Church, work and stuff

[owl]

We're having a meeting at church tomorrow night on the Da Vinci Code. It's a sort of evangelistic judo, to use it for starting discussions on 'how reliable are the NT documents' or 'who was Jesus, really'. I managed to miss the bit where we trek around the town (we have the Hilliest Town in the County Down) shoving invitations through doors because I was at work (it has to be good for something).

If I were taking the meeting, it would run thusly: 'Frankly, I've seen better research in the pages of the Sun, and if Dan Brown told me the earth was round, I'd want to verify it before I believed it. Oh, and the characters are cardboard, the plot has holes big enough for dolphins to escape through, and the style stinks. Any questions?'

It's a good thing I'm not, then :)


Sometimes I love my work. Today I discovered that one of the other area teams had labelled their Deductions, D[eceased] file, "The Book of the Dead".

Comments

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

the plot has holes big enough for dolphins to escape through,

This amuses me so much. I mean, the general scathingness is interesting, though I haven't actually read the thing, but the dolphins just entertained me. (It also makes me wonder if there are in fact dolphins trapped in the plot.) I also like the "evangelistic judo." You have a way with words.

Today I discovered that one of the other area teams had labelled their Deductions, D[eceased] file, "The Book of the Dead".

And evidently some of your coworkers also have a way with words. Or allusions. :)

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

How about "Wake me if Dan Brown's still a bestseller in 4006" as a response?

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Other useful slogans:

"Albino monks. God's way of telling you the plot stinks."
"Believe the Da Vinci Code? I wouldn't join a cult that would have you as a member."

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

My problem with the DaVinci Code is the people who are treating it like it's fact. It's just a novel. I'm sick to death of all the "Cracking the DaVinci Code" and "Inside The Code" and "The Truth Behind the Code" books that are all over the place. The truth behind the code is there isn't any. What's next? Books about whether Hogwarts is real?

I haven't read the book myself, but the movie failed to impress me. Sir Ian McKellan is always worth the price of admission, but really, it was just "National Treasure, but in Europe." The plot was practically identical. The acting was better, but the plot was the same.

It's cheap historical fiction, and not very historical at that-- Opus Dai has only been around since the fifties, for starters. It's a beachnovel. I don't get why everyone's so obsessed with it. It really just Isn't That Good.

[/rant]

To play Devil's Advocate...

[skywalker-child.livejournal.com]

...there's a certain amount of logic to what Brown is saying, even if it is not 100% fact. A lot of what he said about the Catholic Church is true (having taken classes on the subject which verify statements about Christ's divinity, the choosing of gospels, etc). Is there ONE secret blood line of Christ hanging around out there? Probably not. Could Jesus have been a married man who made with the babies? Quite possibly. Does this make believing in his divinity and miracles any harder? Not for me it doesn't.

There were certain parts of his novel that read like a history book, but on the whole, it was enjoyable for me.

[ladyelaine.livejournal.com]

I've spent the last week or so watching all the Discovery Channel shows debunking the book! Much fun, that. But I'll still go see the movie, and then read the book.

What's more interesting to me are people's reactions to the idea of Jesus being a family man, than whether or not he really was. The religious furor on both sides is whacked.

Re: To play Devil's Advocate...

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Could Jesus have been a married man who made with the babies? Quite possibly

Just so. People have argued for centuries that he must have been, because it would have been commented on if he hadn't been. Look at the fuss about why Paul wasn't!
What annoys me, and stops me bothering with the book, is that all the discussion I've read suggests that some of the old hat ideas mentioned are new.

Re: To play Devil's Advocate...

[owl]

About the only thing Brown said that was true was that there was this Council at Nicea once. The way he tells it, Constantine strolled into the middle of the assembled bishops and went, 'I have this really radical idea—you'll never believe you didn't think of this before', and after weeks of frenzied debate (a damned close-run thing, as the man said at Waterloo, when he missed the last train home), the dissenting bishops went home and meekly threw their Gnostic texts in fire (possibly accompanied by a detachment of Roman soldiers to make sure they did it). He gives the impression that no-one considered Jesus divine before 325. Oh, and I wouldn't exactly call five dissenters a 'very close vote' either.

[owl]

It's that little thing on the first page which starts out Fact! All secret societies, artwork, ancient documents well apart from that embarrassing mixup between the Dead Sea and Nag Hammedi scrolls that is blah blah are as described in the novel

The man can't even get well-known basic facts right; what are the chances he's right about anything else? The number of people who actually believe it's all true, without verifying any of it, is....scary.

[owl]

Because six-foot albino monks make such inconspicuous assassins.

[owl]

I think that whether or not he was married is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not he was God. I do think that his hypothetical kids would have been mention in the context of the early church, though.

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

well, you read it in a book it must be true, right?

::eyeroll::

Gotta love stupid people.

[owl]

I considered pencilling in Necronomicon, but that's just too geeky. :)

[ladyelaine.livejournal.com]

I do think that his hypothetical kids would have been mention in the context of the early church, though.

Ditto.