REALLY interesting book that could shake Christianity

The Da Vinci code, admittedly classed as 'fiction' but based upon some very real facts.
One of the main things for me was, in the book, it claims that The Last Supper is a painting not of 13 men but 12 men and one woman
Now, look at this
Here
and look at the last painting, the restoration, click on that and look to Jesus' left... You see a red-headed woman...
I bought this book originally for fiction but the ideas and things discussed seem too real.....
Anyone know anything about the Opus Dei?

I'm going to Milan in the coming few weeks and I'll have a look at the Last Supper while I'm there, tell you what I think.....

However, from the official Opus Dei website, Their Comment

hmmm I see a woman, but not on Jesus' left, it is the first person on his right, female deffinitely. However, in the description of the picture, the person is labeled as "Johannes". I clearly see a female there.

Anyways, I have read Da Vinci Code, it is a briliant book, but a work of fiction after all. Though it does raise quite a few interesting questions about Da Vinci, about the Church, Mary Magdalene, christian doctrine, and of course the Holy Grail The explanation of what Holy Grail is makes a lot of sense, and the idea of codes hidden in artworks is also briliant. If you think about the times these people lived in, the only way you could leave something for the future generations, that is in conflict with ruling doctrine, is to code it.

I read the Divinci Code.
It was a great book! ( some men find it a little frightening.
I had one person think it was a feminist book and gave me all kinds of grief over it.

It is based on the Nag Hammadi books, the Gnostic religion.

www.webcom.com/~gnosis/naghamm/nhl.html

I meant from our perspective, on his left... as in the way we see it...
This was supposed to be John the Baptist (think about it, right hand man)

It doesn't matter, the pic of the last supper is JUST as fictional as Davinci codes.

Don't forget the painting was created at least 1400 years AFTER the last supper itself, so there is no link or secret information in it.

Read about the last suppr in the bible it didn't look anything like that at all anyway, they were all reclining on couches leaning on each other, not set out like birds on a wire.

Both are works of fiction....

Yeah. I can paint a picture where Jesus is purple and has fireballs shooting out his ass. Doesn't make it true :p

Chook's right -- it's a rather involved fiction, but it IS fiction. Remember that fiction writers like to do good research to make their stories plausible. People have noted the very feminine figure before (remember, the painting was cleaned in the past 40 years) but it's not female. It *may* be one of his young lovers, however.

Yes, da Vinci was apparently either bisexual or homosexual. And James is the disciple who "rested on Jesus' bosom" during that meal. And yes, there are some culturally sexual overtones in that. In a Greek or Roman context of that time, someone "sharing a couch" and "leaning against someone's bosom" would have also meant that some hanky-panky was going on.

Yeah, they did that sort of stuff at feasts. Racy lot, those old Romans and Greeks, and not a lot of bias about the gender of lovers.

In any case, if the disciple CLEARLY had been female, Michaelangelo would have been hauled up before the Pope or excommunicated and the painting would have been destroyed and someone else commissioned to do it. That, you see, would have been heresy.

The book's been around for a number of years and hasn't overturned Christianity... nor have the Dead Sea Scroll materials or the Nag Hammadi materials... and so on and so forth.

Although its nice to have my post confirmed by our resident attack academic I am a bit perturbed at the secual overtones Byrd is introducing into the painting.

Are you saying Davinci had male lovers or Jesus. If its the second where is your proof? You can't seriously extropolate that out of a few lines about the last supper....

Thing is, Christ was Hebrew, not Roman...

I know a bit about Opus Dei, I think they're a bunch of #ers, and I hold them responsible, amongs other, of the situation of today's Catholic Church, and I think (amongts others) that they played a really important role in the corruption of the Church.

BTW the current pope have lots of link with them, not so long ago he would still occasionnaly visit the tomb of Jose Maria, founder of the Opus Dei.

They are a greedy organisation, grass-hopa who enters this organisation usually get so brain-washed, they'll give like half of all the money they make to the organisation.

They have secret meeting room in ungerground tunnels under the Vatican.

