All prejudice aside (The Da Vinci Code)

[Urf]

Ok, I didnt come here to start a flame war. I didnt come here to question anyone’s beliefs or state anything regarding my own opinion. I recently read The Da Vinci Code and enjoyed it a lot, knowing that it is a fictional book. I decided to check out the “cracking the Da Vinci Code” link and really, I’m just kinda disappointed.

I dont care who believes what, but I was just appalled at some of the things that were proposed as evidence against the book.

What evidence is there that Christians regarded Christ as God before the Council of Nicaea?

Christ’s divinity is stressed repeatedly in the New Testament. For example, we are told that Jesus’ opponents sought to kill him because he “called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18).

When quizzed about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God-“I Am” (Ex. 3:14). His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59).

In John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” And Paul tells us that Jesus chose to be born in humble, human form even though he could have remained in equal glory with the Father, for he was “in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6).

I’m sorry, correct me if I am wrong… but the author of the article wanted to address the issue of evidence supporting that Christ’s followers considered him divine prior to the Council of Nicaea. Right?

And… the bible was quoted 3 times. Wow. Just wow.

 

[kildare]

Don’t know why you disapointed with using quotes from the Bible, since it is well known that there were written well before Constantine and the council of Nicea. DVC may be an enjoyable book to read, but its so historically inaccurate that it begs a response. Similarly if someone wrote a book about how George Washington was a German spy who was just using the colonists to break up the British Empire.

 

[Urf]

The Da Vinci Code’s entire claim is based on the fact that just maybe, the bible today isnt what it was at the time of Christ. Given that, quoting the bible as evidence against DVC says nothing in itself.

You see, when people come up to you and say say for example, that the bible is a load of BS and that God doesnt exist, you dont say “Aha! But look here, in the bible it says that God exists! What do you have to say to that?”

See my point?

 

[Kristina_P]

Urf:

The Da Vinci Code’s entire claim is based on the fact that just maybe, the bible today isnt what it was at the time of Christ. Given that, quoting the bible as evidence against DVC says nothing in itself.

You see, when people come up to you and say say for example, that the bible is a load of BS and that God doesnt exist, you dont say “Aha! But look here, in the bible it says that God exists! What do you have to say to that?”

See my point?

I don’t know whether the link you referred to (lots of sites use the “cracking the Da Vinci code” title) addresses the whole “the Bible was secretly changed!” issue or not. You should look into that historical nightmare of an accusation before evaluating whether or not evidence from the Bible is acceptible. The “Cracking the Da Vinci Code” link on the Catholic Answers webpage does address the accusation and quite satisfactorily in my opinion. catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp

 

[tee_eff_em]

Urf:

The Da Vinci Code’s entire claim is based on the fact that just maybe, the bible today isnt what it was at the time of Christ. Given that, quoting the bible as evidence against DVC says nothing in itself.

You see, when people come up to you and say say for example, that the bible is a load of BS and that God doesnt exist, you dont say “Aha! But look here, in the bible it says that God exists! What do you have to say to that?”

In that case, you refer them to the copyright page of *The Da Vinci Code *and show them where it says “All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”


tee

 

[kildare]

Urf:

The Da Vinci Code’s entire claim is based on the fact that just maybe, the bible today isnt what it was at the time of Christ. Given that, quoting the bible as evidence against DVC says nothing in itself.

You see, when people come up to you and say say for example, that the bible is a load of BS and that God doesnt exist, you dont say “Aha! But look here, in the bible it says that God exists! What do you have to say to that?”

See my point?

No the point is, is that the book says that the 4th century pagan emperor Constantine wanted Christ to be divine, and called a council to further his own mish-mash religion which became Catholic Christianity. So they rewrote it. Problem is, is that Mathew Mark, Luke and John were writing in the 1st century and there is no mistaking that they believed Christ was God. Unless of course your saying that they made it up.

 

[manualman]

The Code would be a perfectly acceptable fiction action story if the author fessed up that it is nothing more than total fairy tale.

