I figured I could sneak in after all the hype and talk and get my hands on the Da Vinci Code to see what it was all about. I put it on hold at the library and it came surprisingly faster then expected. I’ve started in and I’m only a few chapters through, but I am already struck now by one of the major premises of the book. It seems the deep dark secret that is being kept has a lot to do with the elevation of the feminine and the fact that the church forced a patriarchal rule over society that was not originally there.
There are a lot of “facts” mentioned in the book that might or might not be true, but they are interesting nonetheless. I think, true or not, this book should at least challenge folks to think a little about the church and women.
If anything, I would hope the book and movie, and all the talks going on in churches and elsewhere are acknowledging that women have been oppressed and mistreated and put down in a way that is not Christian at all.
I say all that having only read a few chapters and I really have very little idea what turns the book will be taking later.
Dan Brown, quite unwittingly I’m sure, has done us a great service – he has made known to the general population the existence of certain ‘stories’ about Jesus.
The Qur’an’s portrayal of the ‘Virgin Mary’ and Brown’s Da Vinci Code share a common genesis and will eventually meet up at the same destination.
How can this be? Well…a couple of millenia or so, ago, a thirst to know more about Jesus than the gospels revealed gave rise to the concoction of various ‘fables’.
These ‘fables’ were tailored specifically to resonate with certain audiences and to meet perceived needs and prevailing ‘expectations’.
Naturally therefore, they were riddled with historical and other errors.
The Da Vinci Code and part of the Qur’an’s ‘Virgin Mary’ story borrowed material from this ‘fabled’ library and, living up to time-honoured tradition,
tailored their own ‘fables’ to resonate with certain audiences and to meet perceived needs and prevailing ‘expectations’.
Naturally therefore, they also are riddled with historical and other errors.
Being only a ‘lending’ library, however, these ‘fables’ based on ‘fables’ will eventually be called in by their rightful owner – the great ‘fable’ library of history.