The Da Vinci Code

[yrieithydd]

So I finally got round to reading the Da Vinci Code. It's a vaguely amusing thriller, but there is just so much which is just plain wrong!

• Constatine shifted the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday because of pagan Sun-worship
  So, why is there a reference in Acts to meeting on the first day of the week? The basic reason for Christians worship on Sundays is because that is the day of Resurrection. It seems that this was not entirely codified until Constatine's time, but it wasn't a wholescale shift.
  
  
• Constatine made Jesus divine
  No, the church had been arguing about Jesus' humanity and divinity and how he could be both for years. The following quote is particularly amusing
  

  
  `The twist is this,' Teabing said, talking faster now, `Becasue Constantine upgrated Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constatine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprange the most profound moment in Christian history.' Teabing paused, eyeing Sophie, `Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels which made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gather up, and burned.' p. 316--317
  

  
  
  Has he read the Gospel according to St Mark?
  
  And this is an odd account of the formation of the Canon. Wikipedia's account of the formation of the Canon differs slightly. For example `Irenaeus of Lyons: c. 185, claimed that there were exactly four Gospels, no more and no less, as a touchstone of orthodoxy.'
  
  
• His `explanation' as to why the anagrams in the cryptexes are in English. On p. 403 he writes:
  
  

  The Priory, like many European secret societies at odds with the Church, had considered English the only European pure language for centuries. Unlike French, Spanish and Italian, which were rooted in Latin -- the tongue of the Vatican -- English was linguistically removed from Rome's propaganda machine, and therefore became a sacred, secret tongue for those brotherhoods educated enough to learn it
  
  (Bold mine, italics Brown's)
  

  
  The flaws in the argument are immense! English pure? It might be Germanic not Italic, but it's borrowed so much from French and Latin over the years, it has a tremendously Latinate vocabulary. I bolded only because that is absolute garbage. There are plenty of non-Italic European languages (the Celtic ones, the other Germanic ones, Slavic etc) and if you really wanted a pure language wouldn't you be better off with Finnish, Hungarian or Basque which aren't even Indo-European? Finnish and Hungarian being Fino-Ugric and Basque unrelated to anything as far as we know! The anagrams are in English because Dan Brown is American and writing in English!
  
  
• Isaac Newton's burial
  p. 514
  

  
  Sir Isaac Newton's burial, attended by kings and nobles, was presided over by Alexander Pope, friend and colleague, who gave a stirring eulogy before sprinkling dirt on the tomb

  
  My mum asked what was Pope doing taking a funeral when he wasn't a minister of religion. So I googled Isaac Newton Funeral and found the London Gazette's description of Newton's funeral*, apparently the `the Office was performed by the Bishop of Rochester attended by the Prebends and Choir.' Now I didn't know that Alexander Pope (the son of Roman Catholics) was bishop of Rochester!
  
  
• Roslin.
  Comes from Rose line does it? And it's on the sight of a Mithraic temple, and presumably quite early. So why does it have a place name based on English elements? It's far more likely to be a Brittonic placename as the area round Edinburgh was the territory of the Gododdin (which is also the name of one of the earliest Welsh poems!) who were Britons. Especially because both Ros and lin look like Welsh placename elements to me. Lin is, I guess, modern Welsh llyn `lake' and Ros would be Rhos which has two headwords in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru the first of which is a borrowing from Latin, rosapossibly via English or French and does mean rose. The second has Breton, Cornish and Irish cognates and comes, via Celtic, from an Indo-European root. and means, moor, high meadow and is a common placename element! Though looking at the map, there isn't a lake nearby, so perhaps I need to do a bit more checking.
  
  
• Longitude He also claims that Roslin Chapel is on the same meridian as Glastonbury. A few minutes with Streetmap taught me that Roslin Chapel's Longitude is W3:09:36** and Glastonbury's is W2:42:52 which isn't the same Meridian! Here's a streetmap map showing Glastonbury and the point at the same Longitude as Roslin Chapel marked by the arrow
  
  
• Our Lady
  He talks about French minsitrels singing lays to Our Lady and claims this is carrying on the stories about Mary Magdalene. But Our Lady is the BVM not Mary Magdalene and it is she who is the Mystic Rose too. Oddly she gets no mention at all!
  
