dan brown’s da vinci claims dan brown claims … “all descriptions of artwork, architecture,...

Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Claims

Dan Brown Claims …

“All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”

Dan Brown Claims …

But are they?

Some Reviewers Claim …

“His research is impeccable”

--New York Daily News

Some Reviewers Claim …

But is it?

The Art of Leonardo

Madonna of the Rocks

The Last Supper

Holy Grail = Holy Bloodline

?

Dan Brown claims …

Jesus & Mary Magdalene

Merovingian Dynasty

A Few Secret Descendants

Merovingian Dynasty

Merovech

Clovis

Merovingian Blood

1. Merovech

2. Childeric I

3. Clovis I

4. Chlothar I

5. Sigebert I

6. Childebert II

7. Theudebert II of Austrasia

8. Emma of Austrasia

9. Earconbert of Kent

10.Egbert I of Kent

11.Wihtred of Kent

12.Aethelbert II of Kent

13.Daughter of Kent

14.Egbert of Wessex

15.Ethelwulf of Wessex

16.Alfred the Great

17.Aefthryth of England

18.Arnulf I of Flanders

Merovingian Blood

19.Baldwin II of Flanders

20.Arnulf II of Flanders

21.Baldwin IV of Flanders

22.Baldwin V of Flanders

23.Maud of Flanders

24.Adela of Normandy

25.Stephen of Blois

26.Eustace IV of Boulogne

27.Eustachie of Champagne

28.Beatrice of St. Pol

29.William III of Ponthieu

30.Marie of Ponthieu

31.Joan of Dammartin

32.Eleanor of Castile

33.Joan of Acre

34.Margaret de Clare

35.Amy de Gaveston

36.Alice de Driby

Merovingian Blood

37.William Mallory38.Margaret Mallory39.Mary Corbet40.Richard Charlton41.Ann Charlton42.Elizabeth Grosvenor43.Edward Bulkeley44.Frances Bulkeley45.Olive Welby46.Joseph Farwell47.Hannah Farwell

48.Samuel Woods49.Hannah Woods50.Zadock Wheeler51.Uzziel Wheeler52.Harriet Wheeler53.Julius Fernando Ross54.Anna Dutton Ross55.Rebecca Ann Taylor56.Robert Ernest Cork57.William Joseph Cork

Dan Brown on Opus Dei

Albino Monk Assassins?

Dan Brown Claims …

“I worked very hard to create a fair and balanced depiction of Opus Dei.”

St. Josemaria Escriva

Dan Brown: “the new Opus Dei World Headquarters … is located at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.”

Opus Dei

Murray Hill Place, NY Villa Tevere, Rome

Basics of Opus Dei

• A life of prayer and contemplation, with frequent spiritual direction and confession

• Study of the Catholic faith

• Bearing the cross

• Sanctification of ordinary life– Through excellence in your profession– And spreading of Gospel values through the

lay apostolate

Corporal Mortification

Cilice and Discipline

St. Josemaria on Mortification

• The world admires only spectacular sacrifice, because it does not realize the value of sacrifice that is hidden and silent.

• If you don't deny yourself you will never be a soul of prayer.

• Don't say: 'That person gets on my nerves.' Think: 'That person sanctifies me.‘

• Many who would willingly let themselves be nailed to a Cross before the astonished gaze of a thousand onlookers cannot bear with a christian spirit the pinpricks of each day! Think, then, which is the more heroic.

Others who used it …

John Allen on Opus Dei

“If you want a guiding metaphor for Opus Dei, … think of it as the Guinness Extra Stout of the Catholic Church. It’s a strong brew, definitely an acquired taste, and clearly not for everyone.”

http://holycrosschapel.org

For More about Opus Dei …

http://opusdei.org

Constantine

Creator of Christianity?

Dan Brown Claims …

“Christians and pagans began warring, and the conflict grew to such proportions that it threatened to rend Rome in two.” Constantine blended the two religions.

Fact:

Not a war between two parties, but a bloody persecution instigated by Emperor Diocletian. He divided the empire, generals feuded, Constantine triumphed—made Christianity legal.

“Originally, … Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun.”

Dan Brown Claims …

Fact:

“Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”

St. Justin Martyr, ca. 150 AD.

Dan Brown Claims …

“The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”

Fact:

•Muratorian Canon gives basic list of NT books, 170-200 AD.

