Quote:
Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
Is that thing about "The Last Supper" really true?
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Ummmm, no.
"DaVinci Code" is a
great read, but is, as others have said, fiction. (Even if the author thinks otherwise about his conspiracy theory premise.) I haven't come across any reputable scholar that will concur in his historical surmises however. The scholars of Leonardo (who will point out that anyone who has actually studied the artist would call him "Leonardo," knowing that "Da Vinci" was not his name as such but simply means that he was an illegitimate child "from Vinci") seem to pretty uniformly reject all of Brown's assertions about "The Last Supper," "The Madonna of the Rocks" and "The Mona Lisa." For example, the "disembodied hand" and knife in "The Last Supper" belongs to Peter, who will later use the knife to cut the soldier's ear in Gethsemene. Disintegration in the mural, which was noticed as early as 1517, makes the hand look "disembodied," but reference to Leonardo's preliminary drawings and to early copies of the mural clearly show the hand belonging to Peter. And John frequently was shown as a beautiful young man in the art of the time. As for the Mona Lisa, contemporary documents establish that the model was a woman.
Similarly, most reputable scholars I have read reject the whole Mary Magdalene theory. (Again, her name gives a clue -- "Mary of Magdala" is a name for an unmarried woman; if married, she would have been called "Mary, wife of Jesus" or "Mary, Mother of ___.") Even the "hidden gospels" that Brown purports to rely on as showing the Jesus and MM were married also have Jesus recommending celibacy. The historical data just won't hold the claim up.
There are other errors peppered throughout the book that call the whole into question. Some of Brown's claims about Constantine and the Council of Nicea (including Constantine's role and the establishment of canon of Scripture, as well as the idea that the Jesus-MM relationship was pretty well accepted until the Council wiped it out) can be easily refuted. And at one point, Brown says that the name "Yahweh" comes from a misreading of the Hebrew "Jehovah." Just about any elementary book on the subject shows that is the other way around.
Brown definately did research, but in the writings of real scholars. Instead, he relied on conspiracy theorists, "Templar-philes," and "scholars" who have taken bits of this and that and tried to hobble it together.
Still, I thought the book was great fun to read. Facts should never get in the way of a good story.