DA VINCI CODE FALSEHOODS
Claim: The Merovingeans founded Paris. FALSE! Um, actually, the city of Paris was established over 7 centuries before the Merovingean dynasty by the Celtic Parisii.
Claim: The Church burned 5,000,000 women as witches. FALSE! The figure was more like 30,000 at the most, and most of them were killed by the government not by the church; as well, many were not women, and many were not burned.
Claim: The 5 rings of the Olympic games and the 8 year cycle are a secret tribute to Aphrodite (Venus). FALSE! The Olympics were held in tribute to Zeus, and the rings were designated to specify another year of games (which stopped at 5).
Claim: The Templars masterminded the Gothic cathedrals. FALSE! The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals, which were commissioned by the bishops of that day.
Claim: The New Testament was a manipulation by Constantine that displaced true accounts by gnostic texts. Constantine ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed. FALSE! The earliest Scriptural canon comes about two centuries earlier, and by then the gnostic texts were already dismissed as forgeries. And if earlier texts were rejected, then what of the Old Testament, which at latest, is more than a thousand years old?
Claim: Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted this in in 325. FALSE! Texts dated before Nicea confirm that Christians have always considered Jesus to be God made flesh and Lord and Savior.
Claim: No complete set of gospels predates the fourth century. FALSE! Historical texts actually date the Gospels to the first century AD, before even the gnostic gospels.
Claim: Roman Catholic Church referred to as 'The Vatican'. FALSE! Brown doesn't realize or at least mention that the Popes once took house at Avignon.
Claim: 'YHWH' comes from Jehovah, a cross between the masculine Jah and an antiquated name for Eve, 'Havah'. FALSE! Jehovah is a 16th century homophonic use of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai (meaning LORD).
Claim: Tarot cards teach the secret religion of the goddess. FALSE! They were used in a game from their invention in the 15th century up until the 18th to 19th centuries, when they were used for occultic purposes.
Claim: The Templars were suppressed by Pope Clement V, tortured, and burned at the stake. FALSE! King Philip of France issued this order, not Pope Clement, in 1307. Only 120 Templars were burned at the stake; the order was simply disbanded 5 years later. Oh, by the way, Pope Clement lived in Avignon!
Claim: Mona Lisa is actually a feminized self-portrait of Da Vinci FALSE! It's a portrait of a real woman, Madonna Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo (thus its real name La Gioconda).
Claim: The person seated to the right of Jesus in The Last Supper is a female, Mary Magdalene FALSE! No, it's John. Da Vinci used female features for several of his male subjects, such as John the Baptist (and again).
Claim: The pyramid in the Louvre is made up of 666 panes of glass. FALSE! ERCO, the company which provided the pyramid's lighting, notes that there are 793 total panes of glass.
Claim: The Priory of Sion is an ancient secret society formed in 1118 by the Knights Templar, dedicated to preserving Jesus's bloodline through Mary Magdalene FALSE! Sorry to disappoint Mr. Brown, but the P of S has only been around since 1956, and was the brainchild of a professional forger and prankster named Pierre Plantard. He was also an active anti-Semite.
Claim: The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s, and were the earliest Christian records. FALSE! They were found in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd. The Dead Sea Scrolls were Jewish, not Christian. They never mention Christ.
Claim: Francois Mitterand was obsessed with ancient Egyptian culture, as seen through the Louvre, which he commissioned FALSE! The pyramid was designed by I.M. Pei. Mitterand was an art connoisseur, but not necessarily of the Egyption culture.
Claim: Les Dossiers Secrets proves the existence of the Priory of Sion. FALSE! The documents are considered fraudulent.
Claim: Da Vinci has forgetfully left out the Chalice of Christ at the Last Supper FALSE! The scene takes place upon Jesus' announcement of his betrayer, which takes place after the table has been cleared.
Claim: That Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus is historically recorded FALSE! Nowhere is it mentioned, not even in the gnostic texts, that Jesus was married at all.
Claim: The Gospel of Philip says that Mary was Jesus' "companion"... which translates in Aramaic to "spouse". FALSE! Philip wasn't written in Aramaic; it was written in Greek; and the word used 'companion' in Greek is commonly used for friends, not for a spousal relationship.
Claim: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." FALSE!!! See above.
There you have it.... view the movie at your discretion, do the research, and draw your own conclusions. Remember, of course, that this is a work of fiction.
