Dear Readers,
I've been deeply studying the validity of the claims The Da Vinci Code makes against the early Catholic Church. By "early", I mean around 200 - 300 C.E. (A.D. for you traditionalists), about the time when Constantine was running things. A peculiar man, that Constantine. The claim that I am addressing now is the claim that the early Church removed some of the other scriptural text from the Bible. The Catholics acknowledge that there are extra books floating around ot there. Probably because they are the ones that did away with them. Not to point the finger, but seeing that the Catholic Church was the main player in organized Christianity at the time when the books would've been written, it seems they would know better than any of these modern, Protestant religions that branched off because of the Reformation during the 15th and 16th centuries C.E. This may give reason to why the Catholics are more ritualistic and why they seem to have so much political sway over much of Europe. I've noticed that the longer you stay hooked into a system and the more alliances you make, the more you form a clique to exclude others from knowing certain information. The United States Senate is one big clique. Those who live their whole lives in the Senate, so to speak, are susceptible to more blackmail and threats. The "skeletons in the closet" are constantly held over your head as a threat. That is why I believe tha Catholic Church, or at least the highest ranking leaders over it, fight so hard to retain spiritual and political power. No one is above the cliqueish mentality, and only those who choose not to get involved with it in the first place are partially immune to it. Worst then senioritis or "group-think conformity", the cliqueish mentality plagues the mind and cause people to resort to hazing and truth-covering. That is why I believe the early Church has hidden information on these lost texts.
After reading most of Acts, I have come to another conclusion. Too many of the twelve disciples were busy preaching and active in the early church to not have written anything, even a one-page epistle like Jude, a disciple. I have looked over the list of the disciples and I have broken them into two groups of six: the main, important ones, and the "others". Andrew, though he has no recorded text in the Bible, his brother Peter, John, James the greater, James the lesser, and Matthew make up the main disciples. Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Jude, Simon, and Judas make up the "others". However, when reading Acts, I see too many scriptural references to Philip, Simon, and Thomas to believe that they did not write anything of their experiences. No inspirational letters to people, no accounts of Christ, no expressions of joy and happiness of God's mercy and grace. Nothing, Nada. It seems to me foul-play is afoot. Surely, Bartholomew may have sat on his ass doing nothing, and Andrew may have just followed his brother around, and let's not forget Judas, who killed himself before he could record a book. But, certainly Philip would've written a book. For Christ's sake, he baptized an Ethiopian eunuch and traveled the Mediterranean like the others, preaching the "good news" of Jesus. The word gospel is translated to mean "good news", so what exactly was Philip preaching if not the message of Jesus Christ like in the other gospels. It seems logical to believe that Philip wrote a gospel, or a similar text, and the Church found something they didn't like about it and got rid of it. Jude is the only one of the "others" to have textual scripture placed into the original Bible that was completed by the early Catholic Church. I hear so much talk of the Catholic Church voting on which books to put in the Bible at such famed gatherings as the Council of Nicaea, and the participants deciding not to include certain works. But the question is, who were these select members voting on the Bible? I highly doubt that the disciples or anyone who walked and preached with Jesus was permitted to vote. Even the great multitude that witnessed Jesus's miracles were probably not allowed to participate in the vote. It was probably a corrupt sect within the early Church who discovered something within the other books and texts, and decided to have the Word of God written their way, excluding anything that might go against the message they were trying to express. This is the same Catholic Church that started the Crusades centuries later, and whom Martin Luther had the ultimate beef with. This Church is full of its mysteries and its enigmatic rituals, most probably no threat to Christianity. But, I believe something went down at that Council of Nicaea, when certain books were dismissed from the Bible.
Signing Off
First, italics are annoying and unnecessary. Second, glad a fiction sparked this much interest to debunk Catholicism. Third, so who are the five disciples who contributed to the Bible? Clarify that.
