What do you think about the Di Vinci Code?
465980
I could not put the book down.   I read it in record time.  I am soooooooo looking forward to the movie.  I am a very practicing Catholic and am not afraid of watching a movie that will introduce debatable ideas about my faith.  I have faith and believe Jesus did not father any children so what the heck..........in the name of art.........everyone should go see it :)
94885
I have read this book a couple of times and am looking forward to the movie.\n\nI think it is a great piece of fiction.  Sure, there are some truths in it, but for the most part it is pure fiction.  I have been to many of the sites that he pointed to in the book and some just aren't the way he stated.\n\nI think that it makes baseless claims about Jesus being married and having a child, and a few other things, but that is his perogotive as a writer of fiction.\n\nI am Catholic and am not in a hissy or upset or mad that the book was written, but I am upset and mad when people use it as a basis to trash my Catholic faith.  It is FICTION!  He says so himself!  But regardless of being true or not, I look at it this way, if Jesus was married and had a child, what better roll model for me, as a Catholic father to have?
675033
I really want to see the movie but with caution, the movie is never as good as the book, this has been proven over and over and over.\nDid you know that The Da Vinci Code is part of a trilogy, \nAngels and Demons and yet to be released third part?\n\nI saw the movie last night and I feel that they simplified the movie at little too much to fit the running time, they left out many interesting parts and ignored key parts of the book, but then again the movie is never as good as the book.
659150
Doesn't it seem as if people cling to their beleifs so hard, they will refuse to acknowledge anything that might question that? I mean, what if you found out that your Mom was a crackwhore for the first half of her life and you were the offspring of her pimp? (no offense to any mothers. This seems to be the case. besides, those 2000 year old beleifs, were the beleifs for 2000 years. This Da Vinci schmuk has just surfaced as a new beleif that can be considered by the mases. Or is it... global warming? I haven't read the book nor seen the movie, but I am familiar with the subject matter through schooling. When in school, or watching a movie that makes you think, it is enlightening. If we did not question things, there would be no need for Jesu, right? Why stop questioning now. I apologize, but it seems this Da Vinci controversy has surfaced the weakest of humans and found great fault in religion just by questioning it, whether true or not. The uproar confirms this. And for the twist... I agree with the author of this question, maybe not in the exact same sense. But I am God folks, not the one you all know, but my own. Think about this concept! What does God do for you? What is his purpose? Can these things be accomplished by yourself? It can be done.
503407
Have ANY of you actually READ the book? \nI never cease to be appalled at the absolute blindness of the Jesus freaks. Not to mention that not one of you has yet answered the main question posed here.\nYes, the main theory behind the premise of the book is that Jesus has actual blood descendants still alive today. And that there is a secret society whose duty it is to trace the blood line through history and present the knowledge at the right time. \nNow, everyone here loves to just immediately scream "It is fiction!" and "Dan Brown made it up!" Well, if they had ANY idea what they were talking about, then they would know that Dan Brown DID NOT make up the theories presented in the book. The plot of course is his own idea, and is fiction, but the historical background he uses, which is what everyone is upset about, is NOT his idea.\nPlease, folks. Educate yourselves, find out WHAT he wrote. How can you say that what he wrote isn't true, if you don't even know what he wrote?\nBecause most of you have put your brain in the hands of various spiritual leaders, and you have made the conscious decision not to think for yourselves.\nSince my personal belief is that Jesus may have existed, but not as the son of God, then I believe that his blood line could still exist. Does a secret society exist for just this reason? Difficult to believe, but a cool idea.\nAnd because this stuff just really gets me going, I have to say something else. If all of the "Christians" truly believed they are following the One True Religion, and they also believe that every word of the Bible is true (my other favorite subject due to all of the discrepancies in it) why  aren't you showing mercy and compassion for all of the misguided?\nInstead you choose to scream for a banning of the book and a worldwide boycott of the movie. These are the actions of scared people. These are the actions of third world leaders who see their power crumbling. Those who have absolute faith in the truth of their beliefs would only grin, slightly amused, at all the turmoil.
332664
I have read the Da Vinci Code.  I don't believe the story it has of Mary Magdalene.  Because for one, Mary Magdalene was never tagged as a prostitute in the Bible.  \n\nThis is the story I believe about Mary Magdalene: http://www.jesusdecoded.com/catholicchurch8.php
690753
I am thrilled on film release of Da Vinci Code.I read the book.Opus Dei has a lot under cover.You never know whats behind the iron curtain.
