The Da Vinci Code

[MrVersatile48]

Film out on May 19

New Christianity Today mag has a veritable plethora of useful articles & resources to click on from here:-

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies ... icode.html

Worth checking for any preview review @ http://www.HollywoodJesus.com

http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/comments/ ... /news.html

Back to link our book-driven Engage Da Vinci Code thread...

http://www.christianforums.net/viewtopi ... highlight=

Ian

 

[deepriver]

I am deeply disappointed in Tom Hanks for being involved in this. He's been mostly a clean cut guy with mostly honorable movie choices that us Christians could appreciate him for, and then this. ugh.

 

[guibox]

So tell me what the difference is between Tom Hanks and other actors who have starred in supernatural or occultic movies that inevitably make fun of or distort Christianity or promote some way of account of Satan's power or dealings that cannot be found in the scriptures?

Schwarzenegger in 'End of Days'
Lou Diamond Phillips in 'The First Power'
Patricia Arquette in 'Stigmata'
George C. Scott in 'Exorcist 3'

And many, many others. Do you think less of them too?

The 'Da Vinci Code' is a work of fiction. It says so on it's cover 'A novel'

Look at this as typical Hollywood entertainment value, not an expose on Christianity or something of some theological importance.

 

[deepriver]

Perhaps I am splitting hairs, but to me the difference is Tom Hanks hasn't done movies, for the most part, that deal with these matters. As I said earlier, he's been more clean cut than most. I thought higher of him for that, than say Arnold.

But to me this isn't just another movie with some supernatural content. What Dan Brown is saying strikes at the heart of the Gospel. For Tom Hanks to be involved perhaps shows what he thinks about Christianity.

 

[guibox]

Or maybe he sees it for what it is....a work of fiction with no religious merit except for entertainment value. Do you think Governor Arnold has contempt for Christianity because he starred in a movie that basically can only be called 'satanic'?

I think you are splitting hairs.

I would find more fault with Mel Gibson who claims to be so religious but all his movies contain high sexual content, adultery, violence, and gratuitous language (many taking God's name in vain by himself).

Shouldn't you have a problem with that and other actors who do the same thing?

 

[deepriver]

Maybe I don't know enough about Da Vinci, but what I've heard puts me off of it whether it's a work of fiction or not. don't you think Tom Hanks has done mostly decent movies? He has therefore established a reputation along those lines. Arnie's rep is quite different. I don't think Arnie's much of a moral person, but I'm talking about Tom. And I still feel disappointed by this choice he's made.

 

[MrVersatile48]

Latest advice from http://www.crosswalk.com

Baehr Calls Blasphemy, Sexual Immorality Good Reasons to Miss Da Vinci Code

A well-known pro-family media critic advises Christians to forego seeing
the movie screen adaptation of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, and he says they should warn others to avoid the film as well.

AgapePress reports that Dr. Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, says that when it comes to the kind of content viewers will find if they decide to go see the upcoming theatrical release,

"There's a lot of good reasons for people not to [go]."

On May 17, two days before the movie's general release, a group of Christian leaders are going to hold a press conference in Washington, DC, to address the issues surrounding the controversial film.

Baehr, who will be part of that group, says there is a lot more to plot than just the assertion that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. That is minor compared to some of the other blasphemous ideas presented in the story.

Christians should avoid the movie based on Brown's novel, he
contends, "because the book is just chock full of occultism,
Rosicrucianism, Masonic Satanism, et cetera."

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I just have time to google Christian movie reviews..

Christian Spotlight on Entertainment [ChristianSpotlight.com / ChristianAnswers.Net/spotlight]
Entertainment portal for movie, television and game reviews, news, music, links, broadcasts, articles, and more. ... HOME Christian Film News Therapy Movies TV Reviews eGame Reviews Discernment Directory ... NOW YOU CAN VIEW THIS MOVIE ON-LINE ... http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/home.html - 61k - Cached - More pages from this site - Save

Christian Movies and Christian Movie Reviews
Welcome to your Christian movie resource page with Christian movie reviews, interviews with Christian actors, favorite Christian movies and top Christian movie picks. http://www.christianity.about.com/libra ... movies.htm - 24k - Cached - More pages from this site - Save

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In case I'm cut off before I can print results, do see for yourself - from the links in the OP too

