Well, the big da Vinci Code panel discussion went off well tonight. The place was packed; one of the rectors of St. Elizabeth’s reckoned there were 260 people in the main body of the church, nave and choir and someone sitting in the pulpit, some draped over the altar rail — and another few dozen in the hall and in a side room listening on an audio feed.
I was there with Barbara Newman (Northwestern University medievalist) and Brian Hastings (spiritual director and associate rector at Church of Our Saviour). Barbara and I were mostly on the same wavelength — and she rocked. She did a superb job of talking through the ways that Sophia-theology has permeated, disappeared into, and re-emerged from broader Christian theology. Brian has rather a different perspective on the book and on his vocation from either Barbara or me; his is a more fluid spirituality that starts with whatever interests someone, and finds something of spiritual value therein.
I spoke first, and addressed the topics I’d been assigned: Was Jesus married? What about the Gnostic gospels? and When were women forced out of church leadership? I began by explaining that although we can’t know for a certainty that Jesus wasn’t married, there is no evidence to suggest that he was married, and plenty of evidence to suggest that he wasn’t. On the evidence we have, there’s just absolutely no basis for suggesting that Jesus might have been married.
If, however, he had been married, there’s again no reason to suppose that his wife was Mary Magdalene. They appear in various settings together; none of our earliest or most reliable sources suggest that their relationship was any more intimate than that of a teacher and student. When Mary met the resurrected Jesus, she didn’t run to him and cry, “Darling! You were right!” The one text — out of all sources for early Christianity — that even comes close to suggesting that they were intimate is the gnostic Gospel of Philip, in which Mary is identified as Jesus’ koinwnos (here carried over into Coptic from Greek), “partner, companion” and in which they complain that Jesus kisses her on the mouth and loves her more than them. This second-century text is thus the closest we have to suggesting that Jesus was married, and — with its marked gnostic flavor — it’s surely not more reliable than first-century traditions that show no awareness of a conjugal relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Then I covered the gnostic gospels, and the process of canon-formation. Dan Brown is flat wrong about this, too. He suggests that Constantine, in a fit of imperialistic censorship, decreed which gospels would count (the ones in which Jesus was depicted as divine) and which to ban (the ones in which Jesus showed a humanity that might prove dangerous to imperial politics). Contrariwise, the canon seems to have grown up and selected its texts based on such criteria as breadth of use, antiquity, the extent to which it communicates a satisfactorily familiar portrait of Jesus, and association with an apostle (not always as an author, but at least as a friend). All of these were operative well before Constantine attained the throne.
Constantine didn’t “make Jesus divine,” either. The Council of Nicaea, which Constantine convoked and bankrolled, voted on whether Jesus was semi-divine (the Arians, who thought that the Son was a sort of bridge between humanity and divinity), or fully divine (the Athanasians, who held that the Son was divine just as the Father was); that he was in some sense divine, nobody questioned. And the outcome wasn’t close — 298 votes for the Nicene Creed,, 2 votes against. (Constantine probably used intimidation to ensure the outcome, but soon afterward supported Arians and semi-Arians, so his role in the whole process was less monovalent than Brown suggests).
Finally, the church was indeed open to women’s leadership. The New Testament texts themselves testify to Euodia and Syntyche from Philippi, Chloe in Corinth, Prisca (of the missionary couple of Prisca and Aquila), Phoebe the deacon, and Junia, “eminent among the apostles.” Moreover, the church appointed women to the offices of “virgin” and “widow” — and if you think that’s no big deal, you ought to consider the ramifications of living without male support and protection in the ancient world. The church gradually discouraged these ministries, and eventually siphoned off able women into the nascent monastic movement. But this too was well under way by the time Constantine got to the scene; it wasn’t his doing.
I brought along some prints of medieval and renaissance paintings to debunk the foolish claim that the figure by Jesus in Leonardo’s painting of the Last Supper is Mary (&ldqu;;their figures make an ‘M’!”) The iconographic tradition conventionally depicts John the Evangelist as a young man with very feminine features; to clinch the case, I pointed to this painting. (Of course, it may be that all the painters of the West were in on the secret. Or it may just be that Dan Brown is flat wrong.)
