t the Jews accept him – after all they
were looking for a savior?
My answer: That’s the point. The Jewish people of his day who didn’t accept him as the Messiah, remained Jewish and the ones who believed him became Christian.
6)Why did the Church make women 2nd class citizens?
My answer: I don’t know of a Christian church that makes women 2nd class citizens. If you are referring to those in the Roman Catholic(RC) church, then you would see that they worship Jesus’ mother, Mary, almost as much as Jesus himself. Jesus’ father, Joseph, is a saint, but Mary is right up there with God. In fact, much of the rose, chalice and vessel of God symbolism Brown attributes to Mary M, the RC church has attributed to Mary, Jesus’ mother for hundreds of years.
7)Is Constantine really that central a figure in Christianity?
My answer: Constantine was an interesting Roman fellow. He initially had no strong feelings towards Christians and was far too busy defending his territory to care that Christians were being brutally persecuted. Then one day, just before he was off to fight another enemy, he had a vision that told him to paint Christian images on the shields of his army. He crushed the attacking army and treated that as a sign that the God of the Christians wasn’t so bad. So as a show of good faith, he declared that Christians would not be persecuted anymore and released those who had been imprisoned. After this, he slowly began learning about Christianity and just before he died, he asked to be baptized. Constantine plays an important role in Christianity because he allowed Christians to practice.
8) What does the Church really know about the Holy Grail?
My answer: What does anybody really know about the Holy Grail. Neither Mallory, nor the Templars nor Brown nor you nor I know very much about the Holy Grail. In my opinion, Brown’s grail is just a myth. I feel this way because his thesis simply does not add up. Why would Jesus’ disciples allow themselves to be imprisoned and tortured (like Paul) or die horrific deaths (like Peter) for preaching that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on the cross and resurrected to heaven knowing all along that he ran away with his wife to France? In my opinion, Dan Brown was trying so hard to prove that the Christianity oppresses women that he pieced together several disconnected ideas without coming up with a clear thesis.
I am a huge history buff. I have spent many years studying the workings of different civilizations and I have been lucky enough to travel to many of the places that have been my lifelong fascination. Despite what Dan Brown says, history is not always decided upon by the winners (if that were the case we would consider Rameses II to be one of the greatest warriors of all times). Learning about history takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Treating a 400 page dime-store novel as fact will only narrow your view of historical truth.
How can Brown’s theories be correct, they is no real hard evidence supporting his theories in the “Da Vinci Code”. His knowledge and points on the topic is overwelming although with the many people who disagree it makes Brown look like another bias writer/historian. With all do respect Dan Brown is excellent.
I have read both Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code and found them both excellent reads. I am a catholic and I found some of the points made by Dan Brown whether fact or fiction are definately food for thought.
@Tara:
That’s where I beg to differ. His knowledge is certainly not overwhelming and anyone who has ever written a research paper knows that. Dan Brown reminds me of the kid in Junior High who scans a few websites to write his thesis. It’s not surprising that most of Mr. Brown’s fans are adolescents and those who refuse to uproot themselves from the realm of Stephen King and Michael Crichton.
Just a suggestion: read some serious comparative religion. Christianity, from at least the second century on, has been a synthesis of Judaism and paganism. Once in a while, a competent scholar in the popular media will lay it out in clear terms. For example, Christ’s trials and travails in the gospels closely mirror those of many pagan heroes in stories that predate Christainity, Hercules for example. Books like THE DAVINCI CODE and HOLY BLOOD HOLY GRAIL are an attempt to create some sort of living myth. They have an audience because many people are drawn to the idea of a sacred prescence made flesh and living in the world. The theory is a load of bunk, though. If you want a sacred presence, look into the faces of your children and try to make the world a little more decent and orderly.
I agree with you Mik, Christianity can be thought of as an offshoot of Judaism but forgive me for asking, in what way does the story of Jesus mimic the trials of Hercules?
it was really a great book.. i really enjoyed reading the book…
To the people who said Christianity does not make sense to them, they have a reason to think that. The first Commandment says “Take no other god besides God” God is NOT Jesus, Jesus peace be upon him came to deliver the same message as ALL the prophets before him, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, and finally Muhammad (peace be upon them all) they ALL came with the same message: to worship the One true God, the Creator of the Universe.
THis eternal message can be proven in the Qur’an which was the last book of God given to humanity because the other Scriptures had been changed by people who wanted to do that for their own reasons, be they political or whatever. 1400 years ago, the Big bang theory, the exact process of human embryonic development and other scientific discoveries recently being made by scientists are all in the Qur’an, the book that CONFIRMS the true message of all the Prophets peace be upon them since Adam.
The original message of Jesus peace be upon him was to worship the One true God that ALL the other Prophets worshipped and called to as well. but then Paul, who never even MET Jesus, who inititally hated Jesus, claimed he knew what Jesus’ message was…and that started Christianity which some people call “Paulism”.
Life is too short to be wasted by blindly following whatever is politically correct. we should follow the truth because we believe in it for ourselves and as human beings we have a brain we should be using to ask and find answers to these questions.
The core of DVD is actually to say Jesus is a man, a human.
If he is the son of God then I am too – a good son. So does everyone in this world – if they good.
I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code last night and now I cannot think of anything else. I’m dumbstruck. Its exciting and far beyond my expectations.
Pls mail about this to me as much as you can