Petr
11-22-2005, 09:47 PM
I am frankly full of contempt (not hatred) towards Dan Brown and his myriads of fans. His book of is an epitome of postmodern filth with its sneaky mixture of fact and fiction and outrageous revisionism with its antichrist denial that the early church did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Reformed scholar James White has published a multi-part response to Brown's drivel - I will quote some parts of it.
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=955
09 November
The Da Vinci Code (Part VI)
One of the most eloquent testimonies to the error of Dan Brown and the ridiculous and outrageous claims of TDVC regarding the "creation" of the deity of Christ by Constantine is found in the sermon on the Passover preached around twenty years before the end of the second century by Melito, bishop of Sardis. I included my translation of this tremendous section in my book, The Forgotten Trinity, and reproduce it here. Remember, this sermon was preached approximately 145 years prior to Nicea, 130 years prior to Constantine's battle at the Milvian Bridge (where he allegedly saw the sign of the cross in the sky and the phrase, "in this sign, conquer"). As you read these words, rejoice, as I rejoice, at the thought of this ancient believer and the fact that he reveled in the truth about the God-man Jesus Christ just as we do today! Oh that we had more preaching like this in our land today!
And so he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen, as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled!
He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
The Sovereign is insulted.
God is murdered.
The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
This is the One who made the heavens and the earth,
and formed mankind in the beginning,
The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets,
The One enfleshed in a virgin,
The One hanged on a tree,
The One buried in the earth,
The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven,
The One sitting at the right hand of the Father,
The One having all authority to judge and save,
Through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
This One is “the Alpha and the Omega,”
This One is “the beginning and the end”
—the beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
This One is the Christ.
This One is the King.
This One is Jesus.
This One is the Leader.
This One is the Lord.
This One is the One who rose from the dead.
This One is the One sitting on the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father.
“To him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.”
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/09/05 by James R. White
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=956
11 November
The Da Vinci Code (Part VII)
He was on his way to his death, and he knew it. The story of Ignatius, the great bishop of Antioch, one of the early Christian martyrs, is well known, at least to those with an interest in church history (which limits things a good bit these days). Unwilling to compromise, Ignatius happily, as an aged man, embraced his departure to be with Christ. As he traveled to Rome to face death, he wrote to individuals and churches, and those letters have come down to us over the intervening centuries in Greek and Latin versions. Evidently, Dan Brown's extensive "historical research" for TDVC missed his letters, written in 107 or 108 (that's 200+ years prior to the Council of Nicea). If he had bothered to read these works, he would have known that claiming Constantine "made up" the deity of Christ or His position as the Son of God would be a historical blunder on the level of saying Jimmy Carter ran against George Washington for the Presidency of the United States.
Here is a selection from Ignatius' genuine writings (there is a body of pseudo-Ignatian literature as well) that testify to his view of the Lord Jesus Christ. For more information on this, and the apologetic relevance of Ignatius in light of a tremendously gross attempt to misrepresent him by the Watchtower Society a number of years ago, click here. His words to the Ephesians identifying Jesus as God were noted in our previous entry. [Which reminds me: the Yahoo! article rendered the inscription found in the ancient church as "the god, Jesus Christ," but in reality, the underlying Greek is probably almost identical to Ignatius' phrase here, and whether you render it "the god" or "God" is dependent upon the translator and the context. Hence, the inscription [without having seen the actual Greek as yet] could be rendered "to the God, Jesus Christ" just as in Ignatius. This is, in fact, how it is rendered here.]
[I] My spirit is but an offscouring of the cross, which is a scandal to the unbelieving, but to us it is salvation and life eternal. Where is the wise man? Where is the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are called understanding? [B]For our God, Jesus the Christ[/B], was conceived by Mary according to a dispensation of God, from the seed of David, yes, but of the Holy Spirit as well.[/I] (Ephesians 18)
Notice not only the explicit affirmation of the deity of Christ, but likewise the very high view of Christ stated as well: Ignatius clearly viewed Jesus as the God-man, affirming both his humanity and his Deity, as we will see in another citation below.
