I will, of course, only focus on this one:
"The companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. And Jesus loved her
more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often... The rest of
the disciples were jealous, and said to him, "Why do you love her more
than all of us?'"
Cuz, although Jesus lived in a village, he was not one of the Village
People.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> NPR - The Op-Ed Pages
>
> Opinion Page: 'Da Vinci Code' Truths
>
> NPR - Talk of the Nation
> <http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5> , May
22, 2006 ·
> Religious historian Elaine Pagels says what is important about The
Da Vinci
> Code is not what the movie got wrong, but what it got right.
>
>
>
> ===
>
> You can listen to the interview and caller questions mentioned above at:
>
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5422695
>
> ===
>
> Op-Ed
>
> The Truth at the Heart of 'The Da Vinci Code'
>
> by Elaine Pagels
>
>
>
> [Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: The
Secret
> Gospel of Thomas, is a professor of religion at Princeton. She wrote
this
> article for the Perspective section of the San Jose Mercury News.]
>
>
>
> Archbishop Angelo Amato, a top Vatican official, recently railed
against The
> Da Vinci Code as a work "full of calumnies, offenses and historical and
> theological errors.'' As a historian, I would agree that no reputable
> scholar has ever found evidence of author Dan Brown's assertion that
Jesus
> and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and no scholar would take
> seriously Brown's conspiracy theories about the Catholic group Opus Dei.
>
> But what is compelling about Brown's work of fiction, and part of
what may
> be worrying Catholic and evangelical leaders, is not the book's many
> falsehoods.
>
> What has kept Brown on the bestseller list for years and inspired a
movie
> is, instead, what is true that some views of Christian history
were buried
> for centuries because leaders of the early Catholic Church wanted to
present
> one version of Jesus' life: theirs.
>
> Some of the alternative views of who Jesus was and what he taught were
> discovered in 1945 when a farmer in Egypt accidentally dug up an
ancient jar
> containing more than 50 ancient writings. These documents include
gospels
> that were banned by early church leaders, who declared them blasphemous.
>
> It is not surprising that The Da Vinci Code builds on the idea that many
> early gospels were hidden and previously unknown. Brown has said
that part
> of his inspiration was one of these so-called Gnostic Gospels as
presented
> in a book I wrote on the subject. It took only three lines from the
Gospel
> of Philip to send Brown off to write his novel:
>
> The companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. And Jesus loved her
more than
> all the disciples, and used to kiss her often... The rest of the
disciples
> were jealous, and said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of
us?''
>
> Those who have studied the Gospel of Philip see it as a mystical
text and
> don't take the suggestion that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary
> Magdalene literally.
>
> Still, by homing in on that passage and building a book around it, Brown
> brought up subjects that the Catholic Church would like to avoid. He
raised
> the big what-ifs: What if the version of Jesus' life that Christians are
> taught isn't the right one? And perhaps as troubling in a
still-patriarchal
> church: What if Mary Magdalene played a more important role in
Jesus' life
> than we've been led to believe, not as his wife perhaps, but as a
beloved
> and valued disciple?
>
> In other words, what Brown did with his runaway hit was popularize
awareness
> of the discovery of many other secret gospels, including the Gospel
of Judas
> that was published in April.
>
> There have long been hints that the New Testament wasn't the only
version of
> Jesus' life that existed, and that even the gospels presented there were
> subject to misinterpretation. In 1969, for instance, the Catholic Church
> ruled that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, as many people had been
> taught. The church blamed the error on Pope Gregory the Great, who
in 591
> A.D. gave a sermon in which he apparently conflated several women in the
> Bible, including Mary Magdalene and an unnamed sinner who washes
Jesus' feet
> with her tears.
>
> But even that news didn't reach all Christians, and it is the rare
religious
> leader who now works hard to spread the word that the New Testament
is just
> one version of events crafted in the intellectual free-for-all after
> Christ's death. At that time, church leaders were competing with
each other
> to figure out what Christ said, what he meant -- and perhaps most
important,
> what writings would best support the emerging church.
>
> What we know now is that the scholars who championed the "Gnostic''
gospels
> are among the ones who lost the battle.
>
> In the decades after Jesus' death, these texts and many others were
> circulating widely among Christian groups from Egypt to Rome, Africa to
> Spain, and from today's Turkey and Syria to France. So many Christians
> throughout the world knew and revered these books that it took more
than 200
> years for hardworking church leaders who denounced the texts to
successfully
> suppress them.
>
> The copies discovered in 1945, for example, were taken from the sacred
> library of one of the earliest monasteries in Egypt, founded about
10 years
> after the conversion of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to join the
> fledgling church. For the first time, Christians were no longer
treated as
> members of a dangerous and seditious group and could form open
communities
> in which many lived together. Like monks today, they kept in their
monastery
> libraries a very wide range of books they read aloud for inspiration.
