The Da Vinci Code

[susandel]

Has anyone read the book- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown? Please tell me what you think about the religious point of view in the book. I totally agree with it.

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

I haven't read it, but after reading some reviews I can safely say that I am diametrically opposed to it's religious viewpoint.

Take the following review from Amazon.com:

TV mentality thriller with an axe to grind, September 8, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from Menlo Park, CA USA
I was very disappointed in the barely veiled attack on Christians, especially Catholics, in the book. Every few pages is an insight passed off as fact, or research. Among the his "insights" is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were sexual, and that "The Church" crushed this fact. And that there are "other gospels other than the "few" in the bible." That feminism was the truth that the Church eliminated. The "well-searched" book actually describes "Wicca" as an ancient religion. It was made up from the writings of Aliester Crowley within the last century. Those who believe Kwanzaa is an African holiday, will believe that Wicca is an ancient religion.

The author has stated in interviews: "was she [Magdalene] Jesus' wife, partner, confidante, beloved disciple, the "apostle to the apostles"? All this and more, says "Code" author Dan Brown. "I was skeptical, but after a year and a half of research, I became a believer," says Brown. "As soon as people understand that the few Gospels included in the Bible are not the only version of the Christ story, they begin to sense contradictions. Magdalene is most obvious."

Written with that breathless style that gets one believing that the CIA killed Kennedy, or that the Air Force is suppressing UFO information.

Ignorance gives free speech an advantage. Lies get around the world four times before the truth gets its boot laced.

[susandel]

I am Dyslexic and can not spell......pardon my spelling.

You say ignorance gives free speech an advantedge......

I attended Catholic school all my life and have always been baffled by what was being taught to us. When I would ask questions in school the nuns would tell me to 'not ask that question again' when thy in fact did not have an answer to my logical questions. I was always different and could not help myself when I had questions. I believe they were so ignorant and brain washed from thier teaching that they would pass on incorrect information.

There are over 65 different versions of the bible. The religions were made from the ones before. The Christian religion was formed by information taken by other religions and other ways of life. It is fact and when I read it in this book it made perfect sense.

I an now a Gnostic.....like Jesus was. I want to do what he says and not follow a dogma created by man. We know for a fact from research and church history that there were about 15 books deleted from the Bible that had to do with reincarnation and Mother God. Research it yourself if you doubt me. Start with the Council of Nicaea, in the year A.D. 325.

Why is it that Christians judge everybody. They are the first to throw stones? I know if someone does not believe the way I do they will not go to hell. Jesus never said that. That is what this book is about. It just explains how the Christians came about and how the heads of the religions....like Catholics wanted to be in control.

The Bible is a great book--but it is a storybook. It is the most dangerous book coz people will actually use it to judge and condem others with. Do you know the Old Testament is a collection of stories to be told to people for learning? It is not the word of God. When you quote a passage use the whole passage not just an excerpt...spelling?...... from it. Judgementalists do this and they hammer you with it and make you suffer but they are not following Jesus' teachings. I am not saying you are hammering me I mean in general.

I am going on and on...I just think people should read this book. If you ever read it you may see things in a differant light.

Have a good day or night where ever you are.......and pray along with the world today on 9-11....if God is going to hear world peace prayers it will definitely be today. I pray for the terrorists too....they need it more than anyone.

Thanks for suffering through my surmon.....Susan

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

Originally posted by susandel
I attended Catholic school all my life and have always been baffled by what was being taught to us. When I would ask questions in school the nuns would tell me to 'not ask that question again' when thy in fact did not have an answer to my logical questions.

If the nuns weren't weren't very smart, you could have easily looked to the works of Christian philosophers, historians, and theologians for answers.

Originally posted by susandel The Christian religion was formed by information taken by other religions and other ways of life. It is fact and when I read it in this book it made perfect sense.

Other religion (singular) i.e. Judaism. Christianity was not created by amalgamating several near-eastern religions.

Originally posted by susandel
I an now a Gnostic.....like Jesus was.

Uf. I presume you take the Gospel of Thomas to be an authoratative account of Jesus' teachings? There is no evidence to back up that assertion. Jesus was thoroughly Jewish, not Gnostic.

Originally posted by susandel
I want to do what he says and not follow a dogma created by man. We know for a fact from research and church history that there were about 15 books deleted from the Bible that had to do with reincarnation and Mother God. Research it yourself if you doubt me. Start with the Council of Nicaea, in the year A.D. 325.

Sorry, but there is no evidence that any Church council censored the idea of reincarnation from the Bible.

