To say that Jesus was married and had a child, does that question his divinity? I think not. To have sex, while married, is not sinful… or atleast the scriptures teach.

The movie and book were controversial and thought-provoking, but I still have my faith in what I believed beforehand.

hmmmm wel so still a mystery huh ! wel n ya DAN BROWN also people have said tat da vinci story is true story ! n if tats da case den they must c wats beneath the la louvre , i guess or check da templer?s church !
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There have been several DVD’s put out now exposing The DaVinci Code and one of them actually took the time to go to that spot, and showed the camera what was beneath the la louvre–NOTHING!
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“That is not John! It never was, I always believed that when I was a child, no one told me, I just knew it was not!! Look at the lips, the eyes, the hands, the hair? she and jesus are painted with the most care, than anyone else in the painting. Both wear identical clothing.”

Look at the picture again…do you see anymore “female looking” folks in the picture?

“I?ve always believed the church to be the largest conspiracy known to man, attempting to cover up the truth and preach what the ?Church? believes is true. Today, the church may be open minded, but from what history tells, the church has never been open minded. Non the less being very selective of what is entered into the bible and what is taught. Scriptures taken out of context, and missing pages?? Besides, how in the world would anyone living today or yesterday know if the church, during that time, destroyed pertinent scripture that they thought may destroy christianity!”

Lol–the main thing I know is that one of the lies in the movie is that “Christianity took over Rome” bit!

One thing Jesus promised His disciples was that they would be persecuted for believing Him and they are to this day. People are literally getting KILLED for becoming Christians, people are thrown out of their HOMES for being Christians, and people are hunted down by the law because they became an “enemy of the state” when they became a Christian.

And that’s what happened in Rome–the great fire happened and Nero found a scapegoat. The Christians–they were tortured, maimed, sawed in half, became burning lightposts for Nero’s palace, thrown to the lions, got their heads chopped off, etc…

It was only through God’s mercy that they survived through all that–they were victimized by the Romans not the other way around.

It’s History–and you can even read about it on Wikipedia!

“Personally, I believe that there is a higher power known as Jesus, God and the holy spirit; but not what the church preaches. Besides, the church is always ready to convict anyone who attempts to solve the puzzles of such existance.”

Did Jesus really come to the earth in the flesh? Is He God in the flesh? Isn’t He more then a good man?

I’ll tell you one thing though; you’re right in saying that we have, at one point in time or another, done bad stuff. And you know, I apologize for them–I’m sorry whenever they killed a bunch of innocent people in the Crusades. I’m sorry when they killed a bunch of innocent Jews during the Inquisition. I apologize for them, ok?

We’re sorry; will you forgive us for all the times we hurt innocent people?

–JD

2) I do not agree that faith is belief without any cause or evidence. Good faith cannot ignore evidence. For example, one of the reasons I believe that God exists is that there are solid philosophical arguments for God\’s existence, like the Kalam argument. One of the reasons I believe the New Testament is that there is good evidence that it is historically reliable. Faith in spite of evidence is what some call \”blind faith\”, and I don\’t think that kind of faith is healthy.

3) There\’s several points I disagree with here. First, the Council of Nicaea\’s main purpose was to debate the exact nature of Jesus\’ divinity (the Arian controversy). This was debated at length, along with other early church practices. The canon of the Bible however was not debated here … see this page for a full discussion of the canon at Nicaea:
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html
The conclusion is that \”there appears almost no evidence that the council of Nicaea made any pronouncements on which books go in the Bible, with the ambivalent exception of Jerome, or about the destruction of heretical writings\”.
On another point, the Dead Sea Scrolls did not contain gnostic documents. They contain almost entirely Hebrew (Old Testament) texts and do not mention Jesus. You probably meant the Nag Hammadi Library, which do contain gnostic texts. As above, however, none of the gnostic texts were ever given serious consideration as part of the church canon, especially not at as late a date as the Nicaean council. The Gospel of Thomas, by far the oldest of the gnostic gospels we possess, is usually dated to 120AD at earliest, so they were written much later than the canonical gospels.
With regards to the Templars, their secret roles may be \”widely believed\” but, as far as I know, not among scholars who have made it their specialty studying the Templars.

