The Da Vinci Code

[Piper Plexed]

I recently finished "The Da Vinci Code" and I was so enthralled, finished it in 3 day! I realize it is "fiction" though, there is also much fact. The organizations discussed do exist and the book referenced Knights Templar and Scottish Rite of the Masonic Temple, were depicted accurately (as far as I and my Mother are allowed to know). I am from a long line of Masons, Dad is in the Scottish Rite, so is my Hubby. I must admit there was a part of me that was very excited by the prospect that Jesus truly lived his life as a man, it feels right and really got my imagination going.

The question for debate;
Were your Christian sensibilities offended by this work of fiction, loosely based on fact, or were you happy and charged up like I?

And why?

[cnorman18]

The Da Vinci Code, it's at the heart of the Catholic Church, it is so offensive it is unbelievable.


The book hits at heart of the Christian faith, specially the Church itself.

Making out that Opus Dei, is some assasination organisation at the His Holiness' disposal. Even when Opus Dei approached the Author not to write lies about them, he did it anyways.

This article, pretty much destroys all the theories he makes.

http://www.catholic.com/library/crackin ... i_code.asp

If you will look on the title page of the book, it says, "A Novel." That means it is FICTION. If it offends your religion, don't read it. Anybody dim enough to take the fictional conspiracies and intrigue in this book seriously has problems much bigger than a lack of faith in the Roman Catholic Church.

I am a Jew. My client, the 88-year-old visually-impaired woman for whom I care, is a Christian of a rather conservative bent. I read to her for several hours every day. We have just finished reading Francine Rivers' A Lineage of Grace, a set of five novellas based on the lives of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. They are reverent and deeply Christian books, very well written, and the deity and salvific power of Christ is assumed on every page. Today, we began Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe, another emphatically Christian novel. We both enjoyed the Rivers book immensely, though I do not share the author's religion, and I am enjoying The Robe as well -- old-fashioned, VERY literate and gracefully written, so much so that it's almost a sensual pleasure to read it aloud. I fully expect to be reading about the wonder and the power of Jesus as I read on.

Somehow I don't find all this upsetting. I can enjoy good writing, and can appreciate a divine Jesus as a character of fiction, though others might of course take that character, and the ideas that surround him in the book, more seriously than I. Perhaps you might take the same approach to the fictional Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code. Unlike the books I am reading, I doubt that anyone other than conspiracy freaks and other assorted nuts and flakes take that book seriously at all. It's more than a little amazing that you do.

[amptramp]

I read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" one week while I was in a jury pool (I never got selected to be on a jury but I had to show up for selection every day for one week) and the "Da Vinci Code" is basically a detective story based on the earlier work. A lot of good stories are based on a "what if" scenario and this is no different. I thought the movie of the Da Vinci Code was better than Angels and Demons, but Angels and Demons was the better novel.

Are there Catholic hit squads? Well, they got John Paul I, didn't they? (That ought to get a few comments, but the Catholic Church has committed atrocities in the past that continue into the present including to their own people - the Templars were destroyed on Friday October 13, 1307, which is why Friday 13 is now considered bad luck.)

I don't consider the premise that Jesus got married to be correct, but this does not mean that a work of speculative fiction needs to be condemned and as a work of fiction, it is quite good.

[His Name Is John]

I don't think The Da Vinci Code should be banned. I don't like the ideas of the book, so I just simply wont buy it.

The only issue I do have is that it doesn't clarify its fiction with its fact. That is a dangerous thing to do, as many people who don't understand the true history will become confused and mix up what actually happened and what didn't.

Actually that's not true, I also don't like using real current religious groups and making them your villains, that's a bit unfair in my opinion. Its like me making a novel about an atheistic cult called 'The London Atheists Meetup Group'. It wouldn't really be right.

Anyway, I think it would have been good if it had come with a little disclaimer saying that most of it was fiction and only a few historical events were used as a backdrop. But to be honest I don't really care that much. From what I heard the book is badly written and the movie was worse.