Post by Barrigard on Jul 14, 2006 7:10:59 GMT -6
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading The Da Vinci Code may find the following rant somewhat “spoilerific”, even though its been known to twentieth century historians for a little while now.
The book, while being his first real decent work of fiction, is quite good. It does a very good job of combining academic intrigue and the suspense of a thriller. Interestingly enough the book’s academic content is less focused on Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, which are all quite interesting, but around the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
Contrary to the vast majority of the Christian community, the bible is NOT the word of God, it is NOT without error and it was certainly not intended by its writers to work as a single volume of religious literature. The Bible is set up into two different sections written by vastly different cultures and time periods. The first of which is referred to as the Old Testament or the Covenant of the Jews. This is where most of my cynical claims like “if Christians really treated the bible like they claim it is then they’d be sacrificing cows and stoning non-virgins on their wedding day”. This side of the bible is however irrelevant to the Da Vinci Code and has no direct mention of Jesus as it was written thousands and hundreds of years before he was born in about 6 CE. The Old Testament stands alone as a religious library that had slowly been added to since the time of Moses. I say library because the bible is exactly that, a collection of books. Each book was written by usually a different man in a different time period (though some people like Moses or Paul write several books).
Now the important section, the New Testament was written in the decades and centuries after the death of Jesus in 33 CE. They were written by Christians living in places like Jerusalem and Nazareth, its important to remember that the oldest section of the New Testament which refers directly to Jesus’ quotes and life are the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their authorship is technically anonymous ( lol anonymous) but it is certainly within the realm of possibility that they were written by their namesakes, though more likely they were based off the teachings of those individuals. The rest of the New Testament is written by certain individuals much later after Jesus died, and the bulk of it is made up of letters written by Paul, an early Christian sage who was grew up a Hellenized Jew who worked for the Roman government collecting taxes (I swear this is true, though when I look it up I can’t find any info on it, perhaps Follis was mistaken, that’s where I heard the tax collector bit) and persecuting Christians. After having a change of heart he became in my opinion the first non-hippie Christian and set the stage for a stricter and darker approach to Jesus’ teachings. The bible is finalized by a book written by John the Beloved (NOT John the Baptist, two different people) when he was sentenced to prison on an island at the end of his life. This is one of the vaguest books in the new Testament though lately it has gotten the most press. In it John sees the future and the end of the world as the Anti-Christ does all his 666 mumbo jumbo. I don’t hold a lot of stock in it at all, (though some modern technology is described as best he can) in fact its doubtful John even wrote it, seeing as Paul was big on the concept of the anti-Christ and bad people/non Christians being punished for sin. This is the book, for those of you who were wondering, most of the political events in the Left Behind series is based on. (Which is actually so idiotic its not even funny because they lose sight of rule #1 with the bible: its NOT chronological nor always LITERAL. Not to mention it has a crappy ending and has too many books just to drag them out and make money)
Next update I’ll talk you through who Jesus and is band of hippies really were and the structure of the early church as well as the rise of Catholicism.
The book, while being his first real decent work of fiction, is quite good. It does a very good job of combining academic intrigue and the suspense of a thriller. Interestingly enough the book’s academic content is less focused on Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, which are all quite interesting, but around the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
Contrary to the vast majority of the Christian community, the bible is NOT the word of God, it is NOT without error and it was certainly not intended by its writers to work as a single volume of religious literature. The Bible is set up into two different sections written by vastly different cultures and time periods. The first of which is referred to as the Old Testament or the Covenant of the Jews. This is where most of my cynical claims like “if Christians really treated the bible like they claim it is then they’d be sacrificing cows and stoning non-virgins on their wedding day”. This side of the bible is however irrelevant to the Da Vinci Code and has no direct mention of Jesus as it was written thousands and hundreds of years before he was born in about 6 CE. The Old Testament stands alone as a religious library that had slowly been added to since the time of Moses. I say library because the bible is exactly that, a collection of books. Each book was written by usually a different man in a different time period (though some people like Moses or Paul write several books).
Now the important section, the New Testament was written in the decades and centuries after the death of Jesus in 33 CE. They were written by Christians living in places like Jerusalem and Nazareth, its important to remember that the oldest section of the New Testament which refers directly to Jesus’ quotes and life are the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their authorship is technically anonymous ( lol anonymous) but it is certainly within the realm of possibility that they were written by their namesakes, though more likely they were based off the teachings of those individuals. The rest of the New Testament is written by certain individuals much later after Jesus died, and the bulk of it is made up of letters written by Paul, an early Christian sage who was grew up a Hellenized Jew who worked for the Roman government collecting taxes (I swear this is true, though when I look it up I can’t find any info on it, perhaps Follis was mistaken, that’s where I heard the tax collector bit) and persecuting Christians. After having a change of heart he became in my opinion the first non-hippie Christian and set the stage for a stricter and darker approach to Jesus’ teachings. The bible is finalized by a book written by John the Beloved (NOT John the Baptist, two different people) when he was sentenced to prison on an island at the end of his life. This is one of the vaguest books in the new Testament though lately it has gotten the most press. In it John sees the future and the end of the world as the Anti-Christ does all his 666 mumbo jumbo. I don’t hold a lot of stock in it at all, (though some modern technology is described as best he can) in fact its doubtful John even wrote it, seeing as Paul was big on the concept of the anti-Christ and bad people/non Christians being punished for sin. This is the book, for those of you who were wondering, most of the political events in the Left Behind series is based on. (Which is actually so idiotic its not even funny because they lose sight of rule #1 with the bible: its NOT chronological nor always LITERAL. Not to mention it has a crappy ending and has too many books just to drag them out and make money)
Next update I’ll talk you through who Jesus and is band of hippies really were and the structure of the early church as well as the rise of Catholicism.