  If it weren't for the bit which claims the legend and descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals are accurate, I'd just laugh.
  
  The sacred feminine stuff just got boring and actually, I don't think that taking that line would lead to more equality between the sexes. The description of the male orgasm being the way to see God struck me as very sexist. The woman was there just as a tool for the man as far as I could see, there was little about her getting a sense of the divine. I prefer `in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them' and `in Christ, there is ... no male, no female' myself. Yes, there are issues with how those ideas have played out in Christian tradition, but it's something to work with.
  
  Also, he `spiritual' stuff was all about knowledge and not about how we live.
  
  (Oh and where did he get the stuff about Jewish temple prostitues?)
  
  
  TBF, I think Dan Brown was just writing a novel rather using this legend. But why do so many people take it as more than that?
  
  *How does this site link to what the_alchemist used to do?
  
  *First I got W3:08:42 which was for where streetmap went when I chose Roslin chapel, place of interest, but then I moved the arrow to point at the cross by where it said chapel!

Comments

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

Having seen various ley-lines across Europe, they don't follow geographical meridians. I know almost nothing apart from the fact that the Camino de Santiago is on a very strong one.

I know some people who refer to leylines as meridians.

[curig.livejournal.com]

I thought the most glaring error was the Bible on the altar in St Sulpice. Missal, surely? And what's it doing there outside of Mass anyway? ;)

[caliston.livejournal.com]

I've just been reading a book on Neolithic and Bronze Age religious sites. He says (footnote p167):

"Cursuses must not be confused with Ley Lines, which were invented in the twentieth century and work on the principle that two distant places can be joined on a map with a straight line. They ignore the landscape, its prehistory and all archaeological knowledge."

(cursuses being two parallel ditches with banks on the inner side, a 'hard' archaeological feature part of the ritual landscape)

It would seem to me that there would only be a connection if one was created by a single culture at roughly the same time. The Camino is an example of this, but I'd be more sceptical of the existence of a line with fewer points which doesn't follow the landscape - you can draw a great circle between any two points! :)

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

But, he makes it quite clear that he's talking about meridians in the longitudinal sense when he first talks about rose lines when Silas goes to Saint-Sulpice.

On a globe, a Rose Line -- also called a meridian or longitude -- was any imaginary line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole. There were, of course, an infinite number of Rose Lines because everypoint on the globe could have a longitude drawn though it connecting north and south poles. The question for early navigators was which of these lines would be called the Rose Line -- the zero longitude -- the line from which all other longitudes on earth would be measured.

Indeed what he says about Rosslyn is:

The chapel's geographic coordinates fall precisely on the north-south meridian that runs through Glastonbury. This longitudinal Rose Line is the traditional marker of King Arthur's Isle of Avalon and is considered the central pillar of Britain's sacred gemoetry. IT is from this hallowed Rose Line that Rosslyn -- orginally spelled Roslin -- takes its name.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Those quotes are p. 149 and p. 564

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

It amused me in the film, because it showed that was a nonsense (the longitude thing), which is why I was thinking about ley-line type things

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

The lines I came across weren't necessarily mathematically straight (The camino certainly isn't straight) - rather like Light following the path of least resistance rather than going in 'straight' lines through certain parts of space...

Scriptures, our only safegard

[(Anonymous)]

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20. The people of God are directed to the Scriptures as their safeguard against the influence of false teachers and the delusive power of spirits of darkness. Satan employs every possible device to prevent men from obtaining a knowledge of the Bible; for its plain utterances reveal his deceptions. At every revival of God's work the prince of evil is aroused to more intense activity; he is now putting forth his utmost efforts for a final struggle against Christ and His followers. The last great delusion is soon to open before us. Antichrist is to perform his marvelous works in our sight. So closely will the counterfeit resemble the true that it will be impossible to distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures. By their testimony every statement and every miracle must be tested. Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them. None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict. To every soul will come the searching test: Shall I obey God rather than men? The decisive hour is even now at hand. Are our feet planted on the rock of God's immutable word? Are we prepared to stand firm in defense of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?