Re: "Da Vinci" Debunking

David Lupher mentioned _The Da Vinci Code_.

> I gather
> it also presents a very skewed picture of Greco-Roman paganism,
> offering it as a kind of Never-Never-Land of woman-friendly,
> tree-hugging values overthrown by the evil Constantine and his
> goons.  Have others noted this sort of thing in the book?

Yes, I've read the book and was disappointed. I think DL's assessment is
essentially right, though the goodies are presented as underground
neo-Templars and Rosicrucians rather than pagan nostalgists. The
'woman-friendly' aspect is the familiar story that Mary Magdalene was Jesus'
wife (and that she is the red-haired person of uncertain sex who sits next
to Jesus in Leonardo's Last Supper). All this agreeable aspect of
Christianity (including 76 Gospels that didn't make the cut) is thrown out
by the bad, bad bishops at the Council of Niceaea.

The plot proceeds at a cracking pace, but the vital clues to the location of
the Holy Grail (yes, I know) are encoded in puerile riddles, too
conveniently in English, whose solutions merely lead to another dramatic
confrontation at some carefully researched historical site. All this is
reminiscent of Denis Wheatley, if anyone remembers him.

Ralph Hancock
hancock@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.users.dircon.co.uk/~hancock/antioch.htm