[I] Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her that hath found mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of Jesus Christ His only Son; to the church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are, by faith and love [B]towards Jesus Christ our God[/B]; even unto her that hath the presidency in the country of the region of the Romans...[/I](Romans 1).
Note here that 1) in the very salutation of the letter the deity of Christ is plainly present, again showing its centrality to the faith of the early believers; 2) in passing, Ignatius, though he names other bishops (like Polycarp) when he writes to the church at Rome he does not do so. Why? Because there was no single bishop at Rome at this time. Rome had a plurality of elders until around AD 140, and only then did the monarchical (single bishop) model take hold in Rome.
[I] For [B]our God Jesus Christ[/B], being in the Father, is more plainly seen. The work is not of persuasiveness, but Christianity is a thing of might, whenever it is hated by the world[/I] (Romans 3).
This kind of description is so blatant, so easily made, coming not at the end of a long series of arguments or a long theological discussion, but almost "in passing," shows the centrality of the belief to believers worldwide, for remember, Ignatius is not only bishop of a major church (Antioch), but he is writing to churches all over Asia Minor, so that his words are not idiosyncratic, but represent the universal faith of the early believers. Surely this is the case with the church at Smyrna:
[I]
I give glory to [B]Jesus Christ the God[/B] who bestowed such wisdom upon you; for I have perceived that ye are established in faith immovable, being as it were nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit, and firmly grounded in love in the blood of Christ, fully persuaded as touching our Lord that He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but [B]Son of God [/B]by the Divine will and power, truly born of a virgin and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch (of which fruit are we--that is, of His most blessed passion); that He might set up an ensign unto all the ages through His resurrection, for His saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church....Let no man be deceived. Even the heavenly beings and the glory of the angels and the rulers visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ [who is God], judgment awaiteth them also [/I](Smyrneans 6).
Note not only the repeated references to the deity of Christ, but to Christ as the Son of God, to the human nature of Christ, the redeeming death of Christ...so much for altered gospels in the fourth century at Nicea!
[I]
Await the One who is above every season, the Eternal, the Invisible, the One who for our sake became visible, the Untouched, the Impassible, who for our sake suffered, who endured in every way for our sake [/I](Polycarp 3).
Once again not only the deity of Christ but the Incarnation are central to Ignatius' teachings. Here, within a single generation of the last of the Apostles the highest forms of Christology exist in the writings passed down to us through history. To say Brown's statements about the early followers of Christ viewing him merely as a mortal prophet stand utterly refuted is to engage in understatement.
[I] There is one physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord. [/I](Ephesians 7)
This is one of my favorite quotations from Ignatius, and for many others who have had to endure the endless babbling of liberal scholars and theologians who assure us with condescending smile that what we believe about Christ was the result of slow and purely human evolution over time. Here, in the first generation after the Apostles, the highest Christology is found---one person, two natures, the God-man, incarnation---it is all here, and it is a given that his audience shares his faith. How wonderful that after two thousand years of man's best attempts to pervert this faith, it still flourishes in the hearts of God's people!
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/11/05 by James R. White
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1022
[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="4"]19 November
The Da Vinci Code IX[/SIZE][/FONT]
[I] "It was all about power," Teabing continued. "Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power. I've written several books on the topic." [/I](233)
Dan Brown's utter incomprehension of biblical scholarship and history comes out here again, for he seems to think that "Christ as Messiah" and "Jesus as Son of God" are equivalent terms. Surely, the idea of Christ as the Jewish Messiah is as primitive as can be, and it would be even more absurd (if that is possible) to suggest that it was Constantine who came up with the idea of Jesus as the Messiah! Such is silly beyond words, and I know of now scholar at all who makes such a suggestion.
The early church was a loosely connected group of persecuted churches, racked by heresy and strife, despised by the world. The idea that the early church could be so organized, let alone so dishonest, as to 1) die by the thousands for a lie, 2) seek political power while being persecuted thereby, and 3) come up with such a grand scheme, is again absurd. So is Brown misusing terminology again, and not referring to the early Church at all, but instead to post-Constantinianism? Surely the growth of the church/state relationship began with Constantine, but there is simply no possible way of connecting Jesus as Messiah with post-Constantinianism. So, assuming, then, that Brown is simply incompetent as a historian, let's reconstruct his assertion. Let's say he's talking solely about the deity of Christ here, not Jesus as Messiah. So, the idea is that Jesus' deity was vital to the construction of a church/state relationship. Is there merit to this assertion?
