I found the programme an excellent piece of debunking of misinformation that is infecting the populace. The claim by Dan Brown is that all of the background material was based on fact.
At one point I thought I was going to have to read it to assist someone with some research, but when I found out the plot I discovered I did not had to.
The Da Vinci code code was a rehash of the 1982 book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", which I read in the 1980's
I found the claims outrageous in that earlier book and they did not feel right. It said that the wedding at Cana in John 2 where Jesus turned the water into wine was his own wedding, yet John 2 said he had been invited. You are not invited to your own wedding!!!
I have therefore waited nearly 20 years for Tony Robinson to come along and rip this to shreds and expose the fatal errors in their whole house of cards.
The exposure of the Priory of Sion as a Surealist Fantasy was wonderful to behold. Inspite of the documentary evidence that this order was set up as a hoax in 1956, the author of HBHG was still trying to stick to the untenable position that it was a real society dating back to the 11th century. For some reason he is not prepared to admit he was duped.
As for Dan Brown himself, did anyone else get the impression he was running scared?
He is not prepared to defend his claims when the cold light of proper historical research is brought to bare.
As for the New Testament, as some have wondered why that was not called into question
Well it has
By people such as
Sir William Ramsey Frank Morrison Josh McDowell
Scholars setting out to disprove the Bible once and for all with all the tools of proper research, the the authors of HBHG should have used
The result?
All were convinced of the accuracy and the veracity of the New Testament scriptures.
quote: I found the programme an excellent piece of debunking of misinformation that is infecting the populace.
How so? Robinson was giving his views on things not presenting anything verging on a historical argument. That's not to say the Da Vinci Code is accurate.
The Government is supported by one third of the voters and a quarter of the whole electorate.
quote:Originally posted by Sticks: I found the programme an excellent piece of debunking of misinformation that is infecting the populace. The claim by Dan Brown is that all of the background material was based on fact.
At one point I thought I was going to have to read it to assist someone with some research, but when I found out the plot I discovered I did not had to.
The Da Vinci code code was a rehash of the 1982 book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", which I read in the 1980's
I found the claims outrageous in that earlier book and they did not feel right. It said that the wedding at Cana in John 2 where Jesus turned the water into wine was his own wedding, yet John 2 said he had been invited. You are not invited to your own wedding!!!
I have therefore waited nearly 20 years for Tony Robinson to come along and rip this to shreds and expose the fatal errors in their whole house of cards.
The exposure of the Priory of Sion as a Surealist Fantasy was wonderful to behold. Inspite of the documentary evidence that this order was set up as a hoax in 1956, the author of HBHG was still trying to stick to the untenable position that it was a real society dating back to the 11th century. For some reason he is not prepared to admit he was duped.
As for Dan Brown himself, did anyone else get the impression he was running scared?
He is not prepared to defend his claims when the cold light of proper historical research is brought to bare.
As for the New Testament, as some have wondered why that was not called into question
Well it has
By people such as
Sir William Ramsey Frank Morrison Josh McDowell
Scholars setting out to disprove the Bible once and for all with all the tools of proper research, the the authors of HBHG should have used
The result?
All were convinced of the accuracy and the veracity of the New Testament scriptures.
More than can be said of HBHG and DVC
Excellent post, Josh McDowel, I have his book. Was lent it by someone. Quite a large book and copious.
quote: As for the New Testament, as some have wondered why that was not called into question
Well it has
By people such as
Sir William Ramsey Frank Morrison Josh McDowell
Scholars setting out to disprove the Bible once and for all with all the tools of proper research, the the authors of HBHG should have used
The result?
All were convinced of the accuracy and the veracity of the New Testament scriptures.
Actually, I think you'll find everyone who's looked at the New Testament from a neutral perspective (such as Mircia Eliade) has found it to be 100% mythology. It's a well known fact that there is no historical evidence for Jesus or any of his disciples or any event mentioned in the New Testament
I must be missing something here because I never felt the need to prove the veracity of the New Testament (in whole or in part) to trash the Holy Blood rubbish. You surely only need to attack the supporting 'facts' of the book itself to achieve this and as far as I saw he did that rather well.
Mary Magdelene, and her marital status, is rather central to the books premise. It is historical fact that the gospels that told her story best were excised from the approved Bible regardless of whether or not those books were themselves factual. The programme consulted with scholars who have spent considerable time in study of these missing 'Gnostic' gospels in an attempt to find out whether or not the central claim of Mary and Jesus' relationship could be sustained from the scripture.
Now I did miss a bit (the Cathars and half the Templars part in the story) but I didn't see any other occasion when the truth or otherwise of the Bible was even close to the point.
quote: As for the New Testament, as some have wondered why that was not called into question
Well it has
By people such as
Sir William Ramsey Frank Morrison Josh McDowell
Scholars setting out to disprove the Bible once and for all with all the tools of proper research, the the authors of HBHG should have used
The result?
All were convinced of the accuracy and the veracity of the New Testament scriptures.
