Yeah, well anyone taking "The Priory is real" statement too much at face value isn't paying a lot of attention. Yes, that document exists. And yes, it's long since been exposed as a forgery. This isn't particularly obscure information. And I don't take it's inclusion at the front of the book too seriously. It's like a TV Movie of the Week saying "Based on true fact." Yeah, loosely. Very, very loosely.
Yeah, there are "facts" in the DaVinci Code. And there are theories, many of which are not exactly supported. Like I said, it's sort of like Sci-Fi. Star Trek doesn't use physics exactly right either, although it has some of the interesting point in it extrapolated to make it fun. Same dif just differing information. I don't think that Colleen McCoullough's First Man in Rome series is real history either. But it's an interesting novelization of that time period.
And, no, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not in fact Christian. They are contemporaneous, giving insight into a form of Judaism and lines of thought in the region within approximately the same era of time when Christianity first began developing.(To be honest, the "Essenes" always seemed a somewhat odd--even somewhat cult-like sect). However, their apocalyptic outlook does give some insight into what Judaism considered "Messiah" (which is, of course, quite different from what Christians mean by "Messiah") and as such the scrolls make a good tool of research into the region.
I'm not particularly (okay,I'm really not at all) religious. My interest is primarily in history. Jesus as a hitorical figure interests me. There will never be any hard fast evidence of one thing or another (as we are talking religion and thus that's based on faith) but we can learn a lot about the context and the era.
And the history of the Church has also interested me (then again you're talking to someone who took Greek/Roman history in college in something like 10 different versions from World History, to Tech/Civ history, Architectural History, Art History, Interior Design History, and several Study Abroad seminars on the rise and fall of Ancient Rome and the rise of Rome (as in Catholocism). So it's purely a historical/archeological interest on my part.
Browns inclusion of those things is fun, but not something that should be taken a face value any more than someone should look to Star Trek for an explanation of String Theory.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 04:28 am (UTC)Yeah, there are "facts" in the DaVinci Code. And there are theories, many of which are not exactly supported. Like I said, it's sort of like Sci-Fi. Star Trek doesn't use physics exactly right either, although it has some of the interesting point in it extrapolated to make it fun. Same dif just differing information. I don't think that Colleen McCoullough's First Man in Rome series is real history either. But it's an interesting novelization of that time period.
And, no, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not in fact Christian. They are contemporaneous, giving insight into a form of Judaism and lines of thought in the region within approximately the same era of time when Christianity first began developing.(To be honest, the "Essenes" always seemed a somewhat odd--even somewhat cult-like sect). However, their apocalyptic outlook does give some insight into what Judaism considered "Messiah" (which is, of course, quite different from what Christians mean by "Messiah") and as such the scrolls make a good tool of research into the region.
I'm not particularly (okay,I'm really not at all) religious. My interest is primarily in history. Jesus as a hitorical figure interests me. There will never be any hard fast evidence of one thing or another (as we are talking religion and thus that's based on faith) but we can learn a lot about the context and the era.
And the history of the Church has also interested me (then again you're talking to someone who took Greek/Roman history in college in something like 10 different versions from World History, to Tech/Civ history, Architectural History, Art History, Interior Design History, and several Study Abroad seminars on the rise and fall of Ancient Rome and the rise of Rome (as in Catholocism). So it's purely a historical/archeological interest on my part.
Browns inclusion of those things is fun, but not something that should be taken a face value any more than someone should look to Star Trek for an explanation of String Theory.