Imagine if they made the "Rushdie Code"

[Xiahou]

People have nurtured Royal bloodlines to use as a figurehead, think how much better a figurehead would be if people believed it was a descendant from God.

The they didn't believe he was God, and they had no intention of ever revealing it.... making it a pretty pointless exercise. Besides, if they had some agenda to use his descendants for some sort of power-grab they'd be just as bad as the Catholics that the priory looks down on with such disdain.

There are just so many silly contradictions in the book. They claim the supression of Mary Magdelane in the Church is a supression of the sacred feminine..... excuse me? I thought Jesus and Mary were supposed to be normal people- what's sacred? They regularly refer to it as the "sacred" or "holy" bloodline when according to their own theories, it's nothing of the sort.

[Reverend Joe]

Just a suggestion, but maybe you should all quit wasting your time with a silly little thriller that will be completely gone in 5-10 years, and try reading "The Last Temptation of Christ." That, or seeing the movie. Slightly better story.

[Brenus]

“If so, what are we left with aside from modern archeological evidence?” You mean apart the fact that Christianity still exist? Well, we depend on texts written after the Christ’s death, and most of the texts we study were written and biased. But we have other authors speaking of Christianity. I can’t remember the names, but one spoke about the “mud of the Euphrates”, and another one complaining about “again a Jew Sect”.
We also know that the conversion didn’t work so well at the beginning, because we have some records in Greece, showing a decline of the few converts in this country. Christianity was in concurrence with the cult of Isis and Mithra.

We also know that Jesus as preacher was part of an intellectual Jewish movement (the Esseinians, first builders of kind of religious community in Qumran) which was unhappy of the Priest of the Temple and their interpretation of the Dogma. They were practising chastity, had the benediction of the bread and the wine, baptised, and didn’t eat any animals except fish, exactly what did the early Christians and then the Catharses.

“I believe it's widely accepted by historians” Not really. This passage is highly suspect, on contrary. It doesn’t match with the rest of the text, in content and style.
Flavius Joseph himself is questionable about his biography. What he pretended to be and studied is hardly believable. Well in fact it can’t be true. More, living under the reign of Nero, it is difficult to imagine he will write such thing about the Christians.

Flavius Josephus wrote first work, the Jewish War, in Aramaic, and presented it to Vespasian between 75 and 79. An assistant translated it into the language of scholars of his days, Greek. So, you can see there is a lot a possibilities to transform and modified the texts, and even more after, during the development of Christianity, when the only people doing that were the one who had a big interest to show that Christ was a reality.

[Louis VI the Fat]

try reading "The Last Temptation of Christ." That, or seeing the movie. Slightly better story.

Indeed. It makes the DVC look like Harry Potter for grown-ups.

[Xiahou]

“I believe it's widely accepted by historians” Not really. This passage is highly suspect, on contrary. It doesn’t match with the rest of the text, in content and style.
Flavius Joseph himself is questionable about his biography. What he pretended to be and studied is hardly believable. Well in fact it can’t be true. More, living under the reign of Nero, it is difficult to imagine he will write such thing about the Christians.

Flavius Josephus wrote first work, the Jewish War, in Aramaic, and presented it to Vespasian between 75 and 79. An assistant translated it into the language of scholars of his days, Greek. So, you can see there is a lot a possibilities to transform and modified the texts, and even more after, during the development of Christianity, when the only people doing that were the one who had a big interest to show that Christ was a reality.

Allow me to refer to wikipedia:

Over the last century, the consensus seems to have changed, and the subjective nature of many of the arguments used in the 19th century has been recognized. Judging from the 2003 survey of the historiography, it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus, but that the text that has reached us is corrupt to a perhaps quite substantial extent. In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Flavius Josephus, "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." There has been no consensus on which portions are corrupt, or to what degree.

Of course, I dont have access to the survey the author references.

Take from it what you will, but I find it much more likely that a reference to Jesus was embelished in later transcriptions rather than wholly fabricated and arbitrarily inserted.

[Brenus]

As you said: “In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia”. Hardly an independent body, is it?

My understanding is the text was “wholly fabricated and arbitrarily inserted”. Why Flavius would speak about a obscure preacher, who got the most dishonourable death you can imagine in the Roman world, officially the death to the rebel against Rome, him as a former rebel but now in the way to become a recognised member of the roman society? That should be a death wish under Nero. All this entire work was made to show he is a good Roman Citizen and in the middle of a text, without any link with the rest of the text, in an absolute distinctive style, in he inserted this paragraph… No way. It is a medieval cut and past exercice.

[Xiahou]

As you said: “In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia”. Hardly an independent body, is it?

You've confused me there... the Encylopedia notes that the passage has suffered from numerous interpolations- Im puzzled on why you seem to be attacking that as biased. The survey mentioned has nothing to do with the Catholic Encyclopedia

My understanding is the text was “wholly fabricated and arbitrarily inserted”. Why Flavius would speak about a obscure preacher, who got the most dishonourable death you can imagine in the Roman world, officially the death to the rebel against Rome, him as a former rebel but now in the way to become a recognised member of the roman society? That should be a death wish under Nero. All this entire work was made to show he is a good Roman Citizen and in the middle of a text, without any link with the rest of the text, in an absolute distinctive style, in he inserted this paragraph… No way. It is a medieval cut and past exercice.

Let's go back to the well again shall we?

