The Da Vinci Code

[scaeagles]

There is all sorts of an uproar in the religious community over this movie coming out.

It is fictional. While Brown did much research for the book, his twists many things (again, I don't say that he is trying to present it as fact) to make his story work.

Is there a reason for such an uproar? I find it interesting, actually, because I have learned all sorts of new things in reading information on the Gnostic gospels and Constantine and the history of the Christian Church in general that I didn't know before. I am only learning this because I am curious as to the reality of the situation that Brown has fictionalized in his book.

I guess I can understand that many fear the book and movie are taken as fact. I just am not worried about it too much.

[Alex]

It is somewhat silly to get too defensive about the book. Except for one thing: an awful lot of people think that the book has some basis in truth. Having been aware of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and its debunking for years before The Da Vinci Code came out I quickly dismissed it but a lot of people think that just because Dan Brown did a lot of research (he might as well do something well, writing certainly isn't a skill) it means there must be some truth to it.

I've had a lot of discussions about this stuff in the last few years and the amount of unexamined acceptance is high. I can see how the Catholic Church (and faiths that share similar basic tenets) would start to get irritated. Especially since the basis of the book, of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the conspiracy written of is that the Catholic Church has willfully, knowingly, and violently suppressed the truth about the religions origins.

You all know that I find the beliefs of the Catholic Church silly (as I do all religions) but the supposed conspiracy is much sillier.

[BarTopDancer]

You mean it's not real?!?! CRAP! What am I supposed to believe now?

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

You mean it's not real?!?! CRAP! What am I supposed to believe now?

Do what I do. Don't believe anything.

I think the extent of Dan Brown's research involved pulling Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Margaret Starbird's The Woman With The Alabaster Jar off his bookshelf. He lifts paragraphs practically verbatim from them. Neither of those tomes is considered scholarly. They're pop history of the most speculative kind, not uninteresting, but not earth-shaking.

My favorite part of Alabaster Jar is the bit about Walt Disney being a long standing member of this secret society dedicated to the "sacred feminine." This book, and it ends up in Dan Brown's novel as well, talks about how Walt hid symbols related to Mary Magdalene in The Little Mermaid, quite a feat, considering how dead he was at the time.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Doesn't the book start off by saying something like, "This is all true."? And Brown himself certainly hasn't gone to great lengths to disuade people from that impression.

But whatever. Conspiracy theories like this will always have legs. The beauty is that to those that want to believe it, denial and lack of evidence is the very evidence that it's true. So it seems rather pointless for the church to be screaming about it and begging for disclaimers since that just falls into "protests too much" for someone who's going to believe the conspiracy anyway.

[Not Afraid]

I've heard some of the uproar - at least bits and pieces of it but I haven't gotten into my own fact finding study. I heard a lot of these larger theories in school while studying art history, so it's nothing new. It just wasn't really in the popular zeitgeist until now.

I tend to sort of roll my eyes at most religious uproar. I'm just a product of my Fundi upbringing I guess. But, Orham Pamuk, Salmon Rushdie, Dan Brown - it's FICTION. (But, I tend to think that parts of the bible are, at best, historiclal fiction at this point.)

What is "the church" worried about anyways? Heaven forbid they are found out for simplifying and dumbing down history. Baaaaa!

Again, my eyes can't help but roll.

[Alex]

I don't think it is so easy to just say "ignore it, it's fiction."

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion started out life as fiction. Fiction that captured the imagination of certain populations and over time came to be accepted as fact. Would we be correct in telling all of the Russian Rabbis and Jewish leaders who tried to debunk to just "chill out, it's just fiction."

Now, do I think that The Da Vinci Code is going to be nearly as harmful as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? No, the Catholic Church is certainly in a much stronger position than ghettoized Jews in Russia were. And if people were just taking The Da Vinci Code as simple fiction I would think the best course is to just ignore it. But a lot of people aren't taking it that way.

They think it is a dramatized account of something that is true or could easily be true. And the central truth presented is a refutation of the central beliefs of hundreds of millions of people. I think it is fair for them to stand up and say so.

Just as it would be if I were to right a massively popular bestseller, that purported to be mostly true, and was just a retelling of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Fiction that touches a cultural nerve like The Da Vinci Code has, has a way of becoming mythology. And mythology has a way of becoming history. Not history that will be accepted as such in the halls of academia but history that will be accepted as such down at the corner coffee shop.

[Not Afraid]

This is one of the recent pieces I'vd hears about the uproar. Of course it's NPR.

[scaeagles]

Yeahm GD....Brown surely wants to make it seem as if his book is based on fact. I guess the problem is is that it has some historical accuracy in talking about real historical events. He just changes some of what really happened in the parts of those historical events.

I thought the forward of the book, however, included a disclaimer that it was fiction. Perhaps I am mistaken, and can't check because I had borrowed the book from my father-in-law and don't have it in my possession any longer.

[Not Afraid]

Well, the Frontspiece says:
The Da Vinci Code; A Novel.

He opens with 2 facts:

The first about the Prioir of Sion, the fact that it is a real organization and that there were some pretty renown members, including Da Vinci.

The second is about Opus Dei, some recent controversy within the organization and the location of the new headquarters.

The only other disclaimer is that

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

However, it IS a novel and therefore a work of fiction. But, fact and fiction certainly do thend to meld over time.