The Da Vinci Review

Well I never did get around to writing part four in my series on The Da Vinci Code, mostly because I was swamped last week studying for finals and whatnot, but also because I finally decided there wasn't much point. Everyone knows the book (and now the movie) is just a work of fiction and they take it as such. And from talking to people it doesn't sound like anyone really takes the premise seriously anyway, so there's no need for me to get into details. In any case, I finally saw the movie today (it was sold out on Friday when I originally wanted to see it), so I thought I'd write a short review.

Overall, it was very well made. Ron Howard has yet to make a bad movie. I like Tom Hanks, and I thought his portrayal of Robert Langdon was pretty good. All of Teabing's long speeches about the oppression of the church could have been a huge drawback for the pace of the movie, but no one can deliver a monologue like Ian McKellen, and he pulled it off rather nicely. And of course, Hanz Zimmer's music was amazing as always, especially at the very end when the camera sweeps down to reveal Mary Magdelene's tomb under the Louve (by the way, that was a spoiler. If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read the last sentence).

I noticed a few interesting things about the movie. First, Robert Langdon sounded more like the voice of reason to Teabing's raving, anti-Christian conspiracy theorist. For the first part of the movie he seemed to be very skeptical of Teabing's theories. The turning point for Langdon was when he found out that Mary Magdelene's child was supposedly a girl, which would have added "insult to injury" as Langdon put it and given the Church even more motive to want to cover it up. The funny thing is that after Teabing's long methodical display of all the "evidence" to support his theory, he throws out this little tidbit (he even somehow knows the child's name was Sarah) without mentioning a single source for his information or any spec of proof. Of course, that's because there isn't any. Also, when Sophie confronts Silas on the plane, she says "your God doesn't forgive murderers, He burns them!" She makes a great point, in fact she makes the same point I made. The Bible, which was supposedly put together by power-hungry men in order to secure their rule over the growing Christian "empire", doesn't support any of the activity of those evil men. Deciding that Jesus was divine and omitting a few Gnostic gospels doesn't give the church or anyone else the right to commit murder in the name of God. Sophie's comment only proves that the two thousand years of oppression and atrocities by the Catholic church don't reflect orthadox, Biblical Christianity. There's no need to reject the Bible and turn to paganism in order to be free of such oppression. And then there's the Council of Shadows. These men seem to know full well that Jesus was only a mortal and that he did have a child through Mary. And yet they are still portrayed as devout followers of Christ, not much different than your average Catholic. This doesn't make any sense. Who can actually believe in something they know is a lie? Silas can be so devoted to his faith that he mutilates his own body because he believes it to be true. This is the biggest problem with the entire conspiracy theory. Many of the original twelve Apostles, as well as others who had seen Jesus, were tortured and executed by Rome for their faith. This was in the earliest days of Christianity, when there wasn't even any notion that the Christian religion could become dominant and powerful in Rome. So we are to believe that men like Peter, Paul and John, who knew that Jesus was not God and that their faith was a sham, were willing to die for a lie. It's easy to convince others to die for a lie, if you can convince them it's the truth, but how many people would still be willing to die for what they know is a lie?

And of course, at the end of the movie (in an effort to avoid truly offending anyone), Langdon says something along the lines of, "all that matters is what you believe." As if to say, "hey, it's ok if you want to be a Christian, and it's ok if you want to be a goddess worshiping pegan, and it's ok if you want to be an athiest. After all, truth is relative." So basically, Langdon was condoning the actions of Silas, Teabing and the rest of the movie's villians, beacuse they were simply doing what they belived to be right. :D

In the end, the whole movie was just a big "what if?" The movie itself admits that there's no reasonable proof that any of it is actually real, but then goes on to tell the story of what would happen to these chatacters IF it somehow were real. It was good entertainment, which is all it's meant to be.

Anyway, it was a good movie. Definately worth seeing. As a side note, they showed the trailer for the new James Bond flick, Casino Royale. It looked really good, but I'm still really unsure about the new Bond, Daniel Craig. He's blonde (but as he pointed out, so was Roger Moore) and has bright blue eyes. He really just doesn't look the part, but I think he could grow on me, depending on how good the movie is. Here's the trailer, if you want to check it out.

Oh, one last thought. As it turns out, I decided I wasn't really all that thrilled with the Superman Returns trailer, but I recently saw the international trailer and it's way better. Here's the link for it, it's the third one down. Ok, Goodnight all!

Namecalling

Namecalling is a daily occurance. It certainly seems innocent enough, especially when it's all in good fun. But even when it's done out of spiteful anger it seems all too excusable. The problem with namecalling is that what it really is, at its most vile core, is an attempt to dehumanize one's enemy. When John is no longer a human being, but a selfish, arrogant, stupid son-of-a-b*tch, it's much easier to hate him. Specifically, it's easier to justify that hatred. Once your enemy is no longer even human, you don't have to be corteous or show them any manners. And morality is out the window. You can treat them in any way you wish to and your conscience is absolutely clear.

