So I was reading Dan Brown's book The Lost Symbol and, like his books always do, there are great historical tidbits.

It appears as if Christians have perverted the meaning of the apocalypse. The word doesn't mean the end of the world as it is often used today. In a literal sense the word means to unveil or to reveal. Hence, the reason the last book of the Bible is called "reveal-ation."

So the constant preaching about the apocalypse being the end of the world appears to be quite far from the truth. If you are a believer, it will be an event where wisdom and truth are revealed.

The intricacies contained in the Bible are extremely interesting.

http://www.thelostsymbol.com/main.html

Dan Brown isn't exactly a fountain of historically accurate information. He's been known to make stuff up and call it real for the sake of his books.

I have no problem with his books, he crafts entertaining stories. It's just that people act like everything he writes is true when most of it is fiction with some historically accurate parts.

I Wear Pants wrote: Dan Brown isn't exactly a fountain of historically accurate information. He's been known to make stuff up and call it real for the sake of his books.

I have no problem with his books, he crafts entertaining stories. It's just that people act like everything he writes is true when most of it is fiction with some historically accurate parts.

Completely agree. He has a great deal of historical truth in his books though also. Here are a few more I've come across.

1. The Bible is simply a book full of parables. It was never meant to be taken literally.

Matthew
10And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"
11Jesus answered them, " To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.
12"For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.
13"Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

Psalm 78
O my people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter hidden things, things from of old-
3 what we have heard and known,
what our fathers have told us.


I believe there are numerous other instances in the Bible that refers to parables.


2. Our human bodies are actually Gods. God is not separate from humans and it was never intended to be interpreted that way. He says Jesus taught, "the kingdom of God is within you," and said "the works I do, you can do. . .and greater."

When the Bible refers to the Second Coming, they are not talking about preparing a physical temple. The Bible is talking about preparing your body. The temple in the Bible is talked out in two parts, just like the mind is composed of two parts.


These are a few of the interesting historical parts of the book. I'm no Bible scholar so feel free to show how these are wrong.

I find the symbology, parables, and allegories in the Bible fascinating. There are multiple hidden layers to every verse.

The thing to remember is that each book of the Bible was written, rewritten and translated according to the politics of the times. This kind of ties in with the statement "history is not what happened, but history is what was written down".

Two books that I found interesting and very "Dan Brownish", was:
The Expected One
The Book of Love
by Kathleen McGowan
Here is a pretty good review (not a synopsis) of The Expected One:

http://www.theseekerbooks.com/articles/ExpectedOne.htm

Those books also play on the parables and historical missteps and twine them into a fantastic Dan Brown knock-off.

I love Dan Brown's books. I'll definitely check this one out. I also enjoy how much work he puts into them.

I enjoy the historical aspects of his books more than the actual story.

I find the Christian obsession with the apocalypse to be somewhat strange because the book was included well after the original Bible was put together.

eersandbeers, If you want to learn more about those intricacies of the bible I recommend you read something by Dr. Thomas Sheehan or if you have iTunes he has a series of lectures called The Historical Jesus......... He'll teach you a lot about why the people of the time were writing those passages, what the writings meant to them, and how they've been interpreted and given new meaning by modern Christianity.....

I enjoy that stuff too and it doesn't get any better than Sheehan.

^^^ Oh, CC! I never would have noticed - yikes!!!

"Dan Brown isn't exactly a fountain of historically accurate information. "

LOL, that's an understatement. Digital Fortress may well be the worst novel ever written in the history of written books. I keep my paperback out of sympathy for Brown, not that he needs it given that he's made millions writing crappy novels. I don't think anyone can write anything so stupid as Brown's protagonist not knowing about the NSA when the book was published in the late 90's when the NSA HAD ITS OWN WEBSITE. Dan Brown is an idiot, a rich idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

Strapping Young Lad wrote: eersandbeers, If you want to learn more about those intricacies of the bible I recommend you read something by Dr. Thomas Sheehan or if you have iTunes he has a series of lectures called The Historical Jesus......... He'll teach you a lot about why the people of the time were writing those passages, what the writings meant to them, and how they've been interpreted and given new meaning by modern Christianity.....

I enjoy that stuff too and it doesn't get any better than Sheehan.

Thanks I'll have to check that out. Does his books approach the Bible from a religious perspective or a historical one?

Approaching the bible from a historical perspective is endlessly fascinating, IMO.

