Guestblogger Arthur writes:
I’m going to preface this by stating upfront that I am Jewish and therefore have no personal religious stake in the claims of Dan Brown. However I am also a historian by training and I detest bad historical research, which "The DaVinci Code" most certainly is an example of.
Perhaps you saw ads for this program "The Real DaVinci Code" last week hyping its broadcast on Saturday night. And the ads looked like it was all supportive of Dan Brown’s nonsense.
Well it’s not! It completely debunks, point by point, every aspect of "The DaVinci Code" and it’s source material "Holy Blood, Holy Grail".
I’d actually been aware of this program for sometime and was dying to see it. It’s a British import hosted by Tony Robinson. For those of you into BritComs, he played Baldrick in the various Blackadder series, but he’s also produced and hosted several other excellent historical documentaries. And this one is of particularly high quality.
The basic scheme of the show works something like this, Robinson details one of the allegations in the book and then let’s various talking heads (along the lines of Michael Baigent and Elaine Pagels) natter on about how it may be right. Robinson then travels about the world looking for possible explanations and then they bring in respectable historians, art experts and journalists to completely rip the books to shreds. Showing how all Dan Brown’s and Messrs Baigent, Lincoln & Leigh’s claims just don’t hold up to historical fact.
Tony Robinson successfully manages to take fiction and hold it up to the light of fact. And he does it with a stylish sense of humor.
I think the best thing about this documentary is actually the fact that it does not use theology to make it’s point. The debunkers are largely secular writers and the facts cited are all publically available to the public if they are willing to do some research. This way DC fans can’t go around saying "Oh that’s just the Catholic Church point of view".
I have one niggling complaint and that is that they used the Garden Tomb rather than the Holy Sepuchre when discussing the events of the ressurection. Perhaps they couldn’t get permission to film at the Sepulchre, but the claim that the Garden Tomb is the burial place just doesn’t hold up to archaeology and history. This is rather minor to my point of view.
On the whole I heartily recomment "The Real DaVinci Code" and if Discovery Channel repeats I think you should watch it.
A chance to watch Baldrick get the upper hand on somebody? That somebody being Dan Brown?
Definitely.
Jimmy, could Catholic answers create smaller versions of the online tract to hand out when the Da Vinci Code movie opens? Just a thought.
I noticed that about the garden tomb too. Kinda urked me, but oh well.
+J.M.J+
Rats! I saw that advertised over the weekend and figured it was just another show trying to argue that Jesus really was married, etc. etc. Didn’t watch it, now I wish I did! Hope they rebroadcast it.
In Jesu et Maria,
I saw a show on PBS about the Holy Sepuchre a couple of years ago and for the most part the problem is that most Protestants who take the Bible literally see the garden tomb and say that’s it. They amazinly refuse to listen to all of the history that has occured on the sites since the bible was written. I’ve seen several of Tony’s shows on the History Channel (most are quite good). I suspect the garden tomb was just a good site to photograph
Does anybody know if and when this might be broadcast again?
I just happened to catch this program yesterday completely by random. What a wonderful surprise! It’s very well done, and does a great job showing how ridiculous the Da Vinci Code really is. This one might be worth ordering from the Discovery Channel before the movie comes out next year.
The Discovery Channel’s advertising on this was pretty deceptive. It really sounded supportive of the garbage and made statements like it could change your life. Glad to hear it actually debunked it instead.
anyone who hasn’t seen the blackadder series(es) should do so immediately. go baldrick!
I saw the show, and I was very surprised at how good of a job it did in debunking Dan Brown. I definately recommend the show!
I actually confused it with that horrible one by CBS (?) rerun ad nauseum by National Geographic. I happened to catch some of it when flipping channels and stopped for a while when I noticed that it was another take on the DVC.
The part I watched was about tracing the roots of the Grail and it’s never been depicted as anything other than a cup or a bowl, never as a womb or a woman.
But as unisterested as I am in this subject, I changed the channel to watch something else.
God bless.
I don’t know if what I saw was the same program, but they interviewed the author of “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” and all I could think was that this guy looks like Lemmy from Motorhead. 🙂
Scott
I thought the same thing! I think Lemmy is more intelligent, though.
Unfortunately, as Goebels knew, if you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough, most people will believe it.
