Any thoughts?
I was listening to the The Da Vinci Code (book on CD) this weekend while I was painting my new studio & addition. I haven’t quite finished the book but the stuff about Mary Magdalene seems quite interesting & plausible. Hasn’t it been determined that the Church falsely protrayed her as a prostitute?
I’m not sure I buy all the stuff about the devine femine, or even the blood line stuff but the notion about Jesus being married to Magdalene seems possible. Although, you would think that there would be more corroborating stories about it, if it were true.
holy moly mike!!.. i was listening to that same set over the weekend!.. i just started the fourth disc yesterday… this is the first novel to which i’ve listened on cd… so far, it’s pretty neat, but i think i still prefer words on paper…
very cool… but, now i have to avoid this thread until i finish to ensure that i don’t encounter any spoilers!.. 
i think that a lot of what’s in the book may be stretches of what is the truth… although, these conspiracy theories are fun!.. i googled “priory of scion” and came across a lot of info… reliability unsure, though…
best,
isaac
Haven’t read it, but my girlfriend has… it’s a work of historical fiction intermingled with historical fact. Sort of like someone writing a story about how Hitler invented the Atomic bomb first. Yes, WWII happenend, yes, Hitler was real, etc…
As for the Marys of the Bible, it’s my understanding that there was more than one Mary, which is what generally leads to the confusion. I’m sure one of our friends here with more knowledge of the Bible can provide a bit more detail…
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| holy moly mike!!.. i was listening to that same set over the weekend!.. |
Hey - we’re connected, right?
I’m on Disc 11 or 12 (I put in so many I can’t remember where I ended). Sure helped me paint.
If any of this book is true, then it’s the biggest conspiracy of all time, which is why it’s a little hard to believe. I don’t think I’ve heard that there are more than one Mary?
I know books were left out of the bible but I’d never heard of the gospels by Mary Magdalene. Also, the book seems to give alot of weight to the Dead Sea Scrolls but I thought that there wasn’t much new in these books, or is that just what they’re spinning about the scrolls?
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| I don’t think I’ve heard that there are more than one Mary? |
Ummmm
Mary Magdalene (the one that dried his feet with her hair and was considered to be the prostitute) and then Jesus’ mother…
Where in the Bible does it say that Mary was a prostitute? Was she the woman that was going to be stoned by the mob? The Bible refers to that woman as an “adulterer”, not a prostitute. And it doesn’t refer to her by the name “Mary”, either…
This is the reference to the woman about to be stoned…
Four different Marys, mentioned by name:
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| MAT 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. MAR 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. JOHN11-1 1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” |
I’m only talking about Mary Magdalene, not the other Mary’s?
| Quote (Mr Soul @ July 05 2005,16:05) |
| I’m only talking about Mary Magdalene, not the other Mary’s? |
Well… you said this:
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| I don’t think I’ve heard that there are more than one Mary? |
So I offered some passages for you to look at.
According to the Bible, who exactly was Mary Magdalene?
I don’t think that she and the “adultress” are the same person…
I don’t think there’s any scriptural evidence that Mary Magdalene was the adulteress mentioned in the Gospels.
It’s another one of those urban myths, like Eve’s apple. The exact species of fruit is not named.
(But evidence suggests it was a bananananana…but they edited it out, because although they knew how to start writing the word, they were never sure when to stop! 
)
My wife is a frequent reader of such interesting literature, I on the other hand vastly prefer “C++ Unleashed”, “The Perl cookbook”, “See Spot Run”, “My Pet Goat”, etc…
She did mention to me once the Book of The Essenes (sp?), who claimed that Jesus joined them in the desert after the crucifiction, and took a wife, who was named Mary also, I’m certainly not sure of any more detail than that, but the Essenes seem to corroborate this…
.-=gp=-.
| Quote (John @ July 05 2005,16:40) |
| According to the Bible, who exactly was Mary Magdalene? I don’t think that she and the “adultress” are the same person… |
Got to agree with John on this one.
Best way to decern the different Mary’s is to take notice to the Book it’s written in.
Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, ect.
All writers had a different relationship with Christ and joined him at different parts of His journey. So as a result, Mary to one means “Mary (the virgin bride)” and Mary to another means Lazureths sister. And I too am shure Mary Magdelen was not the woman who was being stoned, although…Tanks right, it’s a common misconception.
Oh yeah Mike…as far as that code goes…Bollock!
God will reveal to those He feels can undertand, not to those who think they are smart enough to figure it out on their own!
