Re the article below why is a fictional book being taken so seriously as an attack on the Bible by scholars? Normally it’d be kind of amusing to see work of fiction considered to be so dangerous, but the level of concern is apparently to the point they’re holding trials!
Why does The DaVinci Code have this power?
I know this is the wrong forum for this, but IMHO, anyone who takes The DaVinci Code seriously is a moron.
A much bigger threat to the Bible is Daniel Quinn’s The Story Of B.
Because the new Harry Potter book isn’t out yet? Because the Buster the Bunny episode about someone’s two mommies wasn’t a big enough deal? Because there weren’t any wardrobe malfunctions at the Super Bowl?
The Religious Right is constantly on edge, in a panic to keep our society from further moral decay. I guess the only answer is that people are stupid.
I’ve seen multiple different books in stores purporting to “debunk” the DaVinci Code. One wonders why they don’t also debunk “The Preacher” comic book the same way.
But there are a lot of morons out there.
And part of the “issue” (which I think is pretty lame to begin with) is that the novel has spawned a cottage industry of derivative works that do NOT label themselves as “fiction”, based on Brown’s “factual backstory” (ignoring that it is only “factual” within the fictional universe of the novel), and the sales figures are such that indeed it DOES seem like there are a enough morons taking that seriously to concern the more uptight of the small-o orthodox.
And part of the problem is, these are not common dismissable morons – a lot of them are respectable morons with purchasing power. That multiplies their influence.
Anecdotally I have observed firsthand the phenomenon of people who I sincerely expected they should know better, buying into:
(a) the Holy Bloodline, and/or
(b) Female-centric Christianity, and/or
© that Leonardo really had access to some Important Cosmic Secrets, and/or
(d) All Of The Above
…as factual, proven, hard-documented truth; and buying into it lock, stock, and smoking barrel, and with such sincerity I realize I’d need to start them off on a 15-credit-hour course sequence to get them over it.
It really IS taking longer than we thought…
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(But still… before we mock the idea that the next Great Heresy will have spawned out of a mediocre summer-reading potboiler, let’s consider if anyone back 50 years ago could have predicted that a self-help book by a pulp SF writer would eventually beget an up-n-coming “new religion” with celebrity followers, multi-million-$ cash flow, and foreign governments denouncing it as a cult.)
And I fear we’re out numbered.
Isn’t the Da Vinci Code simply based on fact?? My Bible teacher was talking about this and he made it clear that the book is fiction. He (and the rest of my Bible class) agree that anyone who believes the entire book and its story is a moron. I mean, it was true, there wouldn’t be such a thing as Christianity right now, right?
Well,
[ul]
[li]The Christian Church has not been very Feminist-friendly ever[/li][li]There is supposed to have been a Mary Magdalene[/li][li]She was supposed to have been very, very, very good buddies with Jesus[/li][li]There was a story based on these last two items about the Merovingian Kings of the Franks and a Holy Bloodline[/li][li]Southern France is full of castles once occupied by Knights-Templar[/li][li]Having been to the East, they were prone to decorate them with all sorts of arcane carvings and Holy Relics looted from the Holy Land[/li][li]They were eventually crushed on charges of heresy[/li][li]About the same time, medieval troubadours were telling tales of the lost relic called the Holy Grail, which in old French sounds like a pun on “Holy Bloodline”[/li][li]There was a Leonardo DaVinci[/li][li]His writings were often indecypherable[/li][li]He had some far out ideas[/li][/ul]
That’s about the sum of the facts behind the novel.
Somewhat ambiguous, eh, Parental? 
What’s more, many of the books you’re talking about were published before the The Da Vinci Code. Holy Blood, Holy Grail was published in 1982. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_blood%2C_holy_grail.
JR is right. But if you want a short answer, I’d go with “no.”
For some reason the thing that seems to bug them the most is any suggestion that Jesus might have gotten his freak on with Mary Magdalene. There’s a lot of pseudo-historical nonsense and conspiratorial hooey in TDC and I also think it’s crap even as pure fiction but the part that’s the most controversial is not actually that outre. 'm not talking about the whole Merovingian bloodline theory but just the per se suggestion that Jesus may have had sex. That’s what really bothers them and I’m not sure why. Strictly speaking, it’s not even anti-Biblical since nothing in the Gospels says that Jesus was a virgin or even that he wasn’t married. Even so, it seems to be intolerable to some to even consider the possibility that Jesus was sexually active.