672222
The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction: that is, the story has been made up. As for the things behind it, they vary, and unfortunately Dan Brown's note at the start of the book is misleading.\n\nThe Priory of Sion is not an ancient society, but was invented in 1954 by a French hoaxer.\nThe evidence for the normal Christian story rests on many sources from that time, but Dan Brown has no evidence for Jesus having married or had children.\nThe Knights Templar were broken up because they had lots of money that the authorities could confiscate, not because they were protecting Jesus' bloodline.\nThe Holy Grail is based upon Welsh myths of "Power Cauldrons", and so cannot really be connected even metaphorically to the story of a carpenter from Israel.\nOpus Dei do not murder or persecute people: they do much charity work and leading democratic activists around the world have been members.\nChrist's divinity was decided upon by the Church elders, but only in the same way that a scientific conference would have voted to approve the theory of gravity.
563850
Well I´ve read the book and enjoyed it throughly! But sad to say there is a lot of thingd in the book that is false, \nbut it does makes you wonder. \n\nWhat I can´t understand is that a few years ago there were some old scripures found, but wouldn´d be accepted by the church. These scriptures underwent all the neccassary test to prove its validity(and it was found to be written the time Jesus was alive and 100 after he died).But it was a little bit contridicting to what is in the bible.\n\nAnyway what the da vinci code does is start to put doubt in the minds of people, and why did  the church reacted so strange to this book which is a novel! \n\nAnd okay the thought that Jesus actually has a living heir is strange, but Dan Brown was not the first to write about this there are many other listed books. And ´if´ that were true then the church would clear not want that knowledge to be known because it would loss a lot of credibility.\nSome modern writers,including Dan Brown, have come forward with claims that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. These writers cite Gnostic writings to support their argument. Sources like the ´Gospel of Philip´ do depict Mary Magdalene as being closer to Jesus than any other disciple. \nHowever, there is no known ancient document that claims she was his wife and Gnosticism was generally non-supportive of sexuality. The closeness described in these writings depicts Mary Magdalene, representing the Gnostics, as understanding Jesus and his teaching while the other disciples, representing the Church, did not.\nMary Magdalene appears with more frequency than other women in the canonical Gospels and is shown as being a close follower of Jesus. Mary's presence at the Crucifixion and Jesus's tomb, while hardly conclusive, is at least consonant with the role of grieving wife and widow, although if that were the case Jesus might have been expected to make provision for her care as well as for his mother Mary. Given the lack of contemporary documentation, this scenario cannot be proven, and although some consider the idea desirable to believe, most scholars do not take it seriously.\n\nAn argument for support of the married status of Jesus is that bachelorhood was very rare for Jewish males of Jesus' time, being generally regarded as a transgression of the first mitzvah (divine commandment) — "Be fruitful and multiply". According to this reasoning, it would have been unthinkable for an adult, unmarried Jew to travel about teaching as a rabbi.\nA counter-argument to this is that the Judaism of Jesus' time was very diverse and the role of the rabbi was not yet well defined. It was really not until after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70 that Rabbinic Judaism became dominant and the role of the rabbi made uniform in Jewish communities.\nPaul of Tarsus was an example of an unmarried itinerant teacher among Christians. Jesus himself approved of voluntary celibacy for religious reasons and explicitly rejected a duty to marry: "There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it." (Matthew 19,12)\n\nThe idea that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus was popularized by books like the pseudo-historical Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) and The Da Vinci Code (2003), a novel heavily influenced by the former book. These assertions have found no acceptance from scholarly circles.\n\nAnd secret societcy are meant to be kept secret so I don´t expect the historians to find a lot of concrete information about the Priory of Sion. \n\nAnd maybe Leonardo did discover something and instead of just saying or exposing it out right he decided to be clever and hide it within his works of art. After all he was known as a genuis.\n\nSo I(am born and raised catholic, but was taught to have an open mind about things.) personally an very intrigued by this idea of Dan Browns, but I am neither for it nor against it. I
553337
The problem is that too many Christians claim to follow Christ but are scripturally illiterate--they haven't read the Bible they claim to believe. So of course the "Da Vinci Code" would threaten their belief system, because their belief system hasn't been solidified yet. It's kind of like freshly poured cement on a sidewalk--until it's firm, anyone can put any impression into it. Christians need to go back to the source of their belief--the Bible--and then movies like this will be seen for the fiction they really are.