Here's 1 that includes more from Ted Baehr:-

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlig ... e2006.html

See if these links work:-

Top Da Vinci Code Resources for Christians

These top online Da Vinci Code resources for Christians represent some of the best Christian sites to help you prepare for The Da Vinci Code book and movie. Become better equipped to share your faith through conversations about the film and the novel

Preparing for The Da Vinci Code

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This public PC won't play this audio @ spiritual dimensions:-

http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/da_vinci_ ... ritual.htm

I'll just add that, in the past few days, praying about it, I feel it would be a waste of time & maybe a bad witness to pay ticket money into the profits of false prophets

Tom Hanks & Ron Howard may claim to be Christians, but Satan himself 'masquerades as an angel of light'

I'll just link again the thread @ the book:-

http://www.christianforums.net/viewtopi ... highlight=

Ian

 

[MrVersatile48]

Poll says most USA folk believe Bible over Dan Brown

Just in from http://www.crosswalk.com

Most Americans Believe Bible over 'Da Vinci,' Poll Shows

Despite sensational reports to the contrary, most Americans are not buying
the key theological premises of The Da Vinci Code says a poll commissioned by the North American Mission Board (NAMB).

Baptist Press reports that NAMB commissioned Zogby International to conduct the poll, which involved a sample of 1,200 adults surveyed by telephone in March. 23% of Americans have read the novel, while 43% said they were familiar with the content.

Among those who had read it, more than 60% believed that the Bible is closer to the truth, while only 10% believed Dan Brown's novel is more truthful.

Among the entire sample, 72% believed that the Bible was closer to the truth.

"The most striking result from the survey is that after either reading or hearing about The Da Vinci Code 44% of respondents were more likely
to seek the truth by studying the Bible, while only 20% were less likely to
study the Bible," said Ed Stetzer, missiologist and director of NAMB's
Center for Missional Research.

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In more need of prayer are the many UK/Oz/NZ etc folk who read the book & see the film while knowing very little indeed - if not nothing at all - about what the Bible says & teaches

Apparently, the movie trailer ends with, "Seek the truth"

We sure need to point out that Dan Brown knowingly tells lies about the Almighty Creator & Redeemer to make money

I'm sure all Christian freeview TV stations will screen 2 days of several Christian experts debunking Da Vinci before the film comes out, so do record/recommend the real facts to your friends

 

[MrVersatile48]

From http://www.movieguide.org today:-


Deciphering THE DA VINCI CODE
May 16th, 2006
By the Christian History Institute

EDITOR’S NOTE: Reprinted by permission.

“Blinding Ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!â€Â
Leonardo Da Vinci, quoted in THE DA VINCI CODE, p. 231

In every age, there have been attacks on Jesus and the teaching of Scripture. Jesus has been an offense to the world from the very beginning. One recent attack is particularly beguiling because it is so entertaining. It’s author, Dan Brown, brashly assures us his account is based on the actual historical facts, but THE DA VINCI CODE paints either an uninformed or intentionally false picture of the early church. Herein, we want to show you why.

THE DA VINCI CODE is a suspense thriller and runaway bestseller in which the reader discovers that a modern-day murder is the result of an on-going, 2,000 year cover-up by the church in an attempt to hide the true origins of Christianity. The movie version of the book, starring Tom Hanks, is scheduled to be released on May 19, 2006. The questions and doubts the novel has raised are an indication of how ahistorical our culture has become. It also indicates how uninformed many Christians are about early church history. Brown’s character Teabing was right about one thing: “Blinding Ignorance does mislead us.†As we will see below, it is THE DA VINCI CODE that turns out to be the distortion and re-writing of history.

The Claims

Chapter 55 of Brown’s thriller opens with the fictional character Teabing asserting with scholarly confidence: “Nothing in Christianity is original…virtually all the elements…were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions… The bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. …Who chose which gospels to include? … [T]he pagan Roman emperor Constantine… ntil the [Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325], Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet… [E]stablishing Christ’s divinity was critical to [Constantine for] the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base…the earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up and burned…the modern Church’s desire to suppress these documents comes from a sincere belief in their established view of Christ.â€Â

Ironically, as we will see below, it is THE DA VINCI CODE that turns out to be the re-writing of history. Therefore, Christians should not feel threatened by its claims. Instead, we should grasp the wonderful opportunity we have been given to explore the historical roots of our beliefs and to share the gospel with those whose curiosity has been aroused by the book.