Took a New Testament history class my senior year at Toledo that was probably one of my favorite classes in my entire college career. Really interesting stuff.

eersandbeers wrote:

Strapping Young Lad wrote: eersandbeers, If you want to learn more about those intricacies of the bible I recommend you read something by Dr. Thomas Sheehan or if you have iTunes he has a series of lectures called The Historical Jesus......... He'll teach you a lot about why the people of the time were writing those passages, what the writings meant to them, and how they've been interpreted and given new meaning by modern Christianity.....

I enjoy that stuff too and it doesn't get any better than Sheehan.

Thanks I'll have to check that out. Does his books approach the Bible from a religious perspective or a historical one?

He comes from a historical perspective....the title of his lecture is The Historical Jesus. It's hard to sum it up right here, but I understand what you meant by the historical intracacies of the Bible and this should be exactly what you're looking for. Good stuff.

If you can get that lecture from iTunes that's the way to go but if not...

In his lectures he says he attends mass, but he never gave me the impression he was a believer.....he seems skeptical of it all.

The one book i've read is something something How The Kingdom of God Became Christianity.....so if you google his name or part of that title you'll find the whole title.

You are right on one thing, too many people (Christians included) think of Revelations as the end of the world. However, if you read Revelation it talks about 1000+ years AFTER the "apocalypse" or "armageddon", there is a Christ ran kingdom on earth that lasts 1000 years and eternity after that. Its not like time on earth is over.

So, you are right on one thing, many people think Revelation is the end of time, when its really just the prophecies that reveal what we as humans call the "end times" because we don't fathom eternity very well in our finite minds.

Oh, and eers, not all the Bible is in parables, many of Jesus' teachings were, yes, but there are MANY parts of the Bible that are supposed to be taken literally.

I forgot to add, I'm probably one of the few Bible believing Christians, who take most of the Bible literally, and still absolutely love Dan Brown's books.

I for one, take them for what they are, a great FICTIONAL story, and two I do like stories with historical and ancient societies context from the Templars, Freemasons, Opus Dei, etc. FYI, Dan Brown is not the only or even the best author in this area, there are many other great books with regards to these ancient societies.

I was a little dissappointed with The Lost Symbol in that originally it was supposed to "tie" the Freemasons all the way back to King Solomon (yes, the one from the Bible, King David's son from Bathsheba) and his building of the Jewish temple. The original name of the book was supposed to be Solomon's Key. I wonder why he changed the direction of the historical ties. There was a brief mention of King Solomon in the book, but it was almost a passing reference instead of a direct historical link to the Freemasons like the book was originally supposed to do, and would have been interesting.

Other than that I LOVED the historical parts of Washington DC and the Freemasons in this book, it was quite an amazing work of fiction.

jmog wrote: I forgot to add, I'm probably one of the few Bible believing Christians, who take most of the Bible literally

So you believe people marched around the walls and made it collapse, there was a great flood, and Jesus literally rose from the dead?

How do you know which is parable and which is literal though?

I also think there are a number of Christians who would disagree with you about the 1,000 year reign on Earth.

eers,

Have you read Holy Blood Holy Grail?

In it, it gives a reasonable (I guess?) explaination on how Jesus could have "died" and come back to life. In other words, just a theory. I'm not saying that I believe it, but it's just something to toss out there for discussion. In fact, I don't believe the whole bloodline theories at all, but like to speculate on "what if"?

eersandbeers wrote:

jmog wrote: I forgot to add, I'm probably one of the few Bible believing Christians, who take most of the Bible literally

So you believe people marched around the walls and made it collapse, there was a great flood, and Jesus literally rose from the dead?

How do you know which is parable and which is literal though?

I also think there are a number of Christians who would disagree with you about the 1,000 year reign on Earth.

Jesus often taught by using parables, so much of what Jesus said "directly" (which is written in red) is him using parable to help people understand things...

Like, Jesus didn't say there was a flood. That's OT, not necessarily literal or parable, just a story.

Jesus also never said he rose from the dead. That was written by Matthew, luke, or Mark, not sure which...but not all three claim Jesus was risen, oddly. You'd think they'd have their stories straight in that much if it was true!!!!

So if you read what is "SUPPOSEDLY" directly from Jesus' mouth ( the words in red) you will find him using parables to relate teachings.....

Young Lad,

"History isn't what happened. History is what is written down."