UPDATE:
Steven Bainbridge puts it well, quoting a master of Biblical apologetics:
Claim: The Church burned 5,000,000 women as witches. FALSE! The figure was more like 30,000 at the most, and most of them were killed by the government not by the church; as well, many were not women, and many were not burned.
Claim: The 5 rings of the Olympic games and the 8 year cycle are a secret tribute to Aphrodite (Venus). FALSE! The Olympics were held in tribute to Zeus, and the rings were designated to specify another year of games (which stopped at 5).
Claim: The Templars masterminded the Gothic cathedrals. FALSE! The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals, which were commissioned by the bishops of that day.
Claim: The New Testament was a manipulation by Constantine that displaced true accounts by gnostic texts. Constantine ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed. FALSE! The earliest Scriptural canon comes about two centuries earlier, and by then the gnostic texts were already dismissed as forgeries. And if earlier texts were rejected, then what of the Old Testament, which at latest, is more than a thousand years old?
Claim: Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted this in in 325. FALSE! Texts dated before Nicea confirm that Christians have always considered Jesus to be God made flesh and Lord and Savior.
Claim: No complete set of gospels predates the fourth century. FALSE! Historical texts actually date the Gospels to the first century AD, before even the gnostic gospels.
Claim: Roman Catholic Church referred to as 'The Vatican'. FALSE! Brown doesn't realize or at least mention that the Popes once took house at Avignon.
Claim: 'YHWH' comes from Jehovah, a cross between the masculine Jah and an antiquated name for Eve, 'Havah'. FALSE! Jehovah is a 16th century homophonic use of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai (meaning LORD).
Claim: Tarot cards teach the secret religion of the goddess. FALSE! They were used in a game from their invention in the 15th century up until the 18th to 19th centuries, when they were used for occultic purposes.
Claim: The Templars were suppressed by Pope Clement V, tortured, and burned at the stake. FALSE! King Philip of France issued this order, not Pope Clement, in 1307. Only 120 Templars were burned at the stake; the order was simply disbanded 5 years later. Oh, by the way, Pope Clement lived in Avignon!
Claim: Mona Lisa is actually a feminized self-portrait of Da Vinci FALSE! It's a portrait of a real woman, Madonna Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo (thus its real name La Gioconda).
Claim: The person seated to the right of Jesus in The Last Supper is a female, Mary Magdalene FALSE! No, it's John. Da Vinci used female features for several of his male subjects, such as John the Baptist (and again).
Claim: The pyramid in the Louvre is made up of 666 panes of glass. FALSE! ERCO, the company which provided the pyramid's lighting, notes that there are 793 total panes of glass.
Claim: The Priory of Sion is an ancient secret society formed in 1118 by the Knights Templar, dedicated to preserving Jesus's bloodline through Mary Magdalene FALSE! Sorry to disappoint Mr. Brown, but the P of S has only been around since 1956, and was the brainchild of a professional forger and prankster named Pierre Plantard. He was also an active anti-Semite.
Claim: The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s, and were the earliest Christian records. FALSE! They were found in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd. The Dead Sea Scrolls were Jewish, not Christian. They never mention Christ.
Claim: Francois Mitterand was obsessed with ancient Egyptian culture, as seen through the Louvre, which he commissioned FALSE! The pyramid was designed by I.M. Pei. Mitterand was an art connoisseur, but not necessarily of the Egyption culture.
Claim: Les Dossiers Secrets proves the existence of the Priory of Sion. FALSE! The documents are considered fraudulent.
Claim: Da Vinci has forgetfully left out the Chalice of Christ at the Last Supper FALSE! The scene takes place upon Jesus' announcement of his betrayer, which takes place after the table has been cleared.
Claim: That Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus is historically recorded FALSE! Nowhere is it mentioned, not even in the gnostic texts, that Jesus was married at all.
Claim: The Gospel of Philip says that Mary was Jesus' "companion"... which translates in Aramaic to "spouse". FALSE! Philip wasn't written in Aramaic; it was written in Greek; and the word used 'companion' in Greek is commonly used for friends, not for a spousal relationship.
Claim: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." FALSE!!! See above.
There you have it.... view the movie at your discretion, do the research, and draw your own conclusions. Remember, of course, that this is a work of fiction.
UPDATE:
Steven Bainbridge puts it well, quoting a master of Biblical apologetics:
Perhaps no one has ever captured the basic problem with the truth claims made on behalf of DVC and its ilk better than C.S. Lewis, who observed in Mere Christianity that:"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
All Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and that whole crew have accomplished is getting richer by saying that "really foolish thing."
posted by Pietro @ 10:58 AM
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