If one decides to opt for the theory that reincarnationist teachings were "censored" from the Bible, they must grapple with several difficult problems. First, when could this "censoring" have taken place? The common reincarnationist answer to this question often reveals a lack of basic understanding of early Christian history. For example, the passage quoted earlier from MacLaine's book suggests that these teachings were removed from the Bible "during an Ecumenical Council meeting of the Catholic Church in Constantinople sometime around 553 A.D, called the Council of Nicea."3 In response to this claim, we must begin by pointing out a few basic historical inaccuracies. First, The Council of Nicea, the first of the seven Ecumenical Councils, took place in 325 A.D. It was concerned with the teachings of Arius and their implications for a correct understanding of the person of Jesus Christ. The documents from this Council offer no evidence that the topic of reincarnation ever came up for discussion, let alone that it was condemned and removed from the Bible. No doubt this claim means to refer, rather, to the fifth Ecumenical Council, held in 553--the Council of Constantinople. The primary purpose of this Council was to ease the tensions in the Church caused by the Council of Chalcedon 100 years previous. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that the idea of reincarnation was ever discussed, let alone condemned and purged from the Bible. What the reincarnationists are probably referring to here is the condemnation of Origenism, which included belief in the preexistence of the soul. This should not, however, be confused with the notions of the karmic cycle of reincarnation. This is clear from Origen's own words on this matter when he writes of "the dogma of transmigration, which is foreign to the Church of God not handed down by the Apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the Scriptures."4 Other early theologians, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Gregory of Nyssa, also explicitly rejected the idea of reincarnation.

Another problem with this theory is the fact that manuscripts of the Bible exist dating back to the third century. For example, the Bodmer Papyri (dated around 200-225), the Chester Beatty Papyri (dated around 200-250), Codex Vaticanus (dated around 325-350), and Codex Sinaiticus (dated around 340) are all documents written centuries prior to the533 Council, and none of them reveal any supposed reincarnationist teachings that were removed from later editions of the Bible! Beyond this, it is known that the core canon of the Bible was essentially recognized and acknowledged throughout the orthodox Church as early as the late second and early third centuries, as evidenced by the list contained in the Muratorian Fragment (dated around 170).5 All of this points towards the impossibility of a conspiratorial purgation of the doctrine of reincarnation--or any other doctrine for that matter--from the Bible during any of the Ecumenical Councils.

In the end, all available evidence points to one conclusion: the claim that the Bible does--or ever did-support the concept of reincarnation simply has no foundation. Those reincarnationists who make such claims do so without any historical basis. It is instructive that the most noted scholar attempting to fuse the idea of reincarnation with Christianity today, Dr. Geddes MacGregor, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at U.S.C., openly admits that "the Bible does not explicitly teach reincarnationism, " and he gives no credence to the idea that such teachings were ever removed from the Bible.6 The Bible offers humanity not a seemingly endless cycle of karmic rebirth, but rather the hope of the resurrection of the body to eternal life--that is, to an everlasting relationship of love with the personal Creator God.7

http://www.xmark.com/focus/Pages/reincarnation.html

Originally posted by susandel
The Bible is a great book--but it is a storybook. It is the most dangerous book coz people will actually use it to judge and condem others with. Do you know the Old Testament is a collection of stories to be told to people for learning? It is not the word of God.

You are now contradicting Jesus.

[susandel]

I am so unhappy. I got out of bed tonight just to see if I had a reply from you. I have spent a least the last hour constucting a great comeback for you and the dang thing just got wiped away on my computer. I have no idea how it was erased.........and no it was not God doing that to me.
It is about 2:51 and I am very timed. I will write this again in the morning. It should be easy since I already know what I had written. I said in my last letter that I will have some things to research in my old files but I am exited. And NO....I never said I do not believe Gods word.. I will explain it later today after I get my nightly beauty rest. You no, we are on the same side but with different beliefs. If I am proven wrong I will admit it.

Until we read again...............take care.....Susan

[susandel]

Now I understand why people say never discuss religion. You and I will never agree. You are close minded....I can see it already.

First you say you have not read the book but you "are diametrically opposed to it's religious viewpiont."

If you have not read it and you are basing your assumtion on an article you have read in a magazine than you are the perfect type of person to live in a communistic society. You would be happy letting others do your thinking for you.

Secondly you quoted me as saying "the nuns were not very smart" when in fact I said "they did not have answers for my logical questions" and "they were ignorent and brainwashed from thier teachings that they would pass on the wrong information". They were very smart people.