Matthew Mark Luke John Peter....I think is what he meant, but anyway, I agree to a certain extent that there may be texts that the catholic church has hidden from us; just like there are documents the government has hidden from us. But I think that if there were, they would have come out by now. There is always one rebel who leaks. What could have happened, though, was that they did hide them a long time ago and no one knows what happened to them or that they were destroyed. And this applies to not only the Catholic church. Other certain people could have destryoed things on purpose or on accident. Sure I believe there were other texts and letters, but just like certain documents in our nations history have been lost, I am sure much of the bible has been too as well.
i got this from a bible scholar who works on the Jesus Project... supposedly only 3 disciples wrote gospels that are found in the NT: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John was a contemporary of Paul. Peter wrote a letter and not a gospel
NOW outside of what is found in the NT, several apostles supposedly wrote gospels but never made it in to the final draft.
also, everyone believes that the final draft of what we know as the Bible was put together in the first Synod also known as the Council of Nicea. that is totally wrong. The council of Nicea officially established the official bishops and ended the debate between the Arians and those that thougth that JEsus was divine...
First of all, Mark and Luke are not disciples! This misconception has been knocked out of my head millions of times in Sunday School and Bible Study. The five disciples that I am referring to are Matthew, John, James the half brother of Jesus, Peter,Jude. Only Matthew and John wrote gospels. James, Peter, and Jude wrote epistles that are located near the end of the Bible. The other seven, Philip, Thomas, Bartholemew, James the lesser, Simon, Andrew (Peter's brother who was a fisherman, too), and Judas did not write gospels or even epistles. I find that strange, because surely doubting Thomas would've had something to say about his experiences with Jesus. Also, Philip, very involved in starting the early chuches in the Gentile world and involved during Pentecost, would've written an epistle bringing others to Christ. It could be that these books were rejected for some reason. Maybe they were found with the Dead Sea Scrolls under Solomon's Temple. Also peculiar is the location of James's and Peter's epistles at the back of the Bible. Wouldn't it make more sense to place these books around Acts, with the founding of the early church. Jesus did say to Peter, "I will build my church on you." Peter was known as Petros, or "rock" in Latin. So, surely Peter's letter to the early church would have preceeded Paul's letter to the Romans.
-Oz
I don't have a lot of time, I wish I did... but where did you get your Bible knoweldge from ? Jesus NEVER said to Peter, "I will build my Church on you." You have over-translated what He actually said, which was, "You are Peter (which is actually known as little rock or "Pebble") and upon this rock, I will build my Church. OK, so let's break it down. Upon what rock? What is the rock to which Jesus is referring to? Well, go back to the previous sentence, what could possibly be strong enough for Jesus to build His Church on? THE FACT, (or the statement that Peter made) which is THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD! Jesus is referring to Himself... Upon this rock (this fact, of what Peter just said), I will build MU Church. Its not Peter's Church that was being built. God Himself must build His Church... it was another claim of Christ to be equal with His Father.
Some of your other comments in other blogs of your are hilarious though. So, Ozzy77, I will be praying for you.
Sincerely,
Joe O.
The structure of language was different back then, and not only that it has been translated from Hebrew into English, so we really don't know WTF he actually said, since we don't know the way the words were arranged to relate to each other, and we don't know Hebrew. At least I don't anyway.
He could have meant that Peter was to found the church.
He could have been staring at a rock.
He could have been thinking of some crazy metaphor that we would never put together.
No one REALLY knows.
"Peter" doesn't mean pebble. It means "rock". It is from the same root Greek word that we get words like "petrous" and "petrified".
Remember Peter's original name was Simon. Jesus renamed him Peter. The verse you refer to is Matthew 16:18 (NRSV)
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it
So if Jesus had spoken English he would have said:
And I tell you, you are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church ...
So the obvious interpretation is that Jesus was telling Peter that he (Peter) would be the foundation upon which the church was to be built.
Historically, it is this passage that Catholics have used to justify the traditional assertion that Peter was the first Pope.
Now, one can argue whether or not Jesus REALLY said that or not. It is not attested to by any other of the synoptic Gospel. So the author of Matthew either made it up himself or used a source not know to the authors of Mark or Luke.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
By the way, I forgot to mention that Luke was a doctor, not recruited by Jesus to be a disciple; Mark, I have not found out his profession. Well, actually, I am pretty sure we covered it in Sunday School and I just forgot. I believe Mark is a preacher who recorded his sermons and ministry. I'll keep digging and I'll try to provide an update.
-Oz
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I want to point something out: even though those letters were written under those disciples' names, they were not necessarily written by them. It was possible that the letters were written by the people they preached to and who later admired them.