He certainly loved a good time. I forget which Gospel, but there’s a verse where Jesus says to his critics: “John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, and you said, ‘He is possessed!’ Now I come both eating and drinking, and you say, ‘He is a drunkard!’” Some scholars believed Jesus was a former Essene who had decisively rejected that monastic sect’s asceticism (say that three times fast!), and made a point of showing it in his public persona.
Um, there were a couple more than that. We could list them all day. Just a few:
-The Louvre has a pyramid in front of it.
-Da Vinci painted The Last Supper.
-[spoiler]
One of the figures in the last supper does have somewhat more feminine features than the others.
Many other details of that painting and other paintings mentioned in the book do appear as described.
[/spoiler]
-The Mona Lisa’s smile is enigmatic.
-Opus Dei is a real organization.
-A million other details in the book.
The problem is that people take statements like the following, made by the author:
“All of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact”
And take it to mean, “Everything in the book is true.” Which is not what he said. The book refers to real things, but it is fiction.
I was talking to the deacon of my church when Stigmata came out about the issue of why the church makes such a big deal about condemning fictional works.
His take on the situation was that there are a lot of igorant folks out there who believe that the movie had some kind of basis in fact or knowledge of Catholic theology, and therefore regard it as a legitimate source of information on same.
I think the same applies to books like The DaVinci Code. People read the book believing that the premise of the book has some kind of factual or historical basis, when, in fact, it is pure fiction, probably based on a legend cooked up by the Merovingian rulers to justify their divine right to rule.
Well, when he says the art is historical fact, it’s not unreasonable to presume he means Leonardo really painted a chick at The Last Supper. And if the secret societies are real - he says it’s historical fact, which I think is debatable, but the phrasing leads you to think there’s an actual conspiracy out there. Thus, all of that lends some credence to the book. Not the plot, but the idea that Brown has discovered some historical truths that the RCC has been suppressing.
Real scholars? Or people who happened to get books published?
I would not claim that no scholar has linked Jesus to the Essenes, but the early segment of the Qumran Scrolls that originally got people excited regarding a Jesus/Essene connection has long since been fleshed out to reveal that the tentative connections are superficial in the most hopeful scenario. I have not actually encountered any scholarship that asserts such a link.
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A quick scan of GQ (with a couple of hits in GD and the Pit) turned up at least ten threads that were based on accepting as true some core aspect of The Da Vinci Code. If we can get that many hits (or more) from the (typically skeptical) Teeming Millions, think how many more people are out there who actually believe the silliness (further prompted by Art Bell, daytime TV talk shows, The History coughChannel, and the hordes who believe the even less plausible stuff that shows up in supermarket tabloids. That a bunch of Europeans are holding the symposium suggests (to me) that such silliness has an even wider market than I would have initially guessed. (It might actually have grabbed more attention in Europe simply because of the 200 year surge in anti-clericalism that has manifested over there.)
Of course, other possibilities might include some desire on the part of the participants to grab a little bit of spillover from the spotlight shown on the book in an effort to get more support (popular or financial) for their own pet projects.
The reason for concern is that many news stories about TDVC quote some unknowing readers who do take it seriously enough to doubt the Christian faith, believing that Brown is telling the truth about the New Testament canon process, the origins of the doctrines of the Trinity & the Deity of Christ, etc. While the Holy Blood theory has been around since the early 1980s, it spawned one article in C’nity Today and a fundy book Guardians of the Grail, suggesting that the AntiChrist would use the idea to solidify his claim to power. TDVC took the idea out of the fringe & catapulted it to the best seller list. Same reason the Jesus Seminar is taken seriously as an attack on the Bible, even though they are rehashing ideas that have been around since the 1800s at least.
“Dan Brown said it, I believe it, that settles it!”
Well, it’s nice to know there’s an upside! 