The trouble is that he wants to present himself as a writer of hostorical fiction like James Michener or similar.

The gospel of John is incontravertably older than Constantine. No question. No historical scholar with a JOB says otherwise. John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. The Word became flesh… and dwelt among us” (quote from memory, but substantially correct). Case closed. The guy is a clever media hound who knows how to make contrversy to sell books. And he’s done quite well! The mediocre plot and writing would never have sold so well without the controversy.

 

[CatholicSam]

Read writings by the Early Church Fathers (and Mothers, I guess ). They were written in the first couple of centuries and were students of the disciples. And their writings are not in the Bible. See if what they believed back in the year 100 is any different from what Catholics believe today. That would be a good way to prove beliefs and teachings.

 

[Urf]

This is depressing. Why bother addressing DVC at all if the only argument that needs to be presented is someone saying “The bible is correct and DVC is not”

No one really read my post or understood my point, so nevermind.

 

[rocklobster]

I still think DVC is more dangerous than Harry Potter ever could be. At least Harry Potter doesn’t disguise itself as reality.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Urf:

This is depressing. Why bother addressing DVC at all if the only argument that needs to be presented is someone saying “The bible is correct and DVC is not”

No one really read my post or understood my point, so nevermind.

I addressed the first post that interested me. But allow me to address your original post:

Urf:

Ok, I didnt come here to start a flame war. I didnt come here to question anyone’s beliefs or state anything regarding my own opinion. I recently read The Da Vinci Code and enjoyed it a lot, knowing that it is a fictional book. I decided to check out the “cracking the Da Vinci Code” link and really, I’m just kinda disappointed.

I dont care who believes what, but I was just appalled at some of the things that were proposed as evidence against the book.

**Why does a work of fiction need any evidence set against it?

(and how is this going to go, if you “didnt come here to … state anything regarding [your] own opinion” ?)

tee

 

[manualman]

When you disqualify all of the available historical accounts and the bibical accounts (the historicity of which in regards to new testament is largely agreed upon in scholarly circles), what more evidence could there be?

What do you want, a 2,000 year old guy to come forward and say it’s true?

If there is somebody not reading posts carefully enough here, you better reconsider who it is.

 

[Urf]

tee_eff_em:

I addressed the first post that interested me. But allow me to address your original post:

**Why does a work of fiction need *any ***evidence set against it?

I dunno, obviously it requires a certain amount, judging by all of the attention DVC is getting. I didnt decide that it did for myself.

(and how is this going to go, if you “didnt come here to … state anything regarding [your] own opinion” ?)

tee

This isnt my opinion on DVC or any of it’s aspects really. I’m just confused about why certain parts of the “cracking the Da Vinci Code” argument are put there, since they dont really say anything unless you’re already assuming that DVC is completely false. My understanding was that it’s purpose was to “crack” it. Not shove it under a rock.

When you disqualify all of the available historical accounts and the bibical accounts (the historicity of which in regards to new testament is largely agreed upon in scholarly circles), what more evidence could there be?

What do you want, a 2,000 year old guy to come forward and say it’s true?

If there is somebody not reading posts carefully enough here, you better reconsider who it is.

DVC didnt disqualify all historical accounts. If you want to actually discuss this, then fix that and we’ll go from there.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Urf:

I dunno, obviously it requires a certain amount, judging by all of the attention DVC is getting. I didnt decide that it did for myself.

This isnt my opinion on DVC or any of it’s aspects really. I’m just confused about why certain parts of the “cracking the Da Vinci Code” argument are put there, since they dont really say anything unless you’re already assuming that DVC is completely false. My understanding was that it’s purpose was to “crack” it. Not shove it under a rock.

You’d do better to ask the author(s) of the “cracking the Da Vinci Code” link why they wrote what they wrote, rather than ask strangers to defend author(s) and work(s) unknown to them.

