According to Avdat blog this Curriculum describes the Da Vinci Code as a modern Gnostic Gospel.
Yes, I'm still holding onto the possibility that it may be a joke. Please let it be a joke.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
No matter what Gnostic references are included, Dan Brown did not write the Da Vinci Code because he wanted to share his personal gnosis. If he did, then maybe it could be considered a modern gospel. It is just a work of fiction with Gnostic influences, however. That's like calling a book of fiction that has a character cook a meal as a cookbook.
The blurb included on the curriculum does seem to paint the DVC as a Gnostic Gospel after a fashion. After all, it tells us how "Sofie" finds the "divine" inside of her. Where this departs from a Gnostic story however is that this divinity only applies to Sophie, and cannot therefore be a Gnostic Gospel.
I have similar gripes with peoples' ID of Simon Magus as a Gnostic. Every account of SM that we have characterizes him as having considered there to be indwelling divinity in just two people: himself and his girlfriend, Helene. Though his cosmological teachings might seem Gnostic (inclusion of the feminine, etc) they cannot be viewed as truly Gnostic in light of his truly elitist pneumatology. The DVC, espousing a similar "some folks only" immanent pneumatology, fails to meet the same criteria that Simon Magus fails to meet.
Nevertheless, plenty modern Gnostic church litanies praise Simon Magus, just as many so-called Gnostics cling to the DVC. If I were boss... :)
We don't actually know much about Simon. Efforts to discredit him were very early. And, from what we can see through the filter of hereseological reports, there are elements of a Gnostic character to his teachings.
While there is not much to go on, he does seem to have been an important figure that needed to be discredited and turned into a cartoon-like figure. That's enough to make him interesting, and make us wonder why. The other hints point us in a direction that may be Gnostic, or may be self-aggrandizing as the hereseological report has it. But, I find it hard to take the hereseological claim very seriously. It follows a common pattern to discredit Gnosis as elitist. We simply don't know, but there are some intriguing hints.
3 comments:
No matter what Gnostic references are included, Dan Brown did not write the Da Vinci Code because he wanted to share his personal gnosis. If he did, then maybe it could be considered a modern gospel. It is just a work of fiction with Gnostic influences, however. That's like calling a book of fiction that has a character cook a meal as a cookbook.
Yechidah.
The blurb included on the curriculum does seem to paint the DVC as a Gnostic Gospel after a fashion. After all, it tells us how "Sofie" finds the "divine" inside of her. Where this departs from a Gnostic story however is that this divinity only applies to Sophie, and cannot therefore be a Gnostic Gospel.
I have similar gripes with peoples' ID of Simon Magus as a Gnostic. Every account of SM that we have characterizes him as having considered there to be indwelling divinity in just two people: himself and his girlfriend, Helene. Though his cosmological teachings might seem Gnostic (inclusion of the feminine, etc) they cannot be viewed as truly Gnostic in light of his truly elitist pneumatology. The DVC, espousing a similar "some folks only" immanent pneumatology, fails to meet the same criteria that Simon Magus fails to meet.
Nevertheless, plenty modern Gnostic church litanies praise Simon Magus, just as many so-called Gnostics cling to the DVC. If I were boss... :)
We don't actually know much about Simon. Efforts to discredit him were very early. And, from what we can see through the filter of hereseological reports, there are elements of a Gnostic character to his teachings.
While there is not much to go on, he does seem to have been an important figure that needed to be discredited and turned into a cartoon-like figure. That's enough to make him interesting, and make us wonder why. The other hints point us in a direction that may be Gnostic, or may be self-aggrandizing as the hereseological report has it. But, I find it hard to take the hereseological claim very seriously. It follows a common pattern to discredit Gnosis as elitist. We simply don't know, but there are some intriguing hints.
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