4) The idea that Leonardo was a member of the Priory of Sion is dependent on the idea that the Priory of Sion really existed; in fact it was a hoax: \”Since its actual foundation in 1956, it has been characterized as anything from the most influential secret society in Western history to a modern Rosicrucian-esque ludibrium, but, ultimately, has been shown to be a hoax created by Pierre Plantard.\” Extensive information about the hoax (including the confessions of its perpetrators and copies of relevant documents) can be found at Paul Smith\’s site here:
http://www.priory-of-sion.com/
Unfortunately, the book Brown chose to base The Da Vinci Code on, \”Holy Blood, Holy Grail\” was published before the hoax was widely known. And if there was no secret society, there was no secret to pass on. There is no evidence from Leonardo\’s life that he was involved in any type of secret society.

5) I do not find the picture put forward by The Da Vinci Code to be at all persuasive due to its many errors in what it puports to be fact (or in some cases what Brown intended to be fiction). A brief list of some of the criticisms can be found here (I did not read the entire site so I cannot say how accurate it is in its entirety):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_The_Da_Vinci_Code

I do agree about the Vatican though; people need to be careful about equating any organization with the proper \”church\”, that is, the unified body of all believers. :)

1) No one is debating the fact that Jesus existed, or the presence of God. Not the book, not Da Vinci, not supporters of the hypothesis of the book. What is being debated is the manipulation of history by an organisation for gain, either spiritual, political or personal. The organisation in this particular case is the Vatican, not all of the church, since there are a number of different churches.

2) Faith is believing in something with out cause or evidence, you just believe. Like you just believe from the beginning that your parents love you, your dog loves you and that killing someone has really bad consequences! You don’t want to go out and try and see what the consequences are, you just know.

3)Moving along, there was a conference of NiCea at which all the people who were going to form the first Vatican / Organised Church sat down and decided how to thread a plausible, story that teaches truth and justice and all that good stuff together and ‘market’ it to the general populace. They tried to include as many of the Gospels as possible, but at the end two Gospels had to be thrown out because they did not fit into the general story and scheme of things. These Gospels not included in the Bible came to be known as the Gnostic documents. I don’t know how familiar any of you are with your church history, but there was massive killing and burning and general eradication of ‘heretics’ in France and Spain. These heretics that were hunted down were Cathars, people who believed in everything the bible said with one difference, they believed that Jesus Christ had human remains, and was human despite his divinity. They were killed, mercilessly. The Gnostic Documents, also often reffered to as the Dead Sea scrolls have been written about extensively. There is a school of belief that these are what the Templars found in Solomon’s temple and what gave them such enormous power over the church. It is a widely believed fact that the Templars were hunted down by the church for harbouring a secret of this nature that would shake the extensive and lucrative marketing campaign that was catholisism.

4) Leo. Da Vinci never knew Christ, was not around, did not know anyone who knew him. The book poses a viable THEORY that he was part of a secret society, the Priory of Scion, that helped with the protection of this secret. The Templars were hunted down and killed to a person, but re emerged from the few fleeing and surviving knights and it was them who formed the Priory to help pass on the secret through the years of the truth to the faith. Leo. Da Vinci is THEORISED to have been a member and as such is passing on clues through his paintings. This is why they are all in seated sitcom style, why there are inuendos, and why only the people who know what they are looking for can find it and the rest of us have discussion groups. It’s kind of a puzzle picture where you have to find the clues by looking at the picture.

5) In the end all the book, the picture and the conjecture is doing is providing an opposing counsel, if you will, with a story that is as plausible as the one put together by the organised church

One must not forget that the Vatican, is just another political organisatiion with voting, and ceremony and a marketing need. Questioning and organisation is not questioning a faith, just like questioning the Government does not mean you don’t believe in or love your country, you’re just not very sure of the people running it.

Forgive me if I linger off subject, in places. I am no prophet, but The Da Vinci Code was not intended to destroy anyone?s faith, discredit scripture, or slander Jesus, more or less to open up the doors that were long forgotten. It?s a known fact that the majority of people are taking it out of context as much as the fact as taking scriptures out of context. If you find yourself believing that any of this is to slander God or weaken your faith, then you should ask yourself, how strong is your faith?
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I see this as a revolution in faith, for many, and will open the doors for many. There is no reason to seek the ?Truth? for the truth is beside you.

1. This seems like it is contradicting itself. It is either taken out of context or it is a revolution in faith.

2. My wife’s cat is right beside me and trust me… if it was the truth, I’d like to set it free.