The Bible is not meant to be a recording of everything that Jesus and his disciples ever said or wrote down. The compliation tells a story of redemtpion, salvation, grace - the message that our God wants us to know. During the times the disciples and those close to the disciples were recording the scripture, the written documents generally came to be accepted as the scritpure (the words of God as guided by the Holy Spirit). Not everything they wrote was Scripture. Paul had written at least 2 other letters to the Corinthians that are not included in the Bible and I am sure the other disicples or those close to them record things at the time that did not become included. These "famed votings" you mention were not some great council called together to decide what was in or not in the Bible. It was a council that came together to affirm what was already accepted as Scripture. Dan Brown got his vote a little off by the way - look it up.
You should do a little more research, buddy. Part of the reason these votings occurred was not just to affirm scriptures, but to prevent the fragmentation of the Catholic church, which disagreed on what constituted scripture (and therefore I do not know how you could say that scriptures was already accepted) and from the threat of a very unorthodox segment of catholicism - Gnosticim.
What's more most of these scriptures were written between 40 and 100 AD, and were not canonised officially unitl 367 AD. Those are some huge gaps aren't they? What happens in the course of 250 years?
I am under the impression that the Da Vinci Code is a fictional book, in a long line of religious fictional books by Dan Brown. Why is this one being taken so much more literally than any of the other? The bible was written by man, translated, and retranslated by man, survived a dark age or two (at least partially), and has several different versions. The claim that books have been left out is not new. Mormons have their own book that they believe to be part of the bible but left out of the King James version. And there was a man (I don't remember his name) translating the Bible to English, had enemies at his front door, grabbed what he could of the scriptures and fled. He wasn't able to save all of it. What if the texts being debated were actually the ones left behind and burned by his enemies? I could be wrong on all of this. It was on a documentary at the Passion of Christ in Eureka Springs and I viewed it several years ago.
Another thought, the Lord's Prayer asks God to "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil". Why would we ever have to ask God to 'lead us not into temptation'. An omnibenevolent entity would never do such a thing. Maybe it was a mistranslation from 'lead us OUT OF temptation and deliver us from evil' (again - bible written and translated by man, man is fallable)
May I add to this that the Bible was indeed written by men, but it was inspired by God. Yes, it was translated by men. But God basically dictated what was written. The only things that differ is the writing styles of the particular people who were God's chosen to write down his word. And may I also point out that they do not know the authors of some books. Hebrews for instance, was a letter written to the general Jewish population, written for Jews to see exactly how Jesus Christ was the Savior, and how that tied in with all their traditions and prophecies and everything in the Old Testament. But they don't know who wrote it. I have heard it speculated that it was Paul, being the Jewish pharisee, turned Christian missionary (and he was also technically an Apostle, because he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus). But it could just as well have been one of the original 12, who's name got lost in those dark periods in history. And as for the Lord's Prayer thing, that is a translation thing. And it differs from version to version.
Because the claims it makes could actually be possible, from what I understand.
I haven't read the book, or seen the movie yet, so I'm just throwing that one out there.
maybe teh other ones couldnot write
The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction based partially on historical fact, which makes it oddly similar to the bible. It does not really make very many revolutionary claims - that there are several versions of the bible floating around is nothing new and easily substantiated, that Jesus was married is also nothing new, but sadly there is only circumstancial evidence to support either his marriage or his bachelorhood.
What we should be thankful for Dan's book for is sparking debates like this, and highlighting other sides of the story not popularised by powers such as the Church. We still must remember however that the Da Vinci Code is a work of FICTION, and not being dedicated to fact it sometimes gets its facts completely wrong - such as the assertion in the book that the Hindu God Krishna was given gold, myrrh and frankincense long before Jesus ever was. That is untrue as far as I have researched, although there is a less startling similarity between the birth of Jesus and Krishna - that a king, in an attempt to kill the newborn "god", killed all male infants his age.
We have to be careful, people, and always skeptical. Books like the Da Vinci Code should spark debate, as it does now, and not be accepted unabashedly as the Church wishes us to accept their Bible. Then we will be no different from them.
The Catholic bible actually has books in it the "normal" bible doesn't. Don't ask me the names of the books, though, because I don't remember!
Anyway. The 5 probably got together and made it a publicity stunt, and it took off. Heh. I'm so cynical. Sorry.