Here are three major claims made in THE DA VINCI CODE about church history:

1. Christians did not view Jesus as divine until after the Council of Nicaea.
2. Constantine or the Vatican suppressed the earlier, truer gospels to consolidate power.
3. The church covered up the fact that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child together, because that would have proved that Jesus was only a “mortal prophet.â€Â

The novel then argues that the church continued to lie to protect these secrets right up to the present day. However, if these three arguments are proven false, then there is no secret that needs to be hidden and THE DA VINCI CODE’s entire conspiracy charge crumbles. Because history cannot be repeated like a science experiment, figuring out what actually happened is more like a legal case – evidence must be weighed to determine the most reasonable explanation based on the known facts.

Did Early Christians Think Jesus Divine?

During Christianity’s first three centuries, churches formed around the large cosmopolitan areas of the ancient world. There was no Vatican, no Catholic Church, and no central authority defining beliefs. Each region appointed its own church leaders and developed its own understandings of the Christian faith. In fact, Popes did not have much power until the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne around A.D. 754. The Council at Nicaea in A.D. 325 was called by the emperor, Constantine, in response to pre-existing disputes. It was the first of seven ecumenical councils held between A.D. 325 and 787. The leaders of these groups from different regions came together to decide what they could agree on in Christianity. Despite their theological differences, they did agree that Jesus was much more than a human being. Prior to Constantine there was no possible advantage to claiming Jesus was God, as the earliest Christians did. Quite the contraryâ€â€it could cost you your life.

Based on manuscript evidence, both conservative and liberal scholars agreed on the following things:

1. They agree that Paul wrote the book of Romans before the year A.D. 59 (long before the “secret†gospels mentioned in THE DA VINCI CODE were written and over 265 years before the Council of Nicaea). Paul wrote in Romans 8:9, “What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.†(Romans 8:3)

2. They agree that Colossians, written some time between A.D. 57 and 80, says “[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God…For by [Jesus] all things were created…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.â€Â

3. They agree that the book of Hebrews was written well before A.D. 70. The author leaves us in little doubt when writing in Hebrews 1:1–3 “God, after He spoke long ago…has spoken to us in His Son…And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature…â€Â

Around A.D. 107, Ignatius wrote that Jesus was “God Incarnate...God himself appearing in the form of a man.†About A.D. 177, Medito of Sardis wrote of Jesus, “He was man, yet He is God...†Long before the Nicaean creed, local creeds and baptismal formulas reflected a core set of beliefs referred to as the “Rule of Faith.†The world’s foremost authority on ancient Christian creeds, Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University, states that the unity of these earliest pre-Nicaean creeds could be summed up this way: “The one true God, Creator of heaven and earth; His only Son, born of the Virgin Mary, divinely powerful in word and deed, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead, and returning to judge the world.â€Â

In other words, the truth lived out in the lives of the early Christians and expressed through the writings of their leaders is the exact opposite of the argument made in THE DA VINCI CODE. Evidence shows that the vast majority of early Christians believed Jesus was no mere mortal prophet. In fact, the debate at Nicaea was not whether Jesus was human or God; it was over exactly how divine He was. Even minority dissenters led by Arius didn’t think Jesus was simply a human being. They thought Jesus was “God the only-begotten,†who had existed since the beginning of the world.

The majority of Christians were so convinced that Jesus was divine that many were willing and did lay down their lives for this belief. Whether Constantine’s motives were political, spiritual, or both, the council he arranged drew from the beliefs already present in the communities. He did not, as Brown claims, create and pass on new beliefs from the top down.

Were the Earliest Gospels Suppressed?

As we have seen, prior to Constantine, there was no centralized power declaring which gospels should be considered scripture and which should not. Instead, regional churches established their own lists of authoritative scripture based on their own experiences of the risen Lord. Despite some differences, there was incredible agreement on the gospels from the start. The four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – were included in every major list. The gospels listed in THE DA VINCI CODE were not.

In Southern France before A.D. 181, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons declared, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. . . .†In North Africa around A.D. 206, church father Tertullian accepted only the four gospels. In Egypt before A.D. 254, scholar and teacher Origen accepted only the four gospels. Origen traveled extensively, noting which scriptures were read in various regions. Sometime between A.D. 244 and 254, he wrote that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John “are the only indisputable ones in the church of God under heaven…we have approved solely what the church has recognized, which is that only the four Gospels should be accepted.â€Â

Thus, the four gospels were chosen because they had already proven true to the dispersed churches, not because Constantine was attempting to consolidate power. If this had been the case, the differing perspectives of the four gospels would most likely not have been included. A true political cover up would have come up with a single party-line gospel to avoid apparent inconsistencies. The vast majority of scholars today are convinced that the rejected gospels mentioned in THE DA VINCI CODE were not written earlier than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In fact, they were actually written much later. However, even if they had been written earlier, the vast majority of local churches and Christians had already rejected them as false prior to the time of Constantine.

