Post by JEM on May 21, 2006 1:24:31 GMT
The Da Vinci Code
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With The Da Vinci Code book a best seller across 150 countries in 3 years and the film in many cinemas it is well that we should be aware of the need to rebutt information in the novel that appears yto be offeredas fact when it is at best twisted and at worse untrue.t
The film about the Da Vinci Code has arrived at cinemas all over the country and will no doubt cause a lot of confusion, argument and discussion. It is rather ironic that the disciples of Jesus have taken sixteen centuries to get the New Testament into most countries on Earth but the Devils advocate Dan Brown has managed to get his alternative version into 150 countries in just 2 years, It has already caused some people to requestion or even loose their faith.
It is also an opportunity to restate the true Gospel to those who have rejected or neglected it.
There is a website that may help, and a booklet that you may find helpful to obtain, read and share with other people.
The website is www.rbcdavincicode.org and has been set up by the publishers of the daily devotional booklet that some in various of our congregations use, OUR DAILY BREAD, published by RBC Ministries, ( NOT the Scripture Union's "Daily Bread") .
The booklet entitled "The Da Vinci Code - Separating Fact from Fiction" can be obtained from RBC Ministries Europe, PO Box 1, Carnforth, Lancashire, LA5 9ES. No charge is made but donations towards costs are appreciated. Write soon as it is in heavy demand.
The book "The Da Vinci Code"many millions of which have sold is now one of the most widely read books of our time. It is a fictionous novel but it makes convincing reading for anyone who has neglected to read the New Testament. It opens with an impressive list of acknowledgements and a "facts" page giving the impression that the novel is based on a careful research of little known true facts. It seeks to undermine the Church whom millions already regard as a bunch or reactionary hypocrites not to be trusted. The atheists are having a field day with it .
It is built around the alleged existance of a secret society called the Priory of Sion and the claim that Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton and Victo Hugo with other scientists and a member of the British Royal family were members of it. It is based on the idea that Emperor Constantine in the 4th century commisioned a new version of the Bible that left out a lot of manuscripts that were subsequently burnt, but that some survived and were discovered in 1945 that tell "the truth" that the Church has been lying about for 1,700 years.
The facts are that Constantine came to power after a period of major persecution of the Church under the 3 emperors before him when all Bibles that could be found were burnt, churches closed, flocks scattered, bishops mutilated and imprisoned.
Constantine commissioned 50 copies of the Bible in Greek from the Christian Centre at Alexandria all hand copied and beautifully illustrated. At least one exists intact, and parts of a couple more and are used in the Greek New Testament versions since 1881 on which all modern English New Testaments are based. These manuscripts were negected by the Church for about 1000 years as their Bible was in Latin, and were not available when the Authorised Version was translated.
Also a lot of spurious manuscripts were burnt but these were writings of the Arian heresy that crippled the Church at one stage,and are not "the lost books of the Bible".
Amongsrt other things the "Da Vinci Code" claims is the existenve of a secret society called the Priory of Sion which it claims for centuries has kept the secret of the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene. There certainly has been a Priory of Sion, 3 to be exact, but none old enough to have possessed any early documents.
The Priory of Sion was first a monastic order not a secret society founded in Jerusalem in 1100 absorbed into the Jesuits in 1617.
The second and third Priories 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 he set up the Prory of Sion to help those in need of low-cost housing. It dissolved in 1957.
During the 1960s and 1970's Plantard created a series of forged documents to prove the existance of a bloodline descending from Jesus and Mary Magdalene through the kings of France to himself claiming to be the rightful heir of the throne of France. He and his associates called themselves the Priory of Sion and deposited these documents in libraries all over France including the National Library.
In 1993 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 harmless crank.,.
So the idea that Leonardo da Vinci was a member of the Priory of Sion and that that had secrets about a marriage of Jesus was based on documents since proved to be forgeries.
We as Christians may well be inclined to laugh off the "The Da Vinci Code" and the other conspiracy theories, but millions of people without a basic knowledge of Christianity regard these ideas as valid, just as they do a lot of science fiction and new age mysticsm so we all need to have available resources or sources we can recommend that explain the truth about the lies.