This is the point I am trying to make and you have made it very easy for me by feeding me with your own comments.

I hope you can follow me....if you need to take a break while reading this do so. I would not want you to get a brain over loand.

When I said the Bible is a story book I ment it. As you just did, the book was written by people and translated over the years by people with there oun oppinions and while translating into other languages. One story has become a totally different story over the years. Just as you would tell someone I said nuns are stupid.

We as humans will always comprehend what our own brain sees in each story. I grew up in New England. I learned US History from a Yankee's point of view. When I Moved south I was having arguments all the time with people until I read the history books taught to the Southerners. Totally different. I guess religion is the same way.

I believe their are many things hidden in the Christian religion although I am a Christian I am a Gnostic meaning someone who believes God is good and not a fearing God. If I thought he was I would be putting humanistic traits on him. He is God a none human great God.

If you want to argue my points above than I will continue this discussion. Have a blessed day.

Susan

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

Originally posted by susandel
If you have not read it and you are basing your assumtion on an article you have read in a magazine than you are the perfect type of person to live in a communistic society. You would be happy letting others do your thinking for you.

I do not let others do my thinking for me. I read several synopses of the contents of the book, and realized that I disagreed with it.

Now, one need not read any particuar work in its entirety in order to know what's in it. For example, I have not read the Communist Manifesto, but I have heard the ideas which it espouses, and I can already tell you that I disagree with the book entirely. Bertrand Russel wrote a book called "Why I am not a Christian." I haven't read it yet, but I already know that I disagree with it. Likewise, if I read that some book or other passes off as hitorical fact myths about reincarnation being edited out of the Bible, I don't need to read the whole thing to know I am opposed to it.

Originally posted by susandel
When I said the Bible is a story book I ment it. As you just did, the book was written by people and translated over the years by people with there oun oppinions and while translating into other languages. One story has become a totally different story over the years.

The English Bibles that we have right now are translated form the original languages in which they were written: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. And there are so many translations that no one can get away with adding their own "interpretation" to the text. If any translators today distort the meaning to suit their own ends, like the Jehovah's Witnesses did with the New World Bible, or Martin Luther did with Romans 3:28 in his Bible, they receive general outcry from the rest of the scholarly community.

Originally posted by susandel
I believe their are many things hidden in the Christian religion although I am a Christian I am a Gnostic meaning someone who believes God is good and not a fearing God. If I thought he was I would be putting humanistic traits on him. He is God a none human great God.

First off, I don't think it would be possible for God to be good without being something to be feared. As C. S. Lewis correctly observed, the moral law, our best clue as to the nature of God, is not soft but tough as nails. Being in the presence of a perfectly righteous being would not be pleasant for us, it would be scary. We would become painfully aware of our own inadequacies. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the Sermon on the Mount. It is the Word of a righteous God, and it is one of the scariest things ever written. Jesus doesn't speak soft, comforting words. He basically says "you are evil; give up everything and become perfect or you'll end up in Gehenna."

Also, there is nothing inherently wrong with a little anthropomorphism. I will borrow again from C. S. Lewis:

"When we point out that what the Christians mean [when they talk about God] is not to be identified with their [man-like] mental pictures, some people say, 'In that case, would it not be better to get rid of the mental pictures, and of the language which suggests them, altogether?' But this is impossible. The people who recommend it have not noticed that when they try to get rid of man-like, or as they are called, 'anthropomorphic', images they merely succeed in substituting images of some other kind. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says one, 'but I do believe in a great spiritual force.' What he has not noticed is that the word 'force' has let in all sorts of images about winds and tides and electricity and gravitation. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says another, 'but I do believe we are all parts of one great Being which moves and works through us all' - not noticing that he has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and royal-looking man for the image of some widely extended gas or fluid. A girl I knew was brought up by 'higher thinking' parents to regard God as a perfect 'substance'; in later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca). We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity, but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the man-like images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience. He has, at least, conquered the globe, honoured (though not followed) virtue, achieved knowledge, made poetry, music and art. If God exists at all it is not unreasonable to suppose that we are less unlike Him than anything else we know. No doubt we are unspeakably different from Him; to that extent all man-like images are false. But those images of shapeless mists and irrational forces which, unacknowledged, haunt the mind when we think we are rising to the conception of impersonal and absolute Being, must be very much more so. For images, of the one kind or of the other, will come, we cannot jump off our own shadow..."

(C.S. Lewis. "Miracles: A Preliminary Study" P. 117-8)