Churches denounce Da Vinci Code Poll indicates 17% of Canadians believe Christ had wife, children

Canadian Press via Canada.com ^ | April 16, 2006

[HumanitysEdge]

I wonder what percent believe Jesus was an alien? Or that aliens exist? And the overlap between the groups? (Yes, Jesus had a wife and children - and he's from Nebulon 6, just like the aliens who abducted me!)

[siunevada]

17 per cent of Canadians and 13 per cent of Americans believe Brown's premise.

"It shows that The Da Vinci Code is winning the day," says Richard Ascough, a religious studies professor at Queen's University in Ontario...

The professor is so smart he can no longer do fifth grade mathematics.

Do you play cards, Professor? Can I interest you in a friendly game of chance?

[GMMAC]

Da Vinci Code spawns new believers: Indifference defeats faith far more than hostility
~ TED BYFIELD, Calgary Sun, April 16, 2006.

[hosepipe]

[ 17% of Canadians believe Christ had wife, children ]

90+% of Canadians believe that Socialism is NOT slavery by givernment..
Canadians massively ain't too smart..

[macamadamia]

.................. ....................?

[thebaron512]

I did not say that children of Christ were involved in the early church, since they covered brothers, sister(s), and grand children of his brothers were involved.

But my point that Jesus having children or married does not matter, since they have nothing to do with his message.

[wideawake]

But my point that Jesus having children or married does not matter, since they have nothing to do with his message.

In that, you are profoundly mistaken.

Self-sacrifice is the heart of Jesus of Nazareth's moral teaching.

[thebaron512]

It is the Word. People try to make a case that Jesus having children matters, which has produced some interesting books and such. If it would have mattered, I think the Bible would have covered it. Now nothing made by man is perfect even inspired by God, but it is more truthful than another work of man.

[LexBaird]

This has not been proven or disproven.

It is conclusively disproven.

Congratulations. You are the first person in history to prove a negative.

Sources, canonical and non, say nothing, either way. Therefore, you know nothing, either way. There are 25-30 years of Christ's life of which nothing is definitively known.

[tutstar]

"Southern Baptists are adamant about the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Bible," counters Malcolm Yarnell, director of the Centre for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Baptist ping

[siunevada]

Nice article. I imagine there will be some who will be interested enough to examine the details of the novel and will be led toward the truth.

I found this amusing:

"What intrigues us," said a senior American television executive who is not himself a Christian, "is where all this interest is coming from.

"First, we had Mel Gibson's The Passion, then the Lord of the Rings, which is implicitly religious, then the DaVinci thing. Ten years ago, none of this stuff would have drawn this kind of interest. What's going on?"

This man's great skill consists in detecting interest trends in the American public.

I was in college in the late Sixties. The Lord of the Rings was extremely popular reading.

[wideawake]

Sources, canonical and non, say nothing, either way.

Wrong.

[LexBaird]

Not.

[JamesP81]

But even if Jesus did have a family, why does it matter?

The Bible would've recorded something of this nature, but it doesn't. It's quite simple really: it's an attempt by some to discredit the authenticity of the Bible, primarily because they don't like what it says so if they can discredit it, it doesn't matter what it says about them. It's a club to use against Christians.

[Candor7]

Obviously what Christ is gets redefined every few hundred years or so, or else Christianity would not have lasted for so long.

The transformation of Christ the man, brought about by the novel defines a public need to see Jesus as an ordinary man who is simultaneously divine. That assures ordinary men and women that they too possess a seed of divinity as a part of basic human nature.

Thus the tansgression from canon to novella is driven by social need rather than the historical imagry of Christ, as defined by the church.

I am quite comfortable in seeing how Christ will now change his manifestation for us for it is far beyond our mortal control, and will sit out the enraged debate between the traditionalists and the needy.

Who knows, maybe in 200 years the pope will be a black woman from Brooklyn.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

[Miss Marple]

There are a lot of people who have zero education in history, much less CHURCH history. They are prey to what ever scam comes down the road.

Of course, Dan Brown going around saying that the publishers made him label it fiction, but it's really true, is not doing anything to help.

[Smittie]

That's what gets me about this whole DaVinci Code thing. It's a novel, not a historical manual and people still get so engrained in the STORY that they start to beleive it.

It's a new genre of literature called non-fiction fiction, similar to the books written by the Clintons.

[Phishsticks]

Ordinary Divinity= Oxymoron

[wideawake]

Obviously what Christ is gets redefined every few hundred years or so

Not in the Catholic Church. The Christ described in the Gospels (circa 70 AD), in St. Athanasius' De Incarnatione (circa 350 AD), in Gregory the Great's sermons (circa 600 AD), in Bonaventure's Breviloquium (circa 1250 AD), in Thomas a Kempis' Imitatio (circa 1450 AD), in the sermons of Alphonsus Liguori (circa 1750 AD), the Cure D'Ars (circa 1850 AD) and Benedict XVI (now) are of a piece.

Who knows, maybe in 200 years the pope will be a black woman from Brooklyn.

There will never be a woman pope, by definition.

And yes, I am waiting with baited breath for the first poster to trot out the old "Pope Joan" myth.