In the 19th century, there was a false and despicable lie that said that there was a worldwide Jewish conspiracy aimed at worldwide domination. The Protocols of the Order of Zion has rightly been condemned. How is The Da Vici Code different? It too alleges a multi-generational, worldwide conspiracy by the Catholic Church to dominate the world by an absurd suppression of the truth. Shouldn’t this book be treated with the destain given to the Protocols?
Haven’t you heard? Anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice.
say what you will, the idea that a gifted leader may have ancestors today is something i can digest far more easily that the idea of the son of god coming to earth and being sacrificed by his dad to save our souls…
Ah…commonsense prevails at last. I love how Nad’s post stopped the nonsense in its tracks. Whats up with you people, are you all brainwashed or just plain scared of having your simple beliefs challenged by truth in history. Your arm chair arguments are totally transparent and self absorbed. Don’t you think its time now to update all religious, scientific and political beliefs. Don’t you think its time to tell the truth…. Hey, turn off your TV’s.
“Bigotry is an emotion best kept to one’s self.”-Capt. Kirk, “Star Trek: Balance of Terror.” However, most bigots can’t contain their hate.
i am very intrested about the da vinci code and now also want to solve this cospiracy about the successor of jesus
according to me the da vinci code can be real because the proofs given by jimmy and dan brown can be real because when christ wa hanged only madam mangdalene was there and all the other followers of christ went away and if we carefully watch the painting of last supper of da vinci ther is a woman there and others are man and that woman is madam mangdalene besides christ and she is the nearest of christ and the priory of the signs can be real and da vici was avery intelligent man and had many skills and if we watch at his painting it wants to show something and if we watch at vincis biography whatever he used to imagine is unbelievable and nobody at that time can imagine this things so according to me da vinci code is real holycup or sangreal meaning holy blood is real and the successors of christ is real. hiten 9879796414
San greal means royal blood in..which signifies that the blood of some1 royal(like jesus) is present in the womb of magdalene…thats y its a royal blood.. san means royal and greal means blood…
the last supper signifies that there is a female in the fresco…though amongst the 12 apostles we know that there were no females but ther lies the code…tat the is a female in the fresco….n there is the sign of the inverted triangle V (like a V-a V signifies a female) if u watch the portion between the lord and the apostle lying left to him….infact the apostles is not a male…she is a female..n there lies the code…if u edit the fresco a little..and bring the apostle on the left to the right of Lord…it would be viewed as if the apostle is laying the head on the shoulders of the lord…
now here comes the fact…the apostle is a female…she has the characteristics of a female…n that was the secret of the last Supper…
now about the Monalisa….if u view the fresco of monalisa and divide her face vertically in to two equal hemispheres u will find that half the face is that of a female while the other half is that of a male…again symbolising the interminglance of a male n a female… thereby proving the code…
n now about the SANGREAL DOCUMENTS…
the sangreal documents were the ones found through that fibonacci series…. if u split SANGREAL into two words ..it makes SAN and GREAL (or GRAIL)…SAN means ROYAL and GRAIL means BLOOD …now SANGREAL signifies that the blood of some1 royal like the LORD was present in the Womb of Mary Magdalene…again symbolising the interminglance of a male n a female…
X,
I’m having a little trouble figuring out whether or not you’re being funny. If you meant your posts as a joke, then haha- the joke’s on me.
First- if you really want to find a code or some kind of secret language, you can find it in anything. Pagans have found signs and codes in everything from tea leaves to sheep intestines, and someone recently went so far as to find codes in Moby Dick foretelling several prominent assassinations.
Finding “codes” where they were not intended does not prove anything beyond the human mind’s ability to find meaning where perhaps none was meant. Prying too deep into hidden layers of meaning can drive men mad- I’ve actually seen it happen. When “yes” ceases to be “yes” and “no” ceases to be “no” you are in for a world of trouble and confusion. Not every effeminate male in a Renaissance painting is meant to reveal some dark conspiracy, and not every amusing anagram is significant of a connection in meaning.
And second- your misuse of Latin is going to get under a lot of skins on this blog. You’re thinking of the way Brown mondegreened “san greal” as “sang real”, which in French means “royal blood.” As with paintings and anagrams, a mondegreen may be amusing, but does not necessarily reveal a multimillennial conspiracy.