Not historically, for once again, Brown ignores the Arian resurgence after the council of Nicea. Constantine didn't care if Jesus was deity or not: he only cared about political stability in his lifetime. He surely did not have some "big conspiracy picture" in his mind for future generations. This is pure historical revisionism masquerading as scholarship (note the "I've written several books on the topic"---and he will soon cite numerous actual books published over the past decades, again giving credence to the "fiction based on fact" concept). Who are these "many scholars"? Of course, we are not told. Of course, you could get a group of "scholars" to agree to anything if you have enough money and time, but that is hardly relevant to truth.
[B] Ironically, this thesis, as absurd as it is historically, is exactly what I keep hearing from Islamic apologist Shabir Ally. The poor "original followers" of Jesus could not manage to proclaim his truth, and the mean nasty followers of Paul basically "took over." When you try to find these original followers, you find more and more assertion with less and less documentation---in fact, you find absolutely nothing more than mere assertion and speculation, but these days, assertion and speculation, as long as it is joined with a smile or "sincerity," is all you really need. Post-modernism flourishes.[/B]
Now having made an utter mockery of history itself, Brown now decides to mock the faith itself in these words. Having claimed to have written several books asserting Jesus was "hi-jacked" by the early church, we read,
[I] "And I assume devout Christians send you hate mail on a daily basis?"
"Why should they?" Teabing countered. "The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith."[/I]
This kind of rhetoric is simply disgusting. "Well, if you were really educated, you'd know what I'm saying is true." Such is especially reprehensible in light of the fact that it is Brown who is demonstrating his utter lack of education (or, worse, utter dishonesty) with this kind of ravaging of historical realities. The vast majority of educated Christians know the early church hi-jacked Jesus? [B]This kind of absurdity can only be promulgated in this fashion: it can never survive actual debate and examination, so it must assert itself by repetition, or, in this case, through repetition on movie screens and in book stores all across the world.[/B][B]
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/19/05 by James R. White[/B]
Petr
Reformed scholar James White has published a multi-part response to Brown's drivel - I will quote some parts of it.
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=955
09 November
The Da Vinci Code (Part VI)
One of the most eloquent testimonies to the error of Dan Brown and the ridiculous and outrageous claims of TDVC regarding the "creation" of the deity of Christ by Constantine is found in the sermon on the Passover preached around twenty years before the end of the second century by Melito, bishop of Sardis. I included my translation of this tremendous section in my book, The Forgotten Trinity, and reproduce it here. Remember, this sermon was preached approximately 145 years prior to Nicea, 130 years prior to Constantine's battle at the Milvian Bridge (where he allegedly saw the sign of the cross in the sky and the phrase, "in this sign, conquer"). As you read these words, rejoice, as I rejoice, at the thought of this ancient believer and the fact that he reveled in the truth about the God-man Jesus Christ just as we do today! Oh that we had more preaching like this in our land today!
And so he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen, as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled!
He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
The Sovereign is insulted.
God is murdered.
The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
This is the One who made the heavens and the earth,
and formed mankind in the beginning,
The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets,
The One enfleshed in a virgin,
The One hanged on a tree,
The One buried in the earth,
The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven,
The One sitting at the right hand of the Father,
The One having all authority to judge and save,
Through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
This One is “the Alpha and the Omega,”
This One is “the beginning and the end”
—the beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
This One is the Christ.
This One is the King.
This One is Jesus.
This One is the Leader.
This One is the Lord.
This One is the One who rose from the dead.
This One is the One sitting on the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father.
“To him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.”