>
> But these particular texts appeared to upset Athanasius, then
archbishop of
> Alexandria; in the year 367 he sent out an Easter Letter to monks
all over
> Egypt ordering them to reject what he called "illegitimate and secret
> books.'' Apparently, some monks at the Egyptian monastery defied the
> archbishop's order and took more than 50 of the books out of the
library,
> sealed them in a heavy jar and buried them under the cliff where
they were
> found 1,600 years later.
>
> In ordering the books destroyed, Athanasius was continuing the battle
> against the "Gnostic'' gospels begun 200 years earlier by his revered
> predecessor, Bishop Irenaeus, who was so distressed that certain
Christians
> in his congregations in rural Gaul (present day France) treasured such
> "illegitimate and secret writing'' that he labeled them heretics.
Irenaeus
> insisted that of the dozens of writings revered by various
Christians, only
> four were genuine -- and these, as you guessed already, are those
now in the
> New Testament, called by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
>
> Irenaeus said there could be only four gospels because, according to the
> science of the time, there were four principal winds and four
pillars that
> hold up the sky. Why these four gospels? He explained that only they
were
> actually written by eyewitnesses of the events they describe -- Jesus'
> disciples Matthew and John, or by Luke and Mark, who were disciples
of the
> disciples.
>
> Few scholars today would agree with Irenaeus. We cannot verify who
actually
> wrote any of these accounts, and many scholars agree that the disciples
> themselves are not likely to be their authors. Beyond that, nearly
all the
> gospels that Irenaeus detested are also attributed to disciples -- some,
> including the Gospel of Thomas, to the original 12 apostles.
Nonetheless,
> Athanasius and other church leaders succeeded in suppressing the gospels
> they (and Irenaeus) called illegitimate, won the emperor's favor and
> succeeded in dominating the church.
>
> What, then, do these texts say, and why did certain leaders find them so
> threatening?
>
> First, they suggest that the way to God can be found by anyone who
seeks.
> According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus suggests that when we come
to know
> ourselves at the deepest level, we come to know God: "If you bring forth
> what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.'' This
message to
> seek for oneself was not one that bishops like Irenaeus appreciated:
> Instead, he insisted, one must come to God through the church,
"outside of
> which,'' he said, "there is no salvation.''
>
> Second, in texts that the bishops called "heresy,'' Jesus appears as
human,
> yet one through whom the light of God now shines. So, according to the
> Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "I am the light that is before all
things; I
> am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to
me. Split
> a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me
> there.'' To Irenaeus, the thought of the divine energy manifested
through
> all creation, even rocks and logs, sounded dangerously like pantheism.
> People might end up thinking that they could be like Jesus
themselves and,
> in fact, the Gospel of Philip says,
>
> "Do not seek to become a Christian, but a Christ.'' As Irenaeus read
this,
> it was not mystical language, but "an abyss of madness, and blasphemy
> against Christ.''
>
> Worst of all, perhaps, was that many of these secret texts speak of
God not
> only in masculine images, but also in feminine images. The Secret
Book of
> John tells how the disciple John, grieving after Jesus was crucified,
> suddenly saw a vision of a brilliant light, from which he heard
Jesus' voice
> speaking to him: "John, John, why do you weep? Don't you recognize
who I am?
> I am the Father; I am the Mother; and I am the Son.'' After a moment of
> shock, John realizes that the divine Trinity includes not only
Father and
> Son but also the divine Mother, which John sees as the Holy Spirit, the
> feminine manifestation of the divine.
>
> But the Gospel of Mary Magdalene -- along with the Gospel of Thomas, the
> Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Philip - all show Peter, the
> leader of the disciples, challenging the presence of women among the
> disciples. We hear Peter saying to Jesus, "Tell Mary to leave us,
because
> women are not worthy of (spiritual) life.'' Peter complains that
Mary talks
> too much, displacing the role of the male disciples. But Jesus tells
Peter
> to stop, not Mary! No wonder these texts were not admitted into the
canon of
> a church that would be ruled by an all-male clergy for 2,000 years.
>
> Those possibilities opened by the "Gnostic'' gospels -- that God
could have
> a feminine side and that Jesus could be human -- are key ideas that Dan
> Brown explored in "The Da Vinci Code,'' and are no doubt part of
what made
> the book so alluring. But the truth is that the texts he based his novel
> upon contain much deeper and more important mysteries than the ones Tom
> Hanks tries to solve in the movie version that opened this weekend.
>
> The real mystery is what Christianity and Western civilization would
look
> like had the "Gnostic'' gospels never been banned. Because of the
discovery
> by that Egyptian farmer in 1945, we now at least have the chance to hear
> what the "heretics'' were saying, and imagine what might have been.
>
> ------------
>
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