If you have any specific question about them, I can try to awnser them, I just finished a book wich discussed a bit about them, and you can also probably find a LOT of info about the Opus Dei just by doing a search here on ATS.

ABout the pictures, didn't get it, I saw the women in both 3 pictures???

I doubt this would shake Christianity, its foundations are too well established. To shake such a power, genocide might be the solution. Long term assimilation is the road being taken if im right.

Thier are currently 9900 religions world wide and rising at a rate of 2-3 per day according NRM.
www.clas.ufl.edu...

Remember, people dont mass to see an Archbishop heal millions, thier are many other varibles stipulated. Social, economic, mental, etc...

Deep

Byrd -- I hope you arent trying to say Jesus was gay?

M0rbid -- The books point was that the Last Supper was 13 men wining and dining, not 12 men and one woman!

just curious, are you religious?

first off i read the book and it was great. everyone should take time to read it.

second just because it was painted 1400 years after christ doesnt mean it cant hold a secret. the book uses the example that davinci was in a group who protected teh secret over the years. therefore he could of put it in his painting. what does it matter if its a fictional painting it can still display something that is non fiction. for example i could paint the last super with jesus at taco bell but i could still display that jesus was eating with his disciples.

If jesus is not the way, then the word hope doesn't exist.

Yes, and there's many other things in the picture aswell. There are two Jesuses here and Peter is holding a knife. John is depicted as a woman, the use of colors suggests links to the occult etc. etc. The part with John being depicted as a woman I think has to do with the idea that the Gospel of John infact is the memoirs of Miriam of Bethany aka Mary Magdalen, whom I believe may have been the wife of Jesjuah, who may indeed have carried forth princes and princesses to the house of Jesjuah who may have been able to hide from the Jewish elite and the Church during the Christian persecutions and the "herecy" persecutions.

Blessings,
Mikromarius aka Hamilton

I finished the book in one week. I don't want to ruin anything for those who havn't read it, it was a very good read.

Those of us who have the book should see what kind of codes we can come up with. I havn't looked on the net to see what ones are most likely circulating already. But I bet with everyone at ATS combining effort, we could find some bizarre stuff.

However, I thought the book was perfect all the way until the end. In my opinion that just plain sucked.

Not really a spoiler, this is just before the "Prologue".

The Priory of Scion-
a European secret society founded in 1099-is a real organization.
In 1975 Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale
discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous
members of the Priory of Scion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo,
and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus
Dei is a deeply devout Catholic
sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain- washing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as "corporal mortification."
Opus Dei has just completed construction
of a $47 million National Headquarters at
243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel
are accurate.

Quote; Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code.

Anyone up to going to Rosslyn?

[Edited on 30-1-2004 by ADVISOR]

Hamilton, I see where you going here, and I must say I think you point is a little misguided. The knife in the painting that you refer to is an "anonymous" hand, not the hand of Peter.

Second, I have read many white papers about the Gospel of John being written by Mary Magdalene. I beleive that to be wrong. I think I know what you reference when you say this (please correct me if I am wrong). The Gopel of John often references an "anonymous" disciple. Or this disciple is often refered to as "the disciple Jesus loved most". The way I see this interpreted is that when John wrote his Gospel, he didn't refer to himself in the third person (as John) like we would today. Instead he knew that he was Jesus most beloved disciple and those references to the "disciple that Jesus loved most" were actually references to himself and not Mary Magdalene.

You can argue the validity of this simpley because in the Gospel of John there are many references to the anonymous disciple or the "disciple that Jesus loved most", and those verses seem to point to a cover up that in fact Mary was a disciple of Jesus. But I think these references are the way that John interpreted himself in the eye's of Jesus.

The Da Vinci Code is a fun piece of fiction perhaps, but it is nothing more than fiction. An awful lot of the "facts" aren't, so none of the ideas in the book will hold any weight under real world scrutiny.

www.crisismagazine.com...

Lol, I've read so many reviews of that book, it's sad. That dude takes a huge poetic liscense from the first statement in the book about everything being "facts" in relation to religion. Read my review in the thread about the daVinci code from a while back if you want to know why it can't shake Christianity.