... in homage to Columbo...
Upon re-reading an earlier post, I just noticed one more HUGE contradiction in Dan Brown's narrative. I posted this comment as an update to the original piece, but I'm also putting it here for those who only read the new material.
Read this again, closely:
"Constantine upgraded Jesus's status almost four centuries after Jesus's death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling his life as a mortal man... Constantine commissioned and financed a new bible, which omitted those gospels which spoke of Christ's human traits, and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike."
Brown has blown his whole thesis here, himself. One minute, he's boldly asserting that Jesus was not thought of as "godlike" until Constantine made him so. The next, he's asserting that some gospels were chosen and "embellished" on the criteria that they already made Jesus seem "godlike."
Well, which is it? If Jesus wasn't thought of as God, then how is it that Brown here admits that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were "gospels that made Him godlike"? And if those gospels already made him seem like God then...
(a) Brown's undercutting his whole case, that people didn't think this way beforehand -- he's admitting that readers of the four gospels undoubtedly already thought of Jesus as being "godlike", and
(b) if the Gospels already portrayed Jesus as "godlike", then why bother "embellishing" them? How would you "upgrade" them, if he already seems like God in them?
(c) Who, then wrote those "godlike-Jesus" gospels? It wasn't Constantine. And since Brown backhandedly admits those authors existed, then they must have had a genuine following at the time of Constantine. The "godlike-Jesus" people. So how do we know, if Constantine allegedly (Brown imagines) burned all the records, that these people weren't already in the majority?
In fact, they did exist, we do have ancient records, and they were the majority view. Hundreds of years of official persecution -- crucifixions, torture, and being fed to wild animals alive -- couldn't wipe evidence of the huge numbers of bible books they carried -- and I mean ones that are now canonical -- so it's absurd to explain the paucity of competing documents by one official ban. Other views were simply much less popular, had less staying power, and were on the fringes. And, as I show here, even people on the fringes wrote of a divine, godlike Jesus!
The amazing thing is, it seems from interviews that Brown himself believes this narrative is factual. Remembering Dan Brown was formerly a middle school social studies teacher, I wonder what on earth his students were taught about about other cultures and religions, given the kinds of "research" abilities he's displayed here. It seems his "reseach" was reading what some fringe New-Agers wrote and believing it unquestioningly.
Someone pointed out on another forum something else that you seem to have missed out on in your examination of the contradictions inherent to Mr. Brown's work. Namely, that Mr. Brown spends so much time telling us that Jesus was never divine until the Church made him so, and yet one of the major themes of his novel is the divine status of Mary Magdalane as a result of Jesus marrying her. IF Jesus was divine and Married Mary, THEN Mary equals the Divine Feminine. Yet at the same time he argues that Jesus was NOT divine, so the over riding theme of his novel, the presense of the divine feminine as Mary and the secret of the Holy Grail being Mary's womb is made completely pointless because 1) If Jesus wasn't divine then Mary and Mary's child were no more special that you or I. If that is true, then whats the point of all the cover up and hoopla surrounding the "secret" of the Holy Grail? A normal man married a normal woman and had a child? OMG, you're kidding me?! 2) If Jesus WAS divine then it supports the majority of the plot, but completely undermines the whole bit about Constantine and the Church somehow altering the story and "creating" Christ's divinity.
No matter how you look at it, Dan Brown's book cannot hold up under the weight of its own contradictions. I think there a very special person once had a saying about this very thing. "A house divided cannot stand".
Wow, didn't know that Troy! Thank you: great observation. Jesus wasn't divine, but his wife was -- hilarious! Does Dan Brown even notice these things?
I "seemed to have missed" that because -- as I mentioned elsewhere -- I've never actually read The DaVinci Code. I'm only reacting to what the girlfriend brings up, and the one or two snippets she's read to me.
All I can say is, if you, or I, or another, could find so many contradictions, inconsistencies, and factual errors in just a paragraph or two, I can't imagine what an exhaustive debunking of the book would look like.
Since it takes only a sentence to spread a falsehood, and several paragraphs to explain why it is wrong and point out the truth, a thorough debunking would probably approach dictionary size.
I only caught it because I saw it brought up in another forum, so I don't blame you for missing it. I forgot that you'd said you hadn't read it, but the contradiction is evident just from the few snipets you've quoted here, its just a matter of spotting it, which niether of us did.
I agree, a truly indepth critique of the novel would be frightening if we can make a list this long of inherent contradictions from just a few lines. I've personally not read any of the "rebuttal" works that have been released almost since the novel became the phenomenon it is now.
I've personally done enough research to know that all of his points relating to Mary and the gnostic gospels is bunk. I think an interesting topic for discussion now would be Mr. Brown's treatment of Opus Dei and the highly exagerated nature of his depiction of the group. It doesn't seem that he has out and out lied about the group, instead choosing to take a grain of truth and exagerate and expound upon it until you get a murdering albino monk that uses a cat o' nine tails on himself praying.
Someone pointed out on another forum something else that you seem to have missed out on in your examination of the contradictions inherent to Mr. Brown's work. Namely, that Mr. Brown spends so much time telling us that Jesus was never divine until the Church made him so, and yet one of the major themes of his novel is the divine status of Mary Magdalane as a result of Jesus marrying her. IF Jesus was divine and Married Mary, THEN Mary equals the Divine Feminine. Yet at the same time he argues that Jesus was NOT divine, so the over riding theme of his novel, the presense of the divine feminine as Mary and the secret of the Holy Grail being Mary's womb is made completely pointless because 1) If Jesus wasn't divine then Mary and Mary's child were no more special that you or I. If that is true, then whats the point of all the cover up and hoopla surrounding the "secret" of the Holy Grail? A normal man married a normal woman and had a child? OMG, you're kidding me?! 2) If Jesus WAS divine then it supports the majority of the plot, but completely undermines the whole bit about Constantine and the Church somehow altering the story and "creating" Christ's divinity.
No matter how you look at it, Dan Brown's book cannot hold up under the weight of its own contradictions. I think there a very special person once had a saying about this very thing. "A house divided cannot stand".
Posted by: Troy on May 17, 2006 01:49 PM