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/09/05 by James R. White
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=956
11 November
The Da Vinci Code (Part VII)
He was on his way to his death, and he knew it. The story of Ignatius, the great bishop of Antioch, one of the early Christian martyrs, is well known, at least to those with an interest in church history (which limits things a good bit these days). Unwilling to compromise, Ignatius happily, as an aged man, embraced his departure to be with Christ. As he traveled to Rome to face death, he wrote to individuals and churches, and those letters have come down to us over the intervening centuries in Greek and Latin versions. Evidently, Dan Brown's extensive "historical research" for TDVC missed his letters, written in 107 or 108 (that's 200+ years prior to the Council of Nicea). If he had bothered to read these works, he would have known that claiming Constantine "made up" the deity of Christ or His position as the Son of God would be a historical blunder on the level of saying Jimmy Carter ran against George Washington for the Presidency of the United States.
Here is a selection from Ignatius' genuine writings (there is a body of pseudo-Ignatian literature as well) that testify to his view of the Lord Jesus Christ. For more information on this, and the apologetic relevance of Ignatius in light of a tremendously gross attempt to misrepresent him by the Watchtower Society a number of years ago, click here. His words to the Ephesians identifying Jesus as God were noted in our previous entry. [Which reminds me: the Yahoo! article rendered the inscription found in the ancient church as "the god, Jesus Christ," but in reality, the underlying Greek is probably almost identical to Ignatius' phrase here, and whether you render it "the god" or "God" is dependent upon the translator and the context. Hence, the inscription [without having seen the actual Greek as yet] could be rendered "to the God, Jesus Christ" just as in Ignatius. This is, in fact, how it is rendered here.]
[I] My spirit is but an offscouring of the cross, which is a scandal to the unbelieving, but to us it is salvation and life eternal. Where is the wise man? Where is the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are called understanding? [B]For our God, Jesus the Christ[/B], was conceived by Mary according to a dispensation of God, from the seed of David, yes, but of the Holy Spirit as well.[/I] (Ephesians 18)
Notice not only the explicit affirmation of the deity of Christ, but likewise the very high view of Christ stated as well: Ignatius clearly viewed Jesus as the God-man, affirming both his humanity and his Deity, as we will see in another citation below.
[I] Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her that hath found mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of Jesus Christ His only Son; to the church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are, by faith and love [B]towards Jesus Christ our God[/B]; even unto her that hath the presidency in the country of the region of the Romans...[/I](Romans 1).
Note here that 1) in the very salutation of the letter the deity of Christ is plainly present, again showing its centrality to the faith of the early believers; 2) in passing, Ignatius, though he names other bishops (like Polycarp) when he writes to the church at Rome he does not do so. Why? Because there was no single bishop at Rome at this time. Rome had a plurality of elders until around AD 140, and only then did the monarchical (single bishop) model take hold in Rome.
[I] For [B]our God Jesus Christ[/B], being in the Father, is more plainly seen. The work is not of persuasiveness, but Christianity is a thing of might, whenever it is hated by the world[/I] (Romans 3).
This kind of description is so blatant, so easily made, coming not at the end of a long series of arguments or a long theological discussion, but almost "in passing," shows the centrality of the belief to believers worldwide, for remember, Ignatius is not only bishop of a major church (Antioch), but he is writing to churches all over Asia Minor, so that his words are not idiosyncratic, but represent the universal faith of the early believers. Surely this is the case with the church at Smyrna:
[I]
I give glory to [B]Jesus Christ the God[/B] who bestowed such wisdom upon you; for I have perceived that ye are established in faith immovable, being as it were nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit, and firmly grounded in love in the blood of Christ, fully persuaded as touching our Lord that He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but [B]Son of God [/B]by the Divine will and power, truly born of a virgin and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch (of which fruit are we--that is, of His most blessed passion); that He might set up an ensign unto all the ages through His resurrection, for His saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church....Let no man be deceived. Even the heavenly beings and the glory of the angels and the rulers visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ [who is God], judgment awaiteth them also [/I](Smyrneans 6).
Note not only the repeated references to the deity of Christ, but to Christ as the Son of God, to the human nature of Christ, the redeeming death of Christ...so much for altered gospels in the fourth century at Nicea!
[I]
Await the One who is above every season, the Eternal, the Invisible, the One who for our sake became visible, the Untouched, the Impassible, who for our sake suffered, who endured in every way for our sake [/I](Polycarp 3).