Do you agree with that? If so, that means that something doesn't have to be written down in order to have happened. (what you say about Jesus)
It also means that something didn't have to happen, but still was written down as so.

The Bible was written, translated and rewritten so many times - each according to the politics of the times, that it would be very hard to discern what is what. So, the best we can do at this point is to use the Bible as a learning tool and reminder. IMHO

Strapping Young Lad wrote:

eersandbeers wrote:

jmog wrote: I forgot to add, I'm probably one of the few Bible believing Christians, who take most of the Bible literally

So you believe people marched around the walls and made it collapse, there was a great flood, and Jesus literally rose from the dead?

How do you know which is parable and which is literal though?

I also think there are a number of Christians who would disagree with you about the 1,000 year reign on Earth.

Jesus often taught by using parables, so much of what Jesus said "directly" (which is written in red) is him using parable to help people understand things...

Like, Jesus didn't say there was a flood. That's OT, not necessarily literal or parable, just a story.

Jesus also never said he rose from the dead. That was written by Matthew, luke, or Mark, not sure which...but not all three claim Jesus was risen, oddly. You'd think they'd have their stories straight in that much if it was true!!!!

So if you read what is "SUPPOSEDLY" directly from Jesus' mouth ( the words in red) you will find him using parables to relate teachings.....

I wasn't necessarily only talking about the teachings of Jesus. I was talking about the Bible as a whole. He said he takes most of the Bible literally. I said how do you know what to take literally and what to take as a life lesson.

eersandbeers wrote:

So you believe people marched around the walls and made it collapse, there was a great flood, and Jesus literally rose from the dead?

How do you know which is parable and which is literal though?

I also think there are a number of Christians who would disagree with you about the 1,000 year reign on Earth.

Jericho-yes
flood-yes
Jesus rose from the dead-yes

How do you know what is parables vs what can be taken literally? Its not really that hard, since parables are a story being told by a prophet or Jesus, the things that can be taken literally are the historical records like flood, jericho, resurrection

The "number of Christians" who would disagree with me about the 1000 year reign of Christ apparently haven't really read much in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. Pretty close to every Bible prophecy scholar agrees on this 1000 year kingdom of Christ.

Strapping Young Lad wrote:



Jesus also never said he rose from the dead. That was written by Matthew, luke, or Mark, not sure which...but not all three claim Jesus was risen, oddly. You'd think they'd have their stories straight in that much if it was true!!!!

So if you read what is "SUPPOSEDLY" directly from Jesus' mouth ( the words in red) you will find him using parables to relate teachings.....

1. Jesus did say he was going to raise from the dead, he predicted his resurrection quite a few times as a matter of fact.

2. You are also incorrect, all 4 gospels (there are 4, not 3) talk about the resurrection of Jesus.

I'm not sure what Bible you were reading, but I can get chapter and verse for both of these to prove it.

eersandbeers wrote:


I wasn't necessarily only talking about the teachings of Jesus. I was talking about the Bible as a whole. He said he takes most of the Bible literally. I said how do you know what to take literally and what to take as a life lesson.

Its not really that hard to tell what is a "life lesson" and what is a story to be taken literally, all it takes is some reading and contextual understanding.

jmog wrote:

Strapping Young Lad wrote:



Jesus also never said he rose from the dead. That was written by Matthew, luke, or Mark, not sure which...but not all three claim Jesus was risen, oddly. You'd think they'd have their stories straight in that much if it was true!!!!

So if you read what is "SUPPOSEDLY" directly from Jesus' mouth ( the words in red) you will find him using parables to relate teachings.....

1. Jesus did say he was going to raise from the dead, he predicted his resurrection quite a few times as a matter of fact.

2. You are also incorrect, all 4 gospels (there are 4, not 3) talk about the resurrection of Jesus.

I'm not sure what Bible you were reading, but I can get chapter and verse for both of these to prove it.

Can you point out where he said he would raise from the dead, not denying he didn't, but i'd just like to read it...

jmog wrote:

eersandbeers wrote:


I wasn't necessarily only talking about the teachings of Jesus. I was talking about the Bible as a whole. He said he takes most of the Bible literally. I said how do you know what to take literally and what to take as a life lesson.

Its not really that hard to tell what is a "life lesson" and what is a story to be taken literally, all it takes is some reading and contextual understanding.

Holy smokes jmog, where did you come from? Haven't seen you on the Huddle in forever. I was just thinking the other day, "what ever happened to that guy?" Nice to have you over here.