| The 'Da Vinci' divide |
| Christians who mostly turned the other cheek as "The Da Vinci Code" climbed the best-seller list are launching a counteroffensive now that Dan Brown's novel is set to hit the big screen. As the movie's May 19 opening draws nearer, Roman Catholic and other Christian leaders are unveiling new Web sites and speaking out in the media and from the pulpit. |
Great Caesars ghost. Sure, a lot of the things Brown includes in his fiction are inaccurate when it wouldn't hurt to be a tad more on the ball, but that's, gasp, why they call it FICTION. I cringed reading his descriptions of various historical sites the world over, and for that I always gave him a C-, but in understanding poetic license it was with a shrug and a what the hell. His stuff sells like hotcakes so who am I.
Tha absolute WORST thing you can do when you don't wish for his type of fiction to continue it's runaway success is to give it so much free publicity. Yes, there were other "saviors" that predated Joshua ben Joseph who were of virgin birth, sent from the heavens to save mankind by an angry Father, and died a horrible death in their early 30's when their followers turned on them. That's one of the reasons Christianity took off as it did when Constantine finally said to blazes with all of these feast days, let's package everything into one belief and be done with it. The people were accustomed to the tale, down to rising again after several days to be with the Father in heaven. The old religions borrowed freely from one another, and a great many attempts at translating the oldest known accounts of these men are so full of inaccuracies and cross-pollinization that no one has EVER been able to sort it out. The only historical record of ANY Joshua from the House of David was that of a retired sailor who lived at that point in time and was forever getting in trouble with the Roman authorities. There has never been an historical Jesus the Rabbi, and this isn't to say that he didn't exist, but to continue to get on Brown's case for postulating HIS version of the unprovable mythos is as hypocritical as it gets.
He isn't creating a religion; the man writes books. His versions of what might have been are just as good a collection of rousing tales as anyone elses. He isn't asking anyone to believe, he's asking everyone to be transported by their own imaginations to a decent enough story about one of history's greatest myths/legends/religions, or whatever you feel comfortable referring to it as.
Lighten up. And stay away from EVER visiting the older areas of any of the larger catecombs, or if you must, then don't bring along a guide who knows his shit.
6 comments:
You have it backwards. The Christian organizations are using the attention that the movie is creating to draw people to their websites. Nothing attracts attention like controversy.
It’s an example of the old adage that when God wants to plow a field he throws a harness on Satan.
The first time I heard about this book it had been a hit for a while. I can be out of the loop on what's hip sometimes, OK I'm never in on what's hip. A guy I work with was going on about it with the Illuminati and this and that, then he said that the pyramid at the Louvre was specifically built with 666 panes of glass.
I went to the computer looked it up and found there were 1,300 (?) panes. He gave me the book cause he wasn't going to finish it if it wasn't true.
I liked it, total BS, but it moved along and I'll probably see the movie.
I didn't know that there were other "saviors" that predated Joshua ben Joseph who were of virgin birth etc...
Were they also Jews? I know it's a very old myth predating the ancient Jews.
I know about the Dionysus myths that were very similar and the Hindu Siva myhths and that Dionysus may have been Siva the god who lived on Mount Nysa whom the Greeks named Dionysus.
Egyptian, pagan, roman, hebrew (sects) pretty much followed the Sun God script in one form or another, Pat. Lots of "fish" carved into the walls of parts of the catecombs that predated ben Joseph by centuries.
Again my disclaimer: this isn't to put down anyone's believe in anything. But 2000 years ago it was hardly new, and there's never been an historical reference to the deity from the House of David.
Bingo, and give Lem a ceegar. Gotta git up preety damned early to slip one past my buddy Calhoun.
I hear ya, socaloilman. Don't know if it was sloppy editing or what, but a good tale of intrigue should stand on it's own merit. even with the flubs.
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