Did Jesus and Mary Magdalene have a Child?

There is no historical evidence that Jesus was ever married or had children, but even if He had, there would be no theological reason to hide it. The council of Nicaea, which Brown’s characters claim invented Christ’s divinity, is the very one that also pointed out his humanity. The Nicaean Creed says explicitly that Jesus “was made man†or “became truly human.†Jesus was not God in disguise – He had the full nature of God plus the full nature of humanity. In fact, if the cover up was to make Jesus look more divine, one would expect that the ecumenical councils that followed Nicaea would have obscured Christ’s humanity. Instead, they clarify and expand His humanness. For example, at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, the churches declared that Jesus was both God and man. He was “complete in manhood…truly a man…like us in all respects (apart from sin) … [because his] two natures [are] without confusion.†There was nothing magical or special about Jesus’ body or blood. He did not have a secret power running through his veins – He was the power. If He had married and fathered a child, it would have simply been a human child born of His human nature. It would in no way challenge or diminish His divinity. As hard as it might be for any of us to grasp how Jesus could have two natures, no one can deny that this is exactly what was believed by the creed writers – the very people THE DA VINCI CODE claimed were trying to cover up Christ’s humanity.

Conclusion

So while the list of agreed upon scriptures developed over time, just as the church’s understanding of Jesus matured over time, we can see a common thread running from the earliest Christians right up to this day. This shared belief is summarized in the Apostles’ Creed and further refined in the Nicaean creed. In other words, the truth that breaks THE DA VINCI CODE – the fact that Jesus was both fully God and fully human – has been hidden in plain sight all along. For almost 2,000 years it has been on the lips of Christians as they have repeated the ancient creeds of the church! Thus, there was never a reason to hide any aspect of Jesus’ humanity. His humanity has never been a threat to the church in all of its history. However, His divinity has always been a threat, and an offense to those who do not accept the Gospel.

Recommended Reading

Breaking THE DA VINCI CODE by Darrell L. Bock, PhD
The Historical Jesus by Gary R. Habermas, PhD
The Canon of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger, PhD

Prepared by Langdon Palmer with Ken Curtis, Ph.D., Tracey L. Craig, Beth Jackson, and Ann T. Snyder.

Website: http://www.chinstitute.org

 

[mikewhite]

I guess the thing that bothers me most about the Da Vinci Code is not whether or not it is a good movie or not (I have heard of critics who say it is not who say even Tom Hanks, is a good actor, did not do well in the movie.), whether or not it has bad language (I would not like it if it does but do not even know), or violence or sex(again I do not know but would not like it or watch it if I knew it did).

The thing that bothers me is that the writer of the book says it is fiction and that's it on the one hand, while on the other hand saying in the opening of the book before the telling of the story, that all documents in the book, rituals and societies are real. On the one hand he says it is strict fiction, but on the other hand, he is claiming it is historical fiction. You can
t have it both ways!

It has had an effect on the faith of the weak or the uniformed, as I have heard of a couple of stories of those whose faith has been shaken by the stories of the New Testament not being true. It has not shaken my faith.

For a listing of the reasons it has not shaken my faith, you can read the following article I wrote for a website:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... _code.html

 

[sparksfly]

i won't be allowed to rent it.maybe if i'm older and out of the house my dad says. :-D

 

[daniel1212]

If i could sum up the da vinci code i would say that although it is promoted as FACT, in reality it is fiction on steroids, and so dependant upon on historical fabrications that it would not even qualify as good historical fiction. Though it's writing is cratfy enough to keep interest, it's success is not mainly due to any superlative writing skills, but becuase the western world much seeks to negate the authority of the Bible, to put off the Lord Jesus as it makes increasing provision for the lusts of the flesh (contra. Rom. 13:14).

I have recent more or less finshed a somewhat lengthy refutation of it's anti Christian propagande here:http://peacebyjesus.tripod.com/thedavincicode.html

What next!