The ragged structure of Antiquities involves frequent disruptions to the narrative, not least because it was mainly composed by a number of scribal assistants. Linguistic analysis has not proven conclusive when compared with other passages in Josephus which likewise exhibit unusual features. The supposed confession of Josephus relies on the standard text. But a recent study by Alice Whealey has demonstrated that a variant Greek text of this sentence existed in the 5th century—"He was believed to be the Christ." The standard text, then, has simply become corrupt by the loss of the main verb and a subsequent scribal "correction" of the prolative infinitive. In any event, the audience for the work was Roman, and the Romans always referred to Jesus as "Christus", which would make this merely an identification. Finally, it has been pointed out that every line of the passage can be objected to, or supported, by one argument or another.

You're free to think what you want on the passage's authenticity, but dont claim your view is the one widely accepted by historians without evidence.

[Strike For The South]

I saw the movie. It was meh. There were to many French people. Tom Hanks' hair was bad. English people are silly and and albinos are insane. Thats what I took away from the movie. 6/10 Oh and I now know how to curse in French

[Strike For The South]

I saw the movie. It was meh. There were to many French people. Tom Hanks' hair was bad. English people are silly and and albinos are insane. Thats what I took away from the movie. 6/10 Oh and I now know how to curse in French

[Strike For The South]

I saw the movie. It was meh. There were to many French people. Tom Hanks' hair was bad. English people are silly and and albinos are insane. Thats what I took away from the movie. 6/10 Oh and I now know how to curse in French

[Ronin]

if someone made the "rushdie code"....that would mean that:

-there would be 1 more book/movie I´d have no interest in reading/seeing


...I think I could live with that.

[Brenus]

“but dont claim your view is the one widely accepted by historians without evidence.”I never did. However, it is not true, to my knowledge that it is widely accepted y historians. In fact, historians ay that most of Joseph Flavius, even the real one, written by him, are exaggerations and even some lies.

“There were too many French people.” Oops, sorry, you just realised that France is populated by French….

[Major Robert Dump]

I would see the movie, Dave, I might even take a date and make out in the front row and squirt mayonasse packets on the people behind me. But I don't think hollywood would have a warm reception for it, it would have to be independent which means it would likely not be carried at many movie houses, not even Paul Newmans (speaking of mayo!)

[Devastatin Dave]

I might even take a date and make out in the front row and squirt mayonasse packets on the people behind me. (speaking of mayo!)

I thought I was the only one that use to do that. I also take a whoopi cushion for some "backdoor" simulations!!!

[Red Peasant]

I think that DD just feels 'disempowered'. He wants to go on a crusade/holy war, issue a few fatwas, molest and kill some 'non-believers', etc. Don't worry DD, maybe your fantasy will come true one day ... but hopefully not when I'm around of course

[AntiochusIII]

Did you guys hear that Rushdie has a new book coming out this year? It's called Buddha, You Fat Bastard.

The one and only thing that will make me absolutely offended and riled up is that Buddha apparently was not fat. The "biography" in the religious texts, though naturally untrustworthy as any other of its nature, never stated or even put any concerns about the Buddha being fat. In fact, it claimed that he almost starved himself to death at one point.

Damn Chinese and their fat Buddhas!

[Of course I'm not offended. Just having fun.]

I think that DD just feels 'disempowered'. He wants to go on a crusade/holy war, issue a few fatwas, molest and kill some 'non-believers', etc. Don't worry DD, maybe your fantasy will come true one day ... but hopefully not when I'm around of course

Yes, that is true. It should be before we're around though, so we can make it into a game later. I mean, there are great Medieval games, great ancient games, great World War II games, but no good games at all revolving around such wars after WWII!

[Sigurd]

If they did a film based on the questionable content on a certain new-Christian website which we could call Chick publications; the uproar that transpired with Danish cartoons would be peanuts in comparison.
This would be much more controversial than the retracted verses of the Qur’an.

[caravel]

I haven't read the DVC, I suppose because it just seems to me like yet another conspiracy theorist paperback, with a flashy cover and not alot else. This holy grail/mary magdelane/templar thing has all been done before, as documentary. The only thing Dan Brown has done differently, as far as I'm aware, is turn the whole thing into a typical sensationalist novel, with the objective of keeping the reader enthralled by an unfolding mystery (conspiracy theory)?

The major difference between Rushdie and Brown would be that Brown's book is now a movie, wheras Rushdie is hiding from the modern day hashishin.

So, the message seems to be, write blasphemous works about Christianity, then make a movie of those works, and you'll be rich and famous. Criticise Islam or draw a picture of an important Islamic prophet, and you stand a good chance of being killed.

The question is, is it right to caricature any religion, write blasphemous novels and even make movies about it? Or do some people need to accept that we live in a modern world where these ideals and beliefs are no longer sacred?

[Major Robert Dump]

Chick publications are the greatest. The greatest one ever was the book where the christian man and his son are visiting a mosque in Iran, and the dad tells the islam worshipper-guy about Jesus and how mohammmed is a false idol and the Islam guy converts to christian right then and there instead of, you know, capturing the dad and son and beheading them.

[Ser Clegane]

Chick publications are the greatest.

I second that - Chick Tracts are brilliant ... hours of fun are guaranteed

[Byzantine Mercenary]

wow their definantely hard line!

[Sigurd]

Chick publications are the greatest. The greatest one ever was the book where the christian man and his son are visiting a mosque in Iran, and the dad tells the islam worshipper-guy about Jesus and how mohammmed is a false idol and the Islam guy converts to christian right then and there instead of, you know, capturing the dad and son and beheading them.

I read that too, but the one I am thinking of is called "The Prophet"… another Catholic skeleton in the closet of religion.