Cracking the Code Some discussion-guide group resources
According to one Catholic scholar, there are only three true facts in the DaVinci Code: Paris is in France; London is in England; and Leonardo DaVinci painted some paintings. Everything else is lies, fabrications and outright blasphemy, based on the vague conjectures of the writers of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, among others.
Some 'DaVinci' Lies:
Lutzer's objective analysis of Dan Brown's allegations is a fascinating read. He deals with each major DaVinci premise with lucidity and purpose. He examines and clarifies each point and then demolishes it ruthlessly; a thoroughly enjoyable dissertation which provides answers for the sceptic and ammunition for Christian apologia (defence of the faith). I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Early Christianity did not arise in a vacuum. There were numerous religions, sects and cult-followings which flourished in the essentially tolerant Roman Empire, which found that it could adopt and adapt various gods and goddesses to suit its purposes. The Graeco-Roman pantheon could easily be blended with Celtic and Asiatic deities to create composites which could be a uniting factor among peoples in the Empire. As long as everyone paid homage to the Emperor as "Lord", there wasn't a problem. Only later did Diocletian insist that the peoples of the Empire worship him as a god.
The old Roman religion was irretrievably bound up with the state, to the extent that sacreligious acts were treasonous; there were complex and solemn state rituals for every occasion to appease the gods and seek their favour. Every public meeting had to be sanctioned by the proper invocations and an augur (appointed for life by his fellows in the college - later elected by the people in their tribes) would kill a goat, sheep, pig or bull and examine its liver for omens. Augurs were usually high-born noblemen, politicians and soldiers, and they used a manual to ascertain the shape and characteristics of the liver and what these meant!
Eventually, the empty rituals and superstitions of the Roman state, while supported wholeheartedly in public ceremonies, palled in the eyes of the general public, who wanted a more intimate, powerful religious experience. For these, they turned to "mystery religions".
The oldest mystery cult resident in Rome was that of Kubaba Cybele, an Asiatic earth-mother type whose priests and devotees were eunuchs. The Romans called her the great mother, Magna Mater, and tried to ignore her priests when they carried the navel-stone (probably a meteorite) through the streets once a year, flagellating themselves and shrieking and begging alms from the populace. A more Roman earth-mother type was the mysterious and frightening Bona Dea or good goddess, a deity solely for the women of Rome. She was associated with snakes, diseased rye and the secret workings of the womb. Her rites were famously profaned by Publius Clodius Pulcher in the time of Julius Caesar's pontificate.
Later mystery cults were imported from the East: Isis, the blue-clad "saviouress" who carried her postumous son Horus in her arms, whose followers publicly castrated themselves in her honour, and Mithras, a light/solar deity concept which seems similar to the Zoroastrian idea of light eternally battling against darkness and never quite winning - a year-king type eternally dying in winter and being reborn in spring (like Tammuz/Dumuzi or even Persephone, Greek goddess of Spring). Mithras was a males-only cult especially popular among soldiers, like that of Hercules. For a taste of Romano-British cultural traditions, read the works of Rosemary Sutcliff, especially the Eagle of the Ninth and Song for a Dark Queen.
Apart from mystery cults, of course, were the state-sanctioned cults of dead emperors: the Divine Caesar and the Divine Augustus being the most popular. Men from various classes formed religious clubs or colleges to worship, the most famous being the Augustales (Au-gust-tah-lehs), the devotees of Gauis Julius Caesar Octavianus, forever known as Augustus, Julius Caesar's nephew and adopted son.
Egypt esentially stayed the same through the centuries; when Alexander conquered Egypt he founded Alexandria, a Hellenised city grafted onto the old priestly hegemony. Ptolemy the First, one of Alexander's generals, took over Egypt after Alexander's death, founding a dynasty of kings. But being king of Alexandria was nothing compared to being pharoah of Egypt, and that title had to be conveyed by the priests. Pharoah owned everything - the land, the people, the grain, palaces and the massive income from linen production and the monopoly on papyrus. The Romans annexed Egypt under Augustus, who ran it as his private estate, milking the huge revenues which the Ptolemies once accrued.
Gnosticism was a movement which arose primarily in Roman Egypt and Alexandria. Gnosis means knowledge, and gnosticism mostly involved the search for "higher", mystical lore hidden for centuries. They probably also wore silly robes...
Gnostics were dualists. No, not duellists of the en garde! type - dualism means the worship of two gods: A weak creator who tried to make a perfect world, but failed, and a powerful destroyer which opposes the creator at every turn, being essentially equal. In this eternal struggle between light and dark (think the yin-yang concept), spirit and the spirit world is good - and the gnostic strives to become one with this world - while matter, flesh and the surrounding creation, the physical world, is evil. The creation of more matter is essentially a work of the devil; therefore marriage and procreation are evil and most gnostic heresies banned marriages, including the Cathars. Contrast this with an all-powerful, loving Creator and the fallen angel we call the devil, who has no power and authority when faced by Christ - God is so much more powerful that there can truly be no comparison!
Also, when God had created the world, He said, "It it good!" And as we are made in His image, how can our form and being be evil, if "In him we live and move, and have our being"? God also let it be known, especially in the New Testament, how much value He places in children - how can procreation be participating in the devil's work? How can childbirth be "punishment for sin"? What sin? - the Song of Solomon clearly celebrates sex in a committed, loving marriage-relationship! Sex is not dirty, but a gift from God to bind husband and wife together as "one flesh", which is why divorce is so painful.
The New Testament also teaches that there is no "eternal struggle" between good and evil - thanks to the finished work of the cross, Christ has already won the battle and therefore all authority on earth, in heaven and under the earth is duly his. So this is why "The Father will give you everything you ask for in my name." Unless we come to God through Christ, and the justification we have through faith (in ordinary language: if you confess with your mouth that Christ Jesus died on the cross, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. And if you are saved you are also justified - God declares that he can't see a thing wrong with you. You're just like His son. And if you are justified you are also sanctified: a process of every day making you more like Christ. So the blood He shed on the cross and the life He laid down are an acceptable substitute for our own death, so that in Jesus' name we are given eternal life in Him which no one can take away.
The Messiah of Israel would be the Son of God and the king of Israel; Judas' betrayal is thus a betrayal indeed. The gnostics tried, centuries later, to imply that Jesus was not truly human, just a "divine emanation", like Krishna in Hinduism, inhabiting a human body. The "gospel" of Judas implies that Judas was told by Christ to kill the body imprisoning him so that the emanation would be freed. But if Jesus was not a human being, and also God (ie 100% God and 100% man at the same time), His death on the cross is meaningless - it's not dying in our place, for the sins of humanity, and as a perfect human, being an acceptable sacrifice to fulfil the perfect law of a perfect God.
There are two halves to the Christian Bible: the (Jewish) "Old" Testament, and the New Testament (in the Koine Greek of the early Roman Empire). Now, the Hebrew Bible consists of the first five books, or Pentateuch, which are the Law of Moses, or just "the Book of the Law".
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