Is the Demand to ban the Film justified
The line between "reel life"" and "real life" is a very fine one even in the best of times. In the worst of times the first overshadows the second. And this is exactly what has happened to the film The Da Vinci Vode. In certain countries there has been a demand for a total ban on the movie. In Philippines the Catholic Church has waerned the laity regarding the film and considers even the act of watching the film a blasphemy. All this of course raises the same issues as did the infamous Prophet Cartoons a few months back. Do religious groups have a veto on the exibition of films and publication of books that "offend" the sensibilities of a religious/ethnic group.
To answer this question it is necessay to reaise the whole issue of the character of Christ and his Ressuerection as depicted in different historical sources. If fact the role of Mary Magdalene is reallynperipheral to this question. It must be emphasised that it was only in the year 591 when Pope Gregory, for some reason called "the Great" railed against Mary and declared before an assembly of Bishops that she was a 'prostitude". This trepresentation of Mary Magdalene does the Catholic Crurch no credit because it it based on a deliberate and wilfull conflationn of two different Marys, and the Church knew then as it does now that Mary Magdalene was not what Gregory claimed her to be. Of course, it is difficult for us at this distance in time to examine the motives for such an unfair and inaccurate potrayal of a historical figure. Some historians have pointed out with some conviction that the Church was felt threatened by the strong and independent minded woman like Mary Magdalene who was favored by the Risen Christ as the only witness to the Ressuerection. If by reading the Da Vinci code readers are able to appreciate the hidden history of Christianity, I can only say "amen" to that.
The documentary evidence on which the Da Vinci Code rests is a clutch of gospels collectively known as the Gnostic Gospels,some of which are preserves in the Coptic language and Greek. Indeed the Latin rendering of the original Aramaic and Greek versions of the Gospels resulted in a certain alteration of some of the crucial ideas of early Christianity, for example the nature of Christ-- human or divine--the Ressurection--in flesh or spirit--and these translations were the basis of protracted debates in the pratice and interpretation of the docrines and liturgy of raly religion. The discovery of the Gospel of Judas
recast this debate in an entirely new direction. Rather than showing Judas as a traitor who betrayed Chrisr, this Gospel shows that Judas carried out the explicit instruction of Jesus Christ.
The contrvery swirling over the film is because the history of the religion has been falsely depicted in the days fiollowing the Council of Niceia when Constantine decreed the official version of the Gospels. Of course the Roman emperor only guided the debates and there is no evidence that he actively sought out one version of the Gospels. However, the close and enduring relationship between temporal power of the emperor and the spiritual power of the papacy rendered any objective search for the origins of the Christian fail irrelrevsnt. It is this irrlevance that Da Vinci Code challenges.
There is no purpose is arguing for a ban on the book or the film. Through the book many readers have come to know that there is more to Chistianty than what meets the eye.