419260
The book was really informative on a variety of topics although the ending of every chapter had a hook to keep you reading. Even though you felt manipulated into reading on, it was willingly so, since the book was so exciting to read. It was about a mystery, solving a murder, and heavily referenced Catholic Church history, Christianity's history, and religious sects that have sprang up relating to both. In addition, the book also appeals because it contains riddles and puzzles...clues left by the dead man to help his daughter find an important religious artifact.\n\nI highly recommend it.
558992
In Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the Louvre, where the curator has just been found murdered. Unbeknownst to Langdon, he is a prime suspect in the man's death. The body of the curator has been left in the position of Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, and a coded message is left next to his body. In a quest to discover the murderer before he himself is arrested for the crime, Langdon races to decode a series of cryptic symbols relating to Leonardo's artwork. He uncovers the key to one of the greatest mysteries of all time – including the possible location of the Holy Grail.\n\nIncluded in the discoveries Langdon makes are the curator's membership in the Priory of Sion, and the involvement of Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic organization made up of clergy and lay members trying to encourage Catholic teachings. Brown contends that the organizations, documents, rituals, artwork and architecture in the novel all exist. No one has proven the existence of the Priory of Sion as described in the book. The book provoked an uproar in the Christian community with some critics calling the work heretical and anti-Christian. Others applaud the controversy as having awakened a new interest in Christianity.\n\nThe book is filled with coded messages, anagrams and ambigrams, and number puzzles. Readers were invited to solve a puzzle found in four codes in the book; the winner would receive a trip to Paris. Thousands of readers broke the code, which had to do with longitude and latitude readings that pinpointed CIA headquarters in Virginia. It is also the location of a sculpture called Kryptos, which Dan Brown will write about in his next book.
1090013
It's absurd to believe that ANYTHING passed down for hundreds of years, and translated into hundreds of languages could be EXACTLY the way it was in it's original form. Not to mention that there are now different versions of the bible, King James Version, etc. \n\nLike now with all the hype over the Da Vinci code, people should ask questions and understand the origin of the religion that they believe so deeply in instead of just following it blindly.
649454
I just checked out the Gospel of Judas the other day @ the local B&N. Wow. It felt like a part of history jumping into my hands.\n\nKnowing what Judas was to become; reading what depictions he'd written of Jesus; the pieces of text felt so raw with emotion. They felt so real. Knowing the ending of the story of course, did make some of the pre-betrayal friendliness tough to swallow.\n\nThis brought me to the realization that these newer books need to be included, don't they? I haven't asked my priest at church, but a newer version has to be in the works.\n\nForget about red tape, just order the entries and publish the thing.\n\nWith the Da Vinci Code getting more publicity than the Dead Sea Scrolls, now'd be a pretty good time to release a newer, fuller edition of The Bible.\n\nThanks for answering my last question,\n\n-Justin
274688
The Da Vinci Code is a novel written by American author Dan Brown and published in 2003 by Doubleday Fiction (ISBN 0385504209). It is a worldwide bestseller with 36 million copies in print (as of August 2005) and has been translated into 44 languages. Combining the detective, thriller and conspiracy theory genres, the book is part two of a trilogy that started with Brown's 2000 novel Angels and Demons, which introduced the character Robert Langdon. In November 2004, Random House published a "Special Illustrated Edition", with 160 illustrations interspersed with the text.\n\nThe plot of the novel involves a conspiracy by the Catholic Church to cover up the true story of Jesus. This implies that the Vatican consciously knows it is living a lie, but does so to keep itself in power. The novel has helped generate popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity. Fans have lauded the book as creative, action-packed and thought-provoking. Critics have attacked it as inaccurate and poorly written, and decry the many negative implications about the Catholic Church.\n\nThe book opens with the claim by Dan Brown that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"; but this claim is disputed by academic scholars in the fields the book discusses (see Criticisms of The Da Vinci Code and the further reading list below). As widely noted in the media, there has been substantial confusion among readers about whether the book is factual. Numerous works have been published which explain in detail why any claim to accuracy is difficult to sustain.
547425
The Da Vinci code is a book, the movie is coming out in a few days, by Dan Brown. He "claims" that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a baby together. Also that there was a secret group hiding that secret. Also Brown claims that the Merovingian(sp?) is the bloodline of Jesus. \n\nOh by the way, while all of this is playing out, there is this guy who is a Harvard professor who teaches Symbology that has to go over to Europe to help this lady out with solving her father's death.\n\nThe reason "it shook the foundations of Christianity" is because Dan Brown, as I said earlier, claims that Jesus was married and had a child.
705256
I didn't like the movie and it really isn't possible. Josh McDowell has written a really short book about it. Google his name and Da Vinci Code and you can find it.