And, in my opinion, you misunderstand the “title”, “cracking the Da Vinci Code” – I think it’s a play on words and not meant to be taken literally. In fact, I would bet anyone using such a title doesn’t really believe DaVinci had a code, or at least not the one(s) presented in the book. (I know he did make use of others, such as backward handwriting)

:twocents:
tee

 

[CatholicSam]

Urf:

I dunno, obviously it requires a certain amount, judging by all of the attention DVC is getting.

So… something that gets a lot of attention is true? The author himself claims this book as fiction, so why are you trying to prove it true? If it were true, the author would not have claimed it as fiction, would he? If it were “investigational” he would have claimed that instead, don’t you think? The problem is that if he did claim this book to be investigating possible truths, scholars would have found too many factual problems to even know where to start, and he would be automatically discredited. He knew this, so he called the book what it is: fiction.

Harry Potter is also getting much attetion. Gosh, but what evidence do we have that Wizards don’t exist? I hope that one’s not true!

 

[Urf]

CatholicSam:

So… something that gets a lot of attention is true? The author himself claims this book as fiction, so why are you trying to prove it true? If it were true, the author would not have claimed it as fiction, would he? If it were “investigational” he would have claimed that instead, don’t you think? The problem is that if he did claim this book to be investigating possible truths, scholars would have found too many factual problems to even know where to start, and he would be automatically discredited. He knew this, so he called the book what it is: fiction.

Harry Potter is also getting much attetion. Gosh, but what evidence do we have that Wizards don’t exist? I hope that one’s not true!

Here we go again. This is the whole thing about reading posts. When did I say that it was true? I was responding to someone who asked why a work of fiction needed to be countered with evidence that supported otherwise. I didnt say anything about DVC being true because it gets attention.

 

[CatholicSam]

Urf:

Here we go again. This is the whole thing about reading posts. When did I say that it was true? I was responding to someone who asked why a work of fiction needed to be countered with evidence that supported otherwise. I didnt say anything about DVC being true because it gets attention.

Ok, so then, why does it need evidence against it if it is not claimed to be true? You said that it obviously did need evidence since it gets so much attention. Am I wrong in my interpretation of this discussion?

 

[Urf]

What you just said was correct, but I dont see how you could jump from there to saying that I’m making the claim that anything that gets a lot of attention is true.

It’s not just what I think here. If DVC didnt need any evidence against it at all, no one would care about it. That’s all I was trying to say so the discussion could move on, and that was just in response to someone trying to say that it didnt need any evidence against it because it was fiction. It doesnt matter at this point, because lots of people are bringing evidence against whether it is needed or not.

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

Urf:

What you just said was correct, but I dont see how you could jump from there to saying that I’m making the claim that anything that gets a lot of attention is true.

It’s not just what I think here. If DVC didnt need any evidence against it at all, no one would care about it. That’s all I was trying to say so the discussion could move on, and that was just in response to someone trying to say that it didnt need any evidence against it because it was fiction. It doesnt matter at this point, because lots of people are bringing evidence against whether it is needed or not.

Ok, correct me if I’m wrong, but you are basically saying:

1. Some guy wrote a book that may or may not be correct
2. A bunch of people wrote books saying it was incorrect
3. Therefore the book must have something worth correcting.

 

[kildare]

Urf:

This is depressing. Why bother addressing DVC at all if the only argument that needs to be presented is someone saying “The bible is correct and DVC is not”

No one really read my post or understood my point, so nevermind.

But dont you realise that you are never going to get that kind of answer here? Who knows, maybe they rewrote the Bible a hundred years ago, and using just our innate knowledge we’re never going to know.
So where do we start. Start by trusting some reputable people, especially archaelologist and biblical scholars. If they have more evidence, and thats what seems to be the case, that the Bible proclaimed Jesus’s divinity, BEFORE Constantine came about, then we can take it that Dan Browns book is wrong. No?
Mind you, I’m not trying to prove Jesus’s divinity because it says so in the Bible. I’m just saying that the real evidence regarding his followers in the 1st,2nd and 3rd centuries seems to come to be at variance with what DB is saying. You can draw your own conclusions from that.