•Irenaeus, writing at the same time: “The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are (four).” Cites in Adv. Haer. all NT books except: Philemon, II Peter, III John, and Jude.

Dan Brown Claims …

We should trust the Gnostic gospels that were excluded from the canon.

As Time Goes By

• Epistles of Paul – 20 years

• First Gospel– 35 years

• End of NT– 65 years

• Gnostic Gospels– 100 to 300 years

1986: Challenger

1972: Watergate

1941: Pearl Harbor

1906: SF Earthquake 1706: Franklin Born

From the Passion of Jesus to …

Dan Brown Claims …

Before Constantine, “Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet. … Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”

Scripture on Jesus’ Divinity

• The eternal Word, through whom all things were made (John 1:1-3 )

• Jesus is Kyrios (Phil 2:11, 1 Cor 12:3)

• The eternal Son, through whom he created the world. The angels worship him (Heb 1:1, 6)

• Before all things, created all things, in him all things hold together (Col 1:15)

• “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58)

• “He claimed to be the Son of God” (John 19:7)

• He shall judge the living and the dead (2 Tim 4:1)

Dan Brown Claims …

Constantine’s new Bible “omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike.”

Scripture on Jesus’ Humanity

• He emptied himself, humbled himself to death (Philippians 2:5-11)

• He shared our flesh and blood, like us “in every respect; he suffered, and so can sympathize with our weakness (Heb 2:14-18; 4:14-16)

• Those who deny the incarnation are antichrist (1 John:4:1-3)

• The Word was made flesh (John 1:14)

• He was hungry (Matt 4:2)• He wept (John 11:35)• He died (Matt 27:50,

Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46, John 19:30)

• After his resurrection he could be touched and could eat (Luke 24:39-43; John 20:27)

Dan Brown Claims …

We could learn a lot from Gnosticism.

What Is the Gnostic “Gospel”?

• Matter is evil, a prison• Created by a lesser deity• Jesus only appeared to be human• He was opposed to the deity who created the

world—and who inspired the Old Testament• He taught a way to be freed from this prison• Hidden knowledge, known only to a special few• Spirituality: either ascetical or libertine

“the Church outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene”

More Dan Brown Claims …

• 6th Century: St. Gregory the Great preached about the Scriptural account; Gregory of Tours says she went to Ephesus.

• 10th Century: Feast of St. Mary Magdalene begins to be celebrated on July 22 in Constantinople

• 11th Century: Feast spreads through the West

• 13th Centuy: The Golden Legend; relics sought after.

“the Church outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene”

Titian, ca. 1530Fresco, 1317

More Dan Brown Claims …

“the Church outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene” Magdalen College, Oxford

Founded 1458

Magdalene College, CambridgeFounded 1428

More Dan Brown Claims …

“the Church outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene”

More Dan Brown Claims …

From the First Century to today, the Scripture record

bears witness to the life and faith of Mary Magdalene.

Dan Brown Claims …

The Catholic Church burned 5,000,000 women as witches in 300 years, including “all female scholars,” after publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1486.

Fact:

Maybe one per cent of that figure killed, through various means, by Catholics, Protestants, and secular authorities.

“The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH—the sacred name of God—in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”

Fact:

“Jehovah” was formed by adding the vowel points from Adonai or Elohim to YHWH, so that readers who know to substitute the word Adonai or Elohim when they came upon YHWH.

Dan Brown Claims …

“… the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah.”

Fact:

•Lev. 16: Only the high priest enters the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year.

•Deut. 5: The Lord is God, the Lord is one.

•Isa. 45:5-6: “I am the Lord, there is none else.”

•Shekinah appears in medieval Judaism as a term for God’s presence in the temple.

Dan Brown Claims …

Dan Brown Claims …

The Church had a “new Vatican power base” in Constantine’s day.

Fact:

Papal residence and administration was at the Lateran until after the Avignon “captivity.” Brown is about 1000 years too early.

Why Is It Popular?

• Fast-paced story

• Intriguing mystery

• Church is the bad guy

• Church is hiding something

• “You shall be as gods”

Our Response

Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. …

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

2 Timothy 4:2-3

Our Response

Guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

1 Timothy 6:20

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

1 John 2:24

Our Response

We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 1:23