Re: [Re:

I would second these sentiments.  And I would add that I found it annoying
that in conflating 'traditions' DB (and others in works he cites) insists on
picking and choosing, without any clear criteria, different aspects to support
their positions.  For example, they are opposed to the idea of a virgin birth,
yet the evidence for virgin births among the 'ancients' is side by side with
evidence they cite to support the marriage of Jesus and 'ancient' and
venerable role of women.  They give not clear nor reasonable explanation for
the acceptance of one and the rejection of the other.

Tom

Elizabeth Vandiver <elizvand@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> "The Da Vinci Code" nearly caused me to burst a blood vessel. It is a
> DREADFUL book.  The burden of its song is, more or less, as DL said:
> 
> >. 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.
> 
> Over and over again, Brown suggests that pagan antiquity considered women
> sacred and thought that no man was whole or complete unless he got in touch
> with The Sacred Feminine through sexual intercourse;  that before the
> Council of Nicaea, the Sacred Feminine controlled the excesses of male ego
> in "ancient cultures" until Constantine and those nasty Catholics ruined it
> all; that men in Egypt, Greece, and other parts of  "antiquity" all reached
> Gnosis through the Hieros Gamos with a woman, etc. etc.  The conflation of
a
> multitude of different cultures into "the Ancients" drove me batty, as did
> statements like this (to take one example out of so many, so many):
> 
> "Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from
> matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of
> propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess
from
> modern religion forever.? (p. 124)
> 
> And to top it all off, it's not even a good novel. It's shoddy, filled with
> characters who can hardly even be called cardboard, and extremely badly
> written--the man has no STYLE at all. And the supposedly brilliant main
> characters are annoyingly stupid. I kept shouting the solution of various
> clues at them for PAGES before they "got it"--I mean,  two supposedly
> top-notch world-class cryptographers can't figure out simple anagrams right
> away? Come on ...
> 
> The only good thing I have to say about the book is that it (and today's
> NYTimes article which DL has kindly brought to my attention) provided me
> with several "teachable moments" for the students who (shudder) liked the
> book.
> 
> >I'd try to elicit a posting from the list-member to whom I have
> >alluded above, but as she explained in a long and elegant posting
> >today she is *much* too busy to post anything to the Classics List
> >right now!
> 
> Yeah, well ...
> 
> EV
> 
> Elizabeth Vandiver
> Distinguished Visiting Lecturer
> Department of Greek and Roman Studies
> Rhodes College
> Memphis, Tennessee 38112
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
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> 



Thomas H. Talboy    ttalboy@xxxxxxx
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~abxthjt1

Ubiquity Lectures International
http://www.ubiquityinternational.com

Centre for Ancient Drama and Its Reception (CADRE)
University of Nottingham
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/cadre

Digressus (c) Online Journal
http://www.digressus.org

Latin
Santa Catalina School
Monterey, California