Hi Joanne

Its difficult to really give a fair answer to this because it would start verging onto off topic subject inevitably, and thats why I didn't reply to your previous post you linked to. But to try and keep it out of that and within plain logic, you may question the very existence of Jesus, but its beyond credulity to consider the early christians in Rome believed the likes of Peter and Paul where put to death there if they were not. Thats not the kind of thing the centre of administration of the Roman empire would have no say on if it hadn't happened. There is good evidence on what these people believed and their strict adherence to certain things such as the importance of the concept of truth, and also what by my own standards at least are very strict moral codes. Its easy to look back on what the church became and see these people with cynical eyes. But if you willingly go to your death, not defending your people or your family, but only because you refuse to deny your beliefs, then its a fair assumption to make that they actually believed in the beliefs they professed. As such Peter claiming, and allowing others to claim him as someone Jesus considered special, if he didn't even know him, would be a mockery of everything he went to his death for. This is why Jesus said to these people "you are my witnesses". The only alternative to considering these people did not honestly believe what they were saying, even if you think they were deluded on the "supernatural" aspects, is that they where mad or evil. Only the mad or the evil would willingly die for something they knew to be a lie in those circumstances.

So then you have the whole HBHG story. Invented in modern times to explain the 'dark areas' in Jesus life. To be honest it wouldn't really bother me if Jesus had had sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. Its not as if holy people in the Old Testament didn't ever visit prostitutes. And David and Solