Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 22, 2006 12:50:25 GMT -4
I was somewhat surprised to see that this board has nothing on this particular subject, when it seems to be a pretty hot topic at present (for obvious reasons). Maybe because the core of the conspiracy theory deals with rather distant historical matters instead of relatively recent engineering and technical matters?
I didn't find the book The Da Vinci Code especially entertaining or well written (in particular I guessed the identity of the villain and the solution to one of the clues long before the characters in the book did), and I have yet to see the movie. From everything I've seen in the various debunker programs, the book doesn't concern itself overly much with historical accuracy. It seems that it is the central premise - the conspiracy theory - that has people interested in it, not the details of the plot.
I find it interesting that so many Christians are upset over the idea that Christ being married is an attack on his divinity. I am a Christian myself, and I have no problem with the idea. I don't think it's possible at this point to determine positively if Christ was or was not married, but if he was, so what? The central premise of Christianity already rests on the idea that Christ was killed just as any normal mortal could be. If he can be killed and remain divine, why can't he also have been married and remain divine?
Just because a marriage isn't mentioned in the Bible doesn't mean it didn't happen. The Gospel of John closes with the statement that, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."
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Post by Bill Thompson on May 22, 2006 13:20:15 GMT -4
I am surprised that the book and the movie are popular. It looks to me like the book, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and so it is an old concept. I read that book as a kid and people talked about it a lot. I hear that the writers of this book took the author of The Da Vinci code to court. Although there were enough things different about the stories that the case was lost, the premise is the same except for the murder mystery aspect, I guess.
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Post by echnaton on May 22, 2006 18:22:56 GMT -4
My interest in The Da Vinci Code is very limited by the fact that it is a novel mostly about events that have no historical record. If it were well written fiction then I might give it a try, but most of the reviewer I have seen panned the quality of the writing. As Bill points out, the ideas presented are not even original. It is just another hack novel and Dan Brown gets some credence because he makes a lot of money off the book and will answer questions for the media. As far as discussing the conspiracy, how could anyone argue conclusively whether Jesus did or did not have a child with Mary Magdalene?
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Post by Kiwi on May 22, 2006 22:57:20 GMT -4
I was somewhat surprised to see that this board has nothing on this particular subject, when it seems to be a pretty hot topic at present (for obvious reasons). Maybe because the core of the conspiracy theory deals with rather distant historical matters... Not really. It's only a novel. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, writers of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail are not the only ones to write about an alleged bloodline descended from Jesus. Laurence Gardner, (now Sir Laurence) wrote Bloodline of the Holy Grail in 1996 and included many family trees which, if they are to be believed, go from Prince Harry, the Stuarts, the Romanovs and many others right back to Adam and Eve (actually Adham and Chaw-wah in the original Hebrew) . Some of Gardner's work can be viewed at www.nexusmagazine.com/articles.htmlPage down to the three articles "BLOODLINE OF THE HOLY GRAIL" on the left about two screens from the bottom. There are also other articles by him and an interview from November 2003 with all sorts of stuff about the Ark of the Covenant, the Templars, space travel, teleporting, and many other things that will cost you $39.95 or so to learn more about. Just search for Gardner. Regarding the possibility of Jesus marrying: He was a Jew (a revelation which shocks some Christians ), and wasn't it demanded of Jewish men of the time that they marry and father children? He seemed to follow most other customs, so why not that one? I have no problem with the idea, although I make no claims either way. <Modified to add the last two paragraphs because the post posted itself at one stage.> <Fixed typo> <Added Lincoln in first line.>
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Post by PhantomWolf on May 23, 2006 2:31:28 GMT -4
all you need to know to debunk the Da Vinci CodeHenry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are the Bill Kaysing and Bart Sibrels of Christian History. Dan Brown would be merely the same as Oliver Stone was to JFK.
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Post by gwiz on May 23, 2006 3:31:43 GMT -4
There was an interview with Lincoln on UK TV a couple of weeks ago. He didn't join his co-authors lawsuit against Brown, for reasons including the fact that HB&HG wasn't that original, they'd just given a lot of publicity to earlier theories. Also, there's his unstated reason that Brown's book has given a big boost to sales of HB&HG.
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Post by PhantomWolf on May 23, 2006 8:37:05 GMT -4
I saw a small interview with him (Lincoln) on a 20/20 interview last night where they dealt with the info in the link I posted above. He makes his living as a tourist guide spouting his claims. Even though he has been given the truth of it he won't accept it because it's his living. Hence why I call him the Bill Kaysing of chiristianity.
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Post by Kiwi on May 23, 2006 8:44:26 GMT -4
I saw a small interview with him (Lincoln) on a 20/20 interview last night... I saw that too -- it was an excellent little documentary. It didn't take them long to show in a straight-forward manner that from many aspects most of the story was recently hoaxed or invented in other ways.
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Post by PhantomWolf on May 23, 2006 8:51:31 GMT -4
Exactly Kiwi. The Wikipedia goes into the sordid details a lot deeper, but 20/20 did an excellent debunking in all of about 15-20 mins of airtime. Michael Baigent might not be able to ambush his "victims" like Sibrel (well they're all dead so...) but he cherry picks his information, ignores vast holes that would sink his work and then makes massive leaps of faith, jumping to his conclusions without any firm base other then his insinuations. Different Conspiracy Theory, exact same tactics by the CT's. I swear there's a book on how to be a CT somewhere.
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