Actually, I think you'll find everyone who's looked at the New Testament from a neutral perspective (such as Mircia Eliade) has found it to be 100% mythology. It's a well known fact that there is no historical evidence for Jesus or any of his disciples or any event mentioned in the New Testament
"neutral perspective (such as Mircia Eliade)" does that mean you have to read it naked in order to see its all myths.
quote:Originally posted by doctorzaius: It's a well known fact that there is no historical evidence for Jesus or any of his disciples or any event mentioned in the New Testament
quote:Originally posted by doctorzaius: It's a well known fact that there is no historical evidence for Jesus or any of his disciples or any event mentioned in the New Testament
quote: Sticks, Excellent link. Its odd that people want to believe myths that he did not exist?
I would understand if they believed he existed but did not believe his purpose
I feel the same way about any other number of forgotten suffering saviours and Sons of God, such as Herakles , Prometheus and Dionysos (in my view the One True Son of God).
Maybe you superstitious apes might fancy a peak at enlightened links like
the trouble with sources like Josephus is that they were heavily doctored by the early church which had outlawed all other faiths and discussion of religion. Moreover, the passages relating to Jesus first appear in the historical record hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly lived.
The trouble with believing in a historical Jesus is you have to ask what he was doing having a Greek name (which literally translates as saviour) quoting Plato all the time, using Greek phrases and using parables and concepts of the Greek mysteries, whilst supposedly being a Jew living in 1st century Palestine
doctorzaius quotes="Maybe you superstitious apes might fancy a peak at enlightened links like" --------------- What makes you not a superstitious ape ?
Your attempting to use Socratic debate right now ( although rather clumsily) , does that make you greek.
Or is it perhaps a part of a cultural heritage. That in turn has effected a certain part of another's culture development, whether in Philosophy theology, science etc etc? Greek ideas still effect and influence us today
There are plenty of simalarites between civiliations, especially borrowing and lending ideas and concepts.
quote: There are plenty of simalarites between civiliations, especially borrowing and lending ideas and concepts
I couldn't agree more, particularly in the field of mythology (you know, virgin birth, suffering saviour, performing miracles, death at the world axis)
quote: There are plenty of simalarites between civiliations, especially borrowing and lending ideas and concepts
I couldn't agree more, particularly in the field of mythology (you know, virgin birth, suffering saviour, performing miracles, death at the world axis)
Problem is you are unable to prove if that was, or was not the case.
So regardles of what we think, that doesn't change what may or may not have occured
your links on 'the Apologetics Press' are just plain silly. A lot of the quotes are from books written 40 - 90 years ago, when the study of history (especially Biblical history) was a joke.
One quote reads,
quote: It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible
This is patently untrue, archaeology has shown that the Exodus never happened for starters.
If you want to treat the Bible as historical fact that's your choice. I still don't see it as any different to treating the Odyssey, Bacchae, Prometheus Bound or Labours of Hercules as historical texts involving historical figures. They were all sacred texts 2000 years ago, and they all contain the same stories as the Bible (virgin births, miracles, suffering saviours, Sons of God, crucified / bound saviours, return from the dead etc)
Like anyone else you can pick and choose which of these figures you see as mythological and which as historical. I still think the logical choice is to see them all as mythological. If I'm shown a hundred apples I call them all apples, I don't call one a banana and see it as different
Funny really the author of Holy Blood Holy Grail (one of the authors at least), has alreading informed people that the writings in the book are based on hearsay and nothing can be proven. But then again, so was the bible, its first book being written some 30 years after the death of Jesus (at the earliest estimate!) and possibly some 150 years after his death (out side estimate).
You try writing about the life of your father and being accurate 30 years after his death! It is an arduous task unless you have video/audio recording of him.
Nice to see the gnostic scriptures coming to light and making a more even accounting of the era.
As for Tony Robinson being biased...This sort of "reporting" is suppose to be impartial like the news. I can understand how it can get tough to dispell your own beliefs, but then maybe they should have had two presenters, Tony Robinson (Christian) and another (Athiest) or perhaps even an agnostic, who might give an impartial opinion.
The Old Testament had been written down well before the start of the first century CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls date back to about 100 BCE.
If the first books did not appear until 30 years after the events, then in terms of other ancient manuscripts that is quite fast. Some other non biblical manuscripts took several hundred years to be penned down, but nobody questions the veracity of Homers Illiad which I understand took 400 years.
For sake of interest the oldest fragment of the New Testament dates back to 130 CE and is held in the John Rylands library in Manchester so the 150 years after Jesus death dating is shown to be wide of the mark.
As for the production, if you read the web chat transcript you will see this snippet
quote:Simon Raikes : We didn't intend to make the programme one-sided, we intended to take a balanced look at the evidence. In fact, when we embarked on the project, a number of the team who had read the book were minded to believe quite a lot of it.
This shows they had integrity as the evidence ran counter to what they wanted to be true to show that.
I apologise in advance to the forum for this request but would anybody be in a position to provide me with a copy of the C 4 programme on the subject.I can be contacted at jopm @eircom .net.Many thanks and again my apologies.
?
(you know, virgin birth, suffering saviour, performing miracles, death at the world axis)