Moreover, the plot twists are predictable and some are downright obivous. The female lead of this novel about the Divine Feminine serves mostly just as a foil for the male leads, with little personality of her own. Neither of the leads seems particularly smart or clever. It’s not even a good thriller.
Posted by AKMA at November 20, 2003 12:27 AM | TrackBackYou just saved me however many bucks this book costs. Many thanks!
Posted by: NTA at November 20, 2003 06:49 AMAnd that’s before I even started talking about the flat characterization, the reliance on hokey threadbare conspriracy theories, the way it makes villains of people with disabilities, the painfully eager-to-be-suspenseful prose, and the incoherence of its own bogus spirituality!
It’s not even a good version of the bad idea it aspires to being.
Posted by: AKMA at November 20, 2003 07:07 AMCount me among the people whose hard earned cash you just preserved. Now I can go buy all of those Left Behind books. :)
Posted by: AmyMo at November 20, 2003 07:18 AMHa ha, Left Behind! What is the appeal with those anyway? I know people who aren't even Christians who love those books. As for me, I'll save my hard-earned cash too and just rent the Left Behind movies, starring Kirk Cameron. :-P
Seriously, if you're going to read a Bible-retelling novel, read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.
Posted by: Clancy at November 20, 2003 07:45 AMGlad to hear it went well! I'm always sketchy about reading Bible re-telling stories, so never read The Red Tent, but I have heard good things about it. I did, however, read The Son of Laughter, by: Frederick Buechner and it was excellent! Re-rells the story of Jacob; check it out.
Posted by: Ryan Whitley at November 20, 2003 07:54 AMI've picked up the Red Tent a dozen times but have yet to get it. Now I'm even more intrigued. And I've rarely read a thing by Buechner I didn't like. I also quite enjoyed Walter Wangerin's Paul.
I was working a brief stint at a Border's when the first wave of Left Behind mania began. We couldn't keep those things on the shelf. I kept looking for other things to do to avoid having to actually restock them.
Posted by: AmyMo at November 20, 2003 12:15 PMHave you read through Holy Blood, Holy Grail? The question of the Magdalene married to Jesus was addressed in her washing his feet in precious oil - a ritual of engagement from Jewish women of royal blood to their husbands.
"Oh, Darling you were right?" How is that an argument?
The stunning absence of a description as to why Jesus was not married should also tell us something.
Be fruitful and multiply was and is a big deal to Jews, especially the Pharisees of the time, of which Jesus' family was almost certainly one. It would have been an issue for a 30 year old Jew to not be married and have children.
Those are the issues that should have been addressed. The DaVinci code is silly because it is fiction. The possibilities suggested behind it, though improbable, certainly deserve a better treatment then you've given them.
Posted by: TheYeti at November 21, 2003 02:39 PMGreetings!
This is a very well written and accurate piece. I agree that the evidence favors a celibate Jesus. You also point to the area where I feel the gnostic texts are of value and support a latent tradition in the canonicals. Women appear to have had leadership roles int he early church, and those roles seem to be slowly supressed heading into the Constantinian era.
I am less confident that they were entirely surpressed prior to the fifth century, because Pope Gelasius knows of women presbyters, as did many local synods that condemn them (Nimes, Orange, Laodocia).
What is striking to me is that the evidence form the canonicals combined with the gnostics demonstrate that women leaders were not the "innovation" the "Great Church" of the West thought they were when the suppression became final. Indeed, it would take into the ninth century to completely surpress deaconesses.
Instead of focusing on wedding fantasies about Jesus without evidence, we need to deal with the rather hefty evidence that Mary Magdalene might have had Apostolic authority!
