Breaking the Da Vinci Code Darrell L. Brock PH.D

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.A further important scholarly activity has emerged from the discoveries of a Gnostic library in Upper Egypt at a place called Nag Hammadi.Prior to this discovery, our knowledge of Gnosticism, a form of Christianity that blossomed in many forms from the second to the fourth century, came to us from mainstream Christian fathers of the church.These Fathers' works refuted them, while citing them at great length in their refutation.Now we have firsthand Gnostic documents (although they are generally Coptic translations of original Greek texts).These texts show that there were a variety of interpretations of the Christ story and a variety of ways in which Christian life was lived.This important and helpful discovery deserves scholarly attention and respect.However—and this issue is discussed at further depth in the rest of the book—many fine scholars are suggesting that the Christian story, loved by millions and described above, has been imposed upon the Christian church by imperial and ecclesiastical authority.In other words, for almost two thousand years, Christians have been subjected to the mushroom treatment.If you want mushrooms to grow, you keep them in the dark and feed them rubbish.A return to a more authentic historical basis (the Jesus Seminar) and a recognition that Christianity in the early centuries had a number of faces that would not be recognized in the contemporary church (Gnostic studies) will produce a better understanding of what the Christian church can and should be.What millions believe is the result of their having been fed rubbish!Flying on the coattails of these scholarly activities comes Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.I loved it! It was a great page-turner, and I read it from front to back in a flight from Newark Airport to San Francisco.But between the lines, I was able to read the background of the scholarly discussions that I have outlined here.Into that mix Brown introduces further speculation, available some years ago in a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail.That earlier work described a secret guild that had its origins in the crusades.That guild possessed secret information about Mary Magdalene and her relation-ship with Jesus.A more recently established Catholic body, Opus Dei, adds passion, violence, secrecy, and corruption to the mix.Guilds did arise in the medieval period, and they still exist.Opus Dei is indeed a body of highly conservative people in the Catholic church, strongly supported by Pope John Paul II.Brown has knitted together these disparate elements—serious research, speculation about the activities of secret guilds, and the Opus Dei—into a very good thriller.What is amazing is that the book has caught the imagination of many readers.These readers are wondering whether the Christian story, as I outlined it, is purely the result of an exercise of power on the part of the Roman emperor, and the powerful suppression of alternative voices by the increasingly powerful Roman Catholic Church.When a book generates the feature article and the front cover of Newsweek (December 2003), it is affecting the popular imagination and calls for attention.Such claims have little or no basis in truth.I am aware that this is not the popular thing to say, but one must be honest.It is therefore a delight to be able to introduce this fine study from Darrell Bock.The issues raised in this Foreword receive a full and respectful treatment in the book that follows.Bock and I met only recently.He is a distinguished Protestant professor of New Testament.I am the dean of theology and religious studies, also a professor of New Testament, at one of America's major Catholic universities.Scholars of second-century Gnosticism have rightly insisted on the need to recognize that many expressions of Christianity have existed and have given life to generations of believers.I would argue that we need to accept that no single theological or ecclesial "system" can exhaust the richness of the Christian story.My brief indications of the different presentations of Jesus' entry into the human story in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and then John are but one indication among many that there is a degree of difference in the proclamation of the Christian message from its birth.From my Roman Catholic tradition, I am happy to join Darrell and his Protestant tradition to affirm that the "myth" of The Da Vinci Code does not have a leg to stand on in its attempt to dethrone the two-thousand-year-old Christian story of what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ.He has "broken"The Da Vinci Code.I trust that many will sense the openness, yet honesty, of the following pages.Francis J.Moloney, S.D.B., D.Phil.Dean, School of Theology and Religious Studiesand Katherine Drexel ProfessorThe CatholicUniversity of America Washington, DC 20064INTRODUCTIONLike millions of avid readers, I love a good read.Add a cup of intrigue, some famous historical figures, controversial institutions, exotic sites, and something to figure out, and you've got me.Entertaining fiction awakens the imagination and takes us into worlds unlike the ones we live in.Often fiction draws us in by working with realities just familiar enough to us that we are caught up in a fresh experience.That is why a good story has entertained us since Homer began to describe epic sea voyages in the Odyssey, hundreds of years before Jesus.But fiction is like virtual reality, a new phenomenon that stretches the imagination.Through technology we design a world, often as we wished it might be rather than the way it is.What emerges is also intriguing and entertaining, but it is still something short of full reality.Sometimes virtual reality and reality can be very similar and hard to distinguish.Knowing the difference between fiction and reality is important, especially when it comes to claims related to God, gender, and the history of faith.This book seeks to examine such claims.As I write, the very entertaining novel The Da Vinci Code sits at No.1 on the New York Times Best-Seller List, where it has occupied a high perch for thirty-five weeks.The first page of the novel lets us know we are in for a different ride.We hear of a secret society called the Priory of Sion whose members include figures such as Isaac Newton, the painter Botticelli (one of my favorites), Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.Next to this group stands the Opus Dei, a Catholic organization that allegedly brainwashes and engages in coercion.The intellects of the West are lined up against faith even before the action begins.All of this is placed under the banner of "Fact." The page's final sentence hammers the point: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." This remark surfaces as a kind of pop-up ad at the start just to grab our attention.But it also tells us that the story we are about to hear is set in a nonfictitious, historically accurate world.That sounds like something close to virtual reality to me.So the question is raised, How accurate is this work and its claims? Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? Did He have children? Did the Catholic church suppress the fact that His "family" fled to France as a way to protect His claims to divinity? Did the Bible emerge as a power play document in the early fourth century under the emperor Constantine after Christianity finally won its battle with paganism? Was the role of women suppressed in the early centuries of the Christian faith? In short, did the church lie?On the ABC News Special Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci, which aired on November 3, 2003, the book's author, Dan Brown, proclaimed himself a believer in these things [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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