THE DA VINCI CODE

You found a grey beard in the bible?

Ah, yes, HAL this is to the sound of a penny dropping in my head: the Early Christian Church venerated the Apostles (including add-on Apostle Paul), some of whom made it to middle or even old age (some traditions even have Saint John, grey beard and all, passing on in the 2nd century CE). But in the Gospels (describing Jesus' ministry approx. 6 BCE to 33 CE) these great saints to be were not too saintly or wise young men, with beards though, but not grey.

And I tend to agree with your implication that these were harsh times, where childhood and upbringing was often cut short by parents being lost and the necessity to make a living or marry a wealthy husband.


purr

I saw a program last night on DaVinci and they put forth a pretty good case that he stole from earlier inventors .  Some of the evidence was pretty compelling !

Lone

That's true. Maybe he thought it would make it a bit more difficult for others to figure out. I don't agree it implies any craziness.

...I can believe he borrowed and expanded on the work and ideas of others before him...

Ah, so Da Vinci worked for Microsoft. Or was Japanese.

HAL

HAL, perhaps I'm being a bit thick here but I fail to see what you're getting at. Spell it out for me if you like ! But on the post-70 CE dating of the four Gospels, that's one model based on these stories of Jesus' life and work containing accurate references to the Siege of Jerusalem by emperor to be Titus in 70 CE. (Jesus around 33 CE prophesied the Temple of Jerusalem would be completely demolished, and Titus' war machine indeed did so.) Common sense would dictate that 70 CE would be the first moment any author would know about this event.

But intrinsically, looked at from within the gospel stories you could alternatively believe they (along with at least a hundred other lost or fragmented 'gospels'!) were written by Jesus' contemporaries, purportedly even his young disciples (growing their apostolic grey beards over the next decades), while their Rabbe somehow managed to say some amazing and weird things in defiance of the laws of time. Guy saw some ways ahead...

Of course the Apostle Paul (Roman name: Saul of Tarsus) lived and worked from 6 CE to 64 / 67 CE, during which time he preached, ministered to the emerging Early Church, and authored his missionary journal Book of Acts and many letters to many new churches in the Roman world, especially Turkey.

So yes you are right, the New Testament was mostly written by middle aged men. Possibly in the decades following Jesus' death around 33 CE (with parts dated later, including a suggested 2nd century CE date!). Uh.. what's your point?


purr

Thanks for clarifying, HAL. I like how you think so to get your thinking going some more I answer to "who was taking notes": people remember events and then pass on those stories they find/FEEL to be the most significant, through initially an oral tradition (which includes rumors and gossip!) to within preferably a century written versions based on aforementioned. These stories will in in part be accurate witness accounts, but also highly personal (to all the persons involved in the retelling) and carry a risk of cultural/religious distortion/embellishment.

History is based on whatever written records we can dig up from the past. "The facts" imo are the physical artifacts we find refuting/corroborating old text (but they don't TELL us much). Those written words more or less corroborated by (archeological) facts comprise the science of History, causing it to be somewhat fuzzy. Like you suggest, we can (and did) dig up the towns and cities Jesus and Saint Paul and the Old Testament Prophets are told to have walked and ministered and died in, but to decide on the accuracy of the Bible (plus other millennia old secular records) requires a degree of (rational/intuitive) belief.

Da Vinci's alleged insertion of 'code', like a message to those able to decipher it in times to come poses the same problem concerning the 'fuzzy' (codes we unpack) and the question whether he was relaying historical reality he knew about or something less certain. I promise to stop boring you shortly.

Enter THE LAST SUPPER..








Nice pic by the way. OK the guy could paint. Furthermore let's pretend for a moment all of us who set eyes on this painting are good Catholics. And eye Apostle number six (from left): the apostle 'whom Jesus loved' (distinction made in New Testament), Saint John. Closer, HAL... closer.....









Case of believe what you will. But I, as a student of history and believing Christian, have been intrigued by the possibility ever since coming across the theory.


purr

HAL, on Jesus' actual life, there are historical uncertainties, but let's say the gospel accounts are honest and as accurate as possible, yes modeling his ultimate biological, even genetic nature would be at a Mission Impossible level. Didn't stop the Early Church from having a go at it anyhow , at the Council of Nicaea 325 CE as convened by Roman Emperor Constantine I (no genetic science available at the time, but you will get the drift from the attending bishops' intensely logical formulae translated into English - go click HERE to compare the original Greek and Latin versions):


Nicene Creed 325 CE


We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,

that is, from the substance of the Father,

God from God,

light from light,

true God from true God,

begotten not made,

of one substance with the Father,

through Whom all things came into being,

things in heaven and things on earth,

Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,

and became incarnate

and became man,

and suffered,

and rose again on the third day,

and ascended to the heavens,

and will come to judge the living and dead,

And in the Holy Spirit.

But as for those who say, There was when He was not,

and, Before being born He was not,

and that He came into existence out of nothing,

or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,

or created,

or is subject to alteration or change

- these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.
The above theology, or should we say theo-mathematics has become the foundation for (most of) Christianity, notably including the Protestant denominations. To the point: Jesus is established as being born (from his human mother Mary), emphatically not created, and being 'of one substance with God the Father and Creator'. HAL, logically this would claim for Jesus in modern terms human genetics while at the same time being God, that is God in human form, or God Incarnate.

Is this true? Well, uncertainties abound (although many after soul searching/contemplation have opted to have faith in Jesus and his transformative message). I think the Nicene Creed is an astonishing effort at unifying the Christian Church, laying the foundation for thousands of years of faith.

I fully appreciate that you, as an Atheist, will have none of it. But you are curious... (so am I)


purr


P.S. as to the many re-writes of history, occasionally we can substitute the "latest" or commonly accepted one for the true/factual version. That is History.

P.P.S. If Leonardo Da Vinci encoded knowledge of a married Jesus and Mary Magdalene leaving progeny, he would not just be preserving memory from the distant past, but revealing the existence (while hiding the identities) of Jesus' living descendants having presumably survived to Da Vinci's time.