Peace and blessings!
jcecil3
I’m not sure what “had Apostolic authority” means; it’s not entirely clear that apostles, “emissaries,” had any distinct official authority. It seems likely that Junia, the woman in Romans 16, was regarded as an apostle, though.
People want to believe something for which there is no positive evidence. I don’t mind their wishing to believe Jesus was married, nor even believing it, I guess — but their urgent need to convince me that this amounts to more than an expression of their wishes, now that bothers me.
Posted by: AKMA at November 27, 2003 07:41 PMThe Divinci Code was a good read.
It was interesting to see in a popular novel the perspective that Christianity is a mixture of other religious traditions woven (with lies and cover-ups) into its own.
Why anyone would conclude that Christ was divine based on a vote at Nicea is beyond me.
What would be nice to see on-line are the scores of gospels.
Posted by: R at December 26, 2003 10:24 PMR, I didn’t enjoy reading The da Vinci Code; I thought the characters very flat, the plot relatively predictable, several of the puzzles quite obvious, and the history utterly bogus.
As to “why anyone would conclude that Christ was divine based on a vote at Nicaea,” perhaps your confusion stems from your casting the initial problem in a misleading way — though of course, you may be right, that understanding theological reasoning may be beyond you.
And practically all of the gospels of which I’m aware are in fact online at one site or another; with a moment or two of Googling, you will find them. Try starting at this library of early texts and hypothetical texts. No one is hiding anything.
Posted by: AKMA at December 26, 2003 11:22 PMI HAVE READ DAN BROWN'S THE DEVINCI CODE AND ANGELS AND DEMONS AND FOUND THEM BOTH TO BE EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN. I AM OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, BUT I FOUND THESE BOOKS TO BE INFORMITIVE AND MAKES YOU STOP TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS TRUE OR FICTIONAL. ALSO, I BELIEVE THAT MOST PEOPLE NEED TO HAVE FAITH AND BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A SUPREME HIGHER POWER THAN WHAT WE HAVE ON EARTH. WHILE I READ THESE BOOKS I THOUGHT ALOT ABOUT WHAT I WAS TAUGHT BY THE NUNS AND PRIESTS VS WHAT MR. BROWN WROTE ABOUT AND IT HAS GIVEN ME ROOM FOR THOUGHT. I PRAISE DAN BROWN AND HOPE HE CONTINUES TO ENLIGHTEN US WITH HIS BOOKS
Posted by: ROSE at January 2, 2004 02:34 PMI HOPE YOU CONTINUE TO ENLIGHTEN US WITH YOUR CAPS LOCK
Posted by: nathaniel at January 2, 2004 02:48 PMsorry, i hope i didn't offend, i just found the juxtaposition of such a serious topic and the use of all capitol letters humorous..
Posted by: nathaniel at January 2, 2004 02:54 PMI'm just amazed at how long Dan Brown's characters can go without even a cat nap.
Posted by: Ron at January 12, 2004 03:36 PMi have read that book and it great,very well written,and i dont even belive in god!
Posted by: F at January 12, 2004 08:32 PMEarlier I mentioned that variables can live in two different places. We're going to examine these two places one at a time, and we're going to start on the more familiar ground, which is called the Stack. Understanding the stack helps us understand the way programs run, and also helps us understand scope a little better.
Posted by: Benjamin at January 13, 2004 02:54 AMLet's take a moment to reexamine that. What we've done here is create two variables. The first variable is in the Heap, and we're storing data in it. That's the obvious one. But the second variable is a pointer to the first one, and it exists on the Stack. This variable is the one that's really called favoriteNumber, and it's the one we're working with. It is important to remember that there are now two parts to our simple variable, one of which exists in each world. This kind of division is common is C, but omnipresent in Cocoa. When you start making objects, Cocoa makes them all in the Heap because the Stack isn't big enough to hold them. In Cocoa, you deal with objects through pointers everywhere and are actually forbidden from dealing with them directly.
Posted by: Lewis at January 13, 2004 02:55 AMThis variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.
Posted by: Lambert at January 13, 2004 02:55 AM