The Davinci Code

[T.Rally]

I received this book as a Christmas present and began reading it yesterday. It is phenomenal, I could not put it down. It is a murder mystery centered around the works of Leonardo Davinci.
This is from the author's website;

"A prankster and genius, Leonardo da Vinci is widely believed to have hidden secret messages within much of his artwork. Most scholars agree that even Da Vinci's most famous pieces—works like The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Madonna of the Rocks—contain startling anomalies that all seem to be whispering the same cryptic message…a message that hints at a shocking historical secret which allegedly has been guarded since 1099 by a European secret society known as the Priory of Sion. In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci. French President, Francois Mitterrand, is rumored to have been a member, although there exists no proof of this. "

Anyone else read it? I can see this book being made into a movie.

[jlabsher]

Read it last spring, got it @ the library was the 2nd one. It was on the NYT bestseller list almost all summer, great book. Even good for conspiracy theorists as well as theologistically impaired folks. Won't tell you the ending, but it doesn't involve any hobbits!

[vraiblonde]

Thanks for the review, T. I just finished King of Torts so I need a new read.

[T.Rally]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
Thanks for the review, T. I just finished King of Torts so I need a new read.

Grisham. I just can't read his stuff any more.

[vraiblonde]

Originally posted by T.Rally
Grisham. I just can't read his stuff any more.

Yeah, I had quit him too - the plots were just getting too implausible. King of Torts is pretty mindless and predictable. I got it as a Chinese auction gift.

Sounds like a nice gift for my MIL on Valentines day. My hubby always gives her a sweatheart package.

[chica]

One must remember that when reading this novel, that it is just that a novel.
It is full of theological mistakes, but if you consider it just a story, who cares...
The people that I know who have read it are pretty hohum about it.

I'm always ready for a good read...

I read a really cool book about 20 years ago and was so good I re-read it again last year.

IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, by Rumor Godden (I am no too sure of the author's spelling, but it is close).

This is a very interesting book about how a woman in her forties decides to leave the corporate world and go into an Abbey. It is written just at the begining of Vatican II and all the changes that start to tear apart many convents and religious orders.

It's an interesting look into the bowels of what makes a Convet/Abbey run.

[T.Rally]

Originally posted by chica
One must remember that when reading this novel, that it is just that a novel.
It is full of theological mistakes, but if you consider it just a story, who cares..

I don't want to try to defend one way or another the theological mistakes because I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to know one if I saw it.

I do know that the Roman Emporer Constantine had a huge influence on Christianity. The Nicene Creed arose out of a fourth-century dispute over the nature of Christ. Was he equal to God the Father or, as the priest Arius propagandized, inferior? Constantine finally had to intervene in the bitter wrangling, calling a council of bishops in Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey) to settle the matter. A credo was hammered out that expressed the divine equality of God and Christ. Essentially, he molded Christianity in his own image and made Jesus the only Son of God. From then on, the Church would become representative of a capricious and autocratic God - a God who was not unlike Constantine and other Roman emperors.

[kwillia (Premo)]

VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE

[Tonio]

I loved "The Da Vinci Code." I read up on the sources that Dan Brown's characters cited. Very informative.

I'm not prepared to believe that Jesus fathered children just because the novel says so or because "The Woman with the Alabaster Jar" says so or because "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" says so. But I'm also not prepared to dismiss that claim just because the Bible doesn't explicitly say that Jesus didn't father children. For me, I see the claim as about questioning the "party line," about having a healthy sense of skepticism. As "Holy Blood" says, what difference should it make whether Jesus had kids? That doesn't change the validity of Jesus' message, does it?

What did you think of the whole "sacred feminine" principle that some of these books talk about? They say that Western culture is poorer for not valuing that principle. I think the books go too far in that assertion, but I find the idea interesting.