So whether you're lumping all liberal socialists together as lazy, idealistic elitists; or you're lumping all conservative Christians together as cold-hearted, close-minded biggots; or you're lumping all members of a certain race together under a hurtful stereotype, you're engaging in the dehumanization of another human being. If you believe that all Christians in this country are just blind followers of some archaic religion trying to stand in the way of scientific progress and your right as an American to kill unborn babies, it makes it a little easier to hate them. It also makes it easier to justify taking action against them. Once you've established the motives of the far Right as being primarily evil there's no longer a problem with leading the crusade to remove all Christian influences from schools, media and the government. All you're really doing is weakening the oppressive hold those close-minded biggots have had on our country for too long! Examples of this sort of dehumanization when it comes to members of a certain race are sadly too numerous to mention.

In the end, this might make it easier to hate the people you don't agree with, but this sort of dehumanizing was the first step toward the Holocaust. We should all strive to show love and kindness to our neighbors, anything less would be antithetical to the essence of Christian living. That doesn't mean we always have to agree with our neighbors or tolerate their beliefs, but we must always be tolerant of them as human beings. They have still been created in the image of God, and nothing can ever truly justify defiling His image.

Just in case you missed it

A full 7 minutes of sweetness. :)

The Da Vinci Hoax : Part Three

The fiction: Brown claims that Constanine had a new Bible commissioned that ommitted all the books that didn't fit with his new chauvanistic version of Christianity. Brown also claims that Jesus' divinity was voted on at Nicea, and only passed by a relatively close vote. Before that Jesus' followers only thought of him as a mortal prophet.

The facts: First off, I doubt Constantine was actually a true Christian and I'm sure his motivations were entirely political. I have no delusions that he wasn't just trying to keep a solid hold on his own power. But that's also no grounds to assume that he tampered with a religion that already had hundreds of thousands of followers across the Roman Empire whose theology was already well established before Constantine was even born. So here's the big picture: Constantine had just consolidated his hold over the Western Empire. In 318 A.D. a man named Arius began teaching that Jesus was a created being, and not the Son of God. Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, declared Arius a heretic at a local council in 321 A.D. and Arius moved to Palestine where he began spreading his teachings throughout the Empire via letters. The debate over this issue grew over the next several years until it came to the attention of Constantine himself. Constantine wished to keep all religions unified, especially Christianity, and feared this debate would lead to a serious division in the Christian church. Thus the Council of Nicea was called.

Was there a vote to determine Jesus' divinity? Technically yes, but the vote was to affirm the already established belief of the church and refute the heresy of Arius. Jesus' divinity wasn't an invention of Constantine or the council. And out of over 300 Bishops at the council, only 2 agreed with Arius and voted against Jesus' divintiy. This can hardly be called a "close vote."

The problem Brown faces with his assertion that Jesus' original followers believed him to be a mere mortal is that there are over two and a half centuries worth of writings from early church fathers that predate Nicea, all of which affirm that the prevailing belief was that Jesus was the Son of God. Among them are Ignatius, Clement, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and others, all of whom lived and wrote long before the Council of Nicea. Another problem he faces is that he claims the Gnostics were the "original" disciples of Christ. But if you actually read the Gnostics gospels, they believed that flesh was evil and only spirit was good, so they would not have followed someone who they believed to be a mere mortal.

As for the formation of the official Bible canon, this issue wasn't even on the table at Nicea. Constantine only financed a number of copies of the New Testament to be produced, and had no active role in choosing which books were included. In fact, most historical evidence confirms that the Bible canon was pretty well established by 200 A.D. Among this evidence is a canon list dated to the latter half of the first century (called the "Muratorian Fragment" after the historian who discovered it in 1704) that includes all but 4 of the 27 books of the New Testament (including the 4 gospels). This list also specifically mentions several Gnostic writings that were to be omitted as heretical, showing that Gnostic teaching was widely dismissed by the church long before Constantine came to power.

One last thing that is important to note is Brown's assertion that we can't trust much of recorded history because it was recorded by the "winners." The problem with this is again that Brown's timing is off. Until Constantine came to power and made Christianity the Empire's official religion, Christians were persecuted and killed for their beliefs. This is the time when all the early church fathers I mentioned above were teaching and writing. They can hardly be considered history's "winners" and yet their writings perfectly support the orthadox teachings that Constantine and his buddies supposedly invented at Nicea. Upon a closer look, it seems history is not on Brown's side. But that's the advantage of a conspiracy theory, you can simply fold all this evidence into the conspiracy and ignore it. *Shrugs*

There will most likely be a fourth and final part to this series, but I'm not sure what the topic will be yet. Be on the lookout. I really can't wait for the movie now (oh, and Misison: Impossible 3 was really sweet, if anyone wants to know. J. J. Abrams is amazing). Take care everyone!

Look! Up in the sky!

I'd like to give my faithful readers a chance to take a short break from their seething rage over the imminent relaese of The Da Vinci Code, and remind you all that on June 30th no one will even remember there was a book, let alone the movie. Enjoy.

Look! Up in the sky!