Once again not only the deity of Christ but the Incarnation are central to Ignatius' teachings. Here, within a single generation of the last of the Apostles the highest forms of Christology exist in the writings passed down to us through history. To say Brown's statements about the early followers of Christ viewing him merely as a mortal prophet stand utterly refuted is to engage in understatement.
[I] There is one physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord. [/I](Ephesians 7)
This is one of my favorite quotations from Ignatius, and for many others who have had to endure the endless babbling of liberal scholars and theologians who assure us with condescending smile that what we believe about Christ was the result of slow and purely human evolution over time. Here, in the first generation after the Apostles, the highest Christology is found---one person, two natures, the God-man, incarnation---it is all here, and it is a given that his audience shares his faith. How wonderful that after two thousand years of man's best attempts to pervert this faith, it still flourishes in the hearts of God's people!
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/11/05 by James R. White
http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1022
[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="4"]19 November
The Da Vinci Code IX[/SIZE][/FONT]
[I] "It was all about power," Teabing continued. "Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power. I've written several books on the topic." [/I](233)
Dan Brown's utter incomprehension of biblical scholarship and history comes out here again, for he seems to think that "Christ as Messiah" and "Jesus as Son of God" are equivalent terms. Surely, the idea of Christ as the Jewish Messiah is as primitive as can be, and it would be even more absurd (if that is possible) to suggest that it was Constantine who came up with the idea of Jesus as the Messiah! Such is silly beyond words, and I know of now scholar at all who makes such a suggestion.
The early church was a loosely connected group of persecuted churches, racked by heresy and strife, despised by the world. The idea that the early church could be so organized, let alone so dishonest, as to 1) die by the thousands for a lie, 2) seek political power while being persecuted thereby, and 3) come up with such a grand scheme, is again absurd. So is Brown misusing terminology again, and not referring to the early Church at all, but instead to post-Constantinianism? Surely the growth of the church/state relationship began with Constantine, but there is simply no possible way of connecting Jesus as Messiah with post-Constantinianism. So, assuming, then, that Brown is simply incompetent as a historian, let's reconstruct his assertion. Let's say he's talking solely about the deity of Christ here, not Jesus as Messiah. So, the idea is that Jesus' deity was vital to the construction of a church/state relationship. Is there merit to this assertion?
Not historically, for once again, Brown ignores the Arian resurgence after the council of Nicea. Constantine didn't care if Jesus was deity or not: he only cared about political stability in his lifetime. He surely did not have some "big conspiracy picture" in his mind for future generations. This is pure historical revisionism masquerading as scholarship (note the "I've written several books on the topic"---and he will soon cite numerous actual books published over the past decades, again giving credence to the "fiction based on fact" concept). Who are these "many scholars"? Of course, we are not told. Of course, you could get a group of "scholars" to agree to anything if you have enough money and time, but that is hardly relevant to truth.
[B] Ironically, this thesis, as absurd as it is historically, is exactly what I keep hearing from Islamic apologist Shabir Ally. The poor "original followers" of Jesus could not manage to proclaim his truth, and the mean nasty followers of Paul basically "took over." When you try to find these original followers, you find more and more assertion with less and less documentation---in fact, you find absolutely nothing more than mere assertion and speculation, but these days, assertion and speculation, as long as it is joined with a smile or "sincerity," is all you really need. Post-modernism flourishes.[/B]
Now having made an utter mockery of history itself, Brown now decides to mock the faith itself in these words. Having claimed to have written several books asserting Jesus was "hi-jacked" by the early church, we read,
[I] "And I assume devout Christians send you hate mail on a daily basis?"
"Why should they?" Teabing countered. "The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith."[/I]
This kind of rhetoric is simply disgusting. "Well, if you were really educated, you'd know what I'm saying is true." Such is especially reprehensible in light of the fact that it is Brown who is demonstrating his utter lack of education (or, worse, utter dishonesty) with this kind of ravaging of historical realities. The vast majority of educated Christians know the early church hi-jacked Jesus? [B]This kind of absurdity can only be promulgated in this fashion: it can never survive actual debate and examination, so it must assert itself by repetition, or, in this case, through repetition on movie screens and in book stores all across the world.[/B][B]
posted at 01:00:00 on 11/19/05 by James R. White[/B]
Petr