From the Soapbox:

I lied, this will be my last post of the day. I just read an article about "the Da Vinci Code." It troubles me that people read this and take it solely as fact. For those of you who don't know; "the Da Vince Code" is a novel written by Dan Brown which makes a number of claims about Jesus and Mary Magdalene's relationship. It goes so far as to say they were married and made babies: one of which was named Sarah, born in southern france. Upon this child's birth a group called the Priory of Sion was established to watch over and protect Jesus' love child and her descendants. Leonardo Da Vinci, the book says, was one of them and he hid this "mystery" in his painting "the Last Supper". Needless to say this book has caused quite a stir. The sad thing is people believe it.

My concern over the matter is directly related to Leonardo, who was born in April 15th, 1452 AD. We all know when Jesus died; the year 0 or 1, maybe I don't know for certain. According to Brown there are clues left throughout Da Vinci's artwork. The main one of concern is "the Last Supper." The clues that Dan Brown points out are minute and bear no real relevance,these clues being an M and V formed by how the disciples are leaning, which could, quite honestly, be found in any piece of art (I could go paint some right now). He says that the M represents Maggy who is sitting next to Jesus in the painting (this person is really the disciple John) and the V represents the chalice used to drink the communion wine. The chalice (V), Brown says, is the holy grail, ie: the revelation that Jesus had babies with Maggy. But it would seem to me that in order for these "clues" in Leo's work to resonate any sort of truth he would have to have some fairly solid evidence, which, yes, could come from historical documents, but this is a matter the experts say has "no historical evidence whatsoever". Not to mention I doubt he would have a real understanding of the matter being born 1452 years after Jesus was around. What "evidence" they do have are some old egyptian manuscripts written sometime after Christ, obscure scenes of Mary in the Bible, and an old french legend (which we all know legends are generally false or we would believe that leprechauns, unicorns, and good ol' Nessie existed). Which when twisted could mean whatever the hell you wanted them too (I bet you didn't know you could take the entire the story of Jesus and say it was all aliens: I mean come on, Jesus, being caught up in the clouds? That is so evidence for alien abduction). There would also enter the matter of Da Vinci's own opinion. If I were to paint a picture depicting Jesus with huge black horns and a red demon tail does that make it fact? No, because the portayal would be my opinion; my own interpretation of Christ. How much more should we label an obscure M and V as fact when it is probably only the result of an old man's fantastic ideas and poor use of negative space. Not to mention the last supper itself is no great documentation anyway; I truly doubt that Jesus wore such bright flashy colors and had those fabulous curly locks. Which can easily be proved by archaelogical evidence (which there is plenty of).

Any other points I could make are already made in the article which can be read at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7491383/. The best point that could be made is at the end where all the experts and historians say there is absolutely no historical evidence.

So now on top of being fatigued and skipping four classes I have wasted an hour refuting a conspiracy theory: Damn.
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