"The Real Da Vinci Code" on Discovery Channel

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I’m going to preface this by stating upfront that I am Jewish and therefore have no personal religious stake in the claims of Dan Brown. However I am also a historian by training and I detest bad historical research, which “The DaVinci Code” most certainly is an example of.

Perhaps you saw ads for this program “The Real DaVinci Code” last week hyping its broadcast on Saturday night. And the ads looked like it was all supportive of Dan Brown’s nonsense.

Well it’s not! It completely debunks, point by point, every aspect of “The DaVinci Code” and it’s source material “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”.

I’d actually been aware of this program for sometime and was dying to see it. It’s a British import hosted by Tony Robinson. For those of you into BritComs, he played Baldrick in the various Blackadder series, but he’s also produced and hosted several other excellent historical documentaries. And this one is of particularly high quality.

The basic scheme of the show works something like this, Robinson details one of the allegations in the book and then let’s various talking heads (along the lines of Michael Baigent and Elaine Pagels) natter on about how it may be right. Robinson then travels about the world looking for possible explanations and then they bring in respectable historians, art experts and journalists to completely rip the books to shreds. Showing how all Dan Brown’s and Messrs Baigent, Lincoln & Leigh’s claims just don’t hold up to historical fact.

Tony Robinson successfully manages to take fiction and hold it up to the light of fact. And he does it with a stylish sense of humor.

I think the best thing about this documentary is actually the fact that it does not use theology to make it’s point. The debunkers are largely secular writers and the facts cited are all publically available to the public if they are willing to do some research. This way DC fans can’t go around saying “Oh that’s just the Catholic Church point of view”.

I have one niggling complaint and that is that they used the Garden Tomb rather than the Holy Sepuchre when discussing the events of the ressurection. Perhaps they couldn’t get permission to film at the Sepulchre, but the claim that the Garden Tomb is the burial place just doesn’t hold up to archaeology and history. This is rather minor to my point of view.

On the whole I heartily recomment “The Real DaVinci Code” and if Discovery Channel repeats I think you should watch it.

–arthur
 
I’ll be looking for it. Anything that make that crowd look like crackpots is worth watching.

PF
 
I know I caught it on TV and watched it. I was waiting for the host to come out in support of the book BUT at ever turn he disproved the book. The best was talking about the society of Prion and how is was made up. He used the founders original words and talk about how they made up the society and the documents to prove their lies. And then to have the author of “Holy Blood” come and a say that there was no proof for his book (his book is the background to the idea of that the grail is actually the bloodline) but that it was a logically guess. There are too many great points in this show. I laughed all the time because as a history major I knew the book was fake but didn’t like to get in the details with others. The host has done and awesome job of bring how to use historical referenece correctly down to the people. He makes them follow a logical conculsions for themselves so that they can see that Dan Brown’s book is full of lies. The best is after everytime there is a question about when the book and history differ they use a clip of Dan Brown talking about how everything in his book is based on historical fact. It’s great because Dan Brown makes himself look bad.I would recommand this to anyone especial those who believe the book. The host does and AWESOME job of disproving everything about the book. Watch it the next time it comes on.

Beckers
 
Just found out it is on Discovery Times channel at 5 PM tonight. May be able to get home to watch it.

PF
 
I was able to catch all but the first 15 minutes of the program. I loved it. It really showed these people for what they are. People who do not care about the facts, only pushing their own agenda. I especially liked when it was revealed that Dan Brown would appear on the program since he was not doing any interviews.

Yeah Right!!! He knew he would be exposed as the fraud that he is.

PF
 
I show the show and was quite surprised.
I also noticed the Garden tomb.( A site claimed by some Protestants)
Howerver he did say it was one of the sites claimed.
It was only a backdrop and wasn’t essential to the point he was making.
 
What I found so fascinating was the Frenchman, Pierre Plantard, and his part in this ridiculous story:
The second and third versions of the Priory of Sion were each under the leadership of Pierre Plantard (1920-2000), an anti-Semitic Frenchman who went to jail in 1953 for fraud. In 1954, Plantard formed a group called the Priory of Sion to help those in need of low-cost housing. The group dissolved in 1957. Then in the 1960s and 70s, he created a series of forged documents to “prove” the existence of a bloodline descending from Jesus and Mary through the kings of France to himself (claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne). He and his associates called themselves the Priory of Sion and deposited these documents in libraries all over France, including the National Library.
Click to expand...
In 1993, however, Plantard admitted under oath to a French judge that he had fabricated all the documents relating to the Priory of Sion. The judge issued him a severe warning and dismissed him as a harmless crank Priory of Sion.
Click to expand...
 
I got a kick out of the show, and that it disproved the major points of Dan Brown’s book as it when along:) since many fall for that sad trap of a book. I was laughing/smiling everytime I saw the bobble head Jesus (think Sacred Heart) moving on his dashboard and the Divine Mercy key chain:).
 
I am so glad to hear that this show pointed out the error of the book. I was horrified to see the show being advertised. I told my husband I expected better from the Discovery Channel. When the show was on, my husband was channel surfing and I told him he better not land on that show that was a bunch of rot!!

Now, maybe I’d like to see it.

But now I’m confused, because didn’t Dan Brown always maintain that the book was only fiction. So now the claim is that it’s historical??
 
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