Keep shinin’
jerm
chutz:
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| …I on the other hand vastly prefer "C++ Unleashed" |
i hear ya!.. although, i must admit that i am of the enemy camp - i am a certified microsoft developer… and i am loving some c# right now… i read those technical books to the point that it annoys my girlfriend… the almanac is another favorite… i haven’t coded in c since solaris 2.? …
anyway, i have finished the davinci code… and i am not impressed at all… while i did find the subject matter of the secret society and such very interesting, the book as a novel (on cd) is incredibly disappointing… i would have preferred to just read some literature from a technical standpoint about the priory than to try to piece it together in novel form… well, a well written novel may have proven more entertaining… i was mostly interested in the cryptography notes throughout… if that’s your boat, then i strongly suggest “the code book” instead…
opining,
isaac
two links concerning this topic :
http://www.rbc.org/davinci/pdf/q1117.pdf
and for those speaking German :
http://www.sakrileg-betrug.de
only to think about truth and lie in this book…
greatings,
steffen
Oh my god, Soul why did you bring this up? The book is a work of fiction, mixed with a few “facts” most of which are wrong. the Dead Sea Scrolls are mostly unimportant to Christianity, they were from a Jewish sect that had nothing to say about Jesus (how could they?) - whereas the Nag Hammadi stuff is from a Christian sect that had gnostic elements,a dn it’s much more important.
The author of DVC has his characters saying stuff about the non-cannonical stuff that is pretty much the opposite of what it really is and says. Bart Ehrman has a nice short book on the use of non-cannical gospels in the book. And the truth about this stuff is so much more interesting than the crap in DVC.
On the Gospel of Mary read Karen King’s book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec…8205514
the Nag Hammadi library in English:
http://www.amazon.com/exec…8205514
For on line resources check here:
www.earlychristianwritings.com
If you haven’t heard of g. Mary then you haven’t really been reading any of my posts for the last year or two, soul!
Anyway, if DVC actually gets people to look at what all of the wonderful historical scholarship on historical Jesus and early Christianity, then I guess it’s a good thing, but the book gets much of it wrong, perhaps most, and the truth is soooo much more interesting than the book. If you are interested in this stuff don’t waste your time reading fiction. Mike. that book was written to make money, not as scholarship.
Why is it that so few people get the difference? 
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| Oh my god, Soul why did you bring this up? The book is a work of fiction, mixed with a few “facts” most of which are wrong. the Dead Sea Scrolls are mostly unimportant to Christianity. |
I brought it up because I think some of it may be plausible, plus I think Dan Brown believes some of it. I was curious what others thought.
I don’t think we know or understand all that happens during Jesus’s time & I don’t think current thinking is completely accurate.
Having said that, I do recognize that the book is fiction. I was listening to it to help me to labor and it worked quite well.
From what you are saying, there’s nothing in the book that’s worth pursuing? That’s why I posted - to get people’s opinion.
I’m not sure your characterization of the Dead Sea scrolls is totally accurate though. Aren’t we still be introduced to the writings? Other Christians are very interested in the Dead Sea scrolls.
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| …I on the other hand vastly prefer "C++ Unleashed" |
I used to teach C++ at the University of CA Extension in Riverside.
My characterization of the DSS is entirely accurate. The DSS are only important to Christian history as an example of the diversity of Jewish sects at the time. There is nothing in them that is Christian, and nothing about Jesus. Go look at them. That a big deal has been made of them is in part an intentional distraction from stuff like Nag Hammadi & G. Mary and such. You can guess why.
DVC is useless - no, positively harmful - as scholarship on this stuff. Again, go read the source material, see for yourself. The real story is soooo much more interesting. We know more about Jesus and his time than you think we do. Again, you can guess why this stuff is in the seminaries and not in the pulpit.
As a work of fiction I rather enjoyed the book, however.
Others seem to disagree with you:
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| And in terms of the quest for the historical Jesus, what does the story of the Essenes tell us? What light does it cast on his life and times? The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and our growing knowledge of the Essene community that produced them, gives us one of the most important pieces of evidence for the diversity of Jewish life and thought in the time of Jesus. Now, it has sometimes been suggested that Jesus, himself, or maybe even John the Baptist, were members of this group. And that can’t be proven at all. But what the Essenes and the Qumran scrolls do show us is the kind of challenges that could be brought against some of the traditional lines of Jewish thought, and even the operation of the Temple itself. So if one of our perspectives is that there is this growing tension in Jerusalem, the Essenes are probably the best example of how radical that questioning of Temple life might become. |
Dead Sea Scrolls
If Jesus was an Essence, and we don’t know whether he was or not, then the scrolls are indeed important. Jesus had an apocalyptic philosophy and the Essences did too. So I respectively disagree with you on this one.
Jesus was neither an Essene nor an Essence - White’s position is that there is no evidence for it, and that is the consensus view among all mainstream scholars. Those who have suggested some connection are fundamentalists reading the texts from a Christian perspective - which is historically silly, of course, but if one reads Isaiah as a Christian, then it is easy to see the Qumran community as somehow connected with John B and Jesus. Read the text as a Jew and you don’t get the same message at all. And these people were Jews.
That PBS series was quite good - although they gave too much credence to mythologized Christian readings for my taste - but Crossan, he’s your man.
So you disagree that Jesus was an apocalyptic individual?