############
With The Da Vinci Code book a best seller across 150 countries in 3 years and the film in many cinemas it is well that we should be aware of the need to rebutt information in the novel that appears yto be offeredas fact when it is at best twisted and at worse untrue.t
The film about the Da Vinci Code has arrived at cinemas all over the country and will no doubt cause a lot of confusion, argument and discussion. It is rather ironic that the disciples of Jesus have taken sixteen centuries to get the New Testament into most countries on Earth but the Devils advocate Dan Brown has managed to get his alternative version into 150 countries in just 2 years, It has already caused some people to requestion or even loose their faith.
It is also an opportunity to restate the true Gospel to those who have rejected or neglected it.
There is a website that may help, and a booklet that you may find helpful to obtain, read and share with other people.
The website is www.rbcdavincicode.org and has been set up by the publishers of the daily devotional booklet that some in various of our congregations use, OUR DAILY BREAD, published by RBC Ministries, ( NOT the Scripture Union's "Daily Bread") .
The booklet entitled "The Da Vinci Code - Separating Fact from Fiction" can be obtained from RBC Ministries Europe, PO Box 1, Carnforth, Lancashire, LA5 9ES. No charge is made but donations towards costs are appreciated. Write soon as it is in heavy demand.
The book "The Da Vinci Code"many millions of which have sold is now one of the most widely read books of our time. It is a fictionous novel but it makes convincing reading for anyone who has neglected to read the New Testament. It opens with an impressive list of acknowledgements and a "facts" page giving the impression that the novel is based on a careful research of little known true facts. It seeks to undermine the Church whom millions already regard as a bunch or reactionary hypocrites not to be trusted. The atheists are having a field day with it .
It is built around the alleged existance of a secret society called the Priory of Sion and the claim that Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton and Victo Hugo with other scientists and a member of the British Royal family were members of it. It is based on the idea that Emperor Constantine in the 4th century commisioned a new version of the Bible that left out a lot of manuscripts that were subsequently burnt, but that some survived and were discovered in 1945 that tell "the truth" that the Church has been lying about for 1,700 years.
The facts are that Constantine came to power after a period of major persecution of the Church under the 3 emperors before him when all Bibles that could be found were burnt, churches closed, flocks scattered, bishops mutilated and imprisoned.
Constantine commissioned 50 copies of the Bible in Greek from the Christian Centre at Alexandria all hand copied and beautifully illustrated. At least one exists intact, and parts of a couple more and are used in the Greek New Testament versions since 1881 on which all modern English New Testaments are based. These manuscripts were negected by the Church for about 1000 years as their Bible was in Latin, and were not available when the Authorised Version was translated.
Also a lot of spurious manuscripts were burnt but these were writings of the Arian heresy that crippled the Church at one stage,and are not "the lost books of the Bible".
Amongsrt other things the "Da Vinci Code" claims is the existenve of a secret society called the Priory of Sion which it claims for centuries has kept the secret of the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene. There certainly has been a Priory of Sion, 3 to be exact, but none old enough to have possessed any early documents.
The Priory of Sion was first a monastic order not a secret society founded in Jerusalem in 1100 absorbed into the Jesuits in 1617.
The second and third Priories 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 he set up the Prory of Sion to help those in need of low-cost housing. It dissolved in 1957.
During the 1960s and 1970's Plantard created a series of forged documents to prove the existance of a bloodline descending from Jesus and Mary Magdalene through the kings of France to himself claiming to be the rightful heir of the throne of France. He and his associates called themselves the Priory of Sion and deposited these documents in libraries all over France including the National Library.
In 1993 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 harmless crank.,.
So the idea that Leonardo da Vinci was a member of the Priory of Sion and that that had secrets about a marriage of Jesus was based on documents since proved to be forgeries.
We as Christians may well be inclined to laugh off the "The Da Vinci Code" and the other conspiracy theories, but millions of people without a basic knowledge of Christianity regard these ideas as valid, just as they do a lot of science fiction and new age mysticsm so we all need to have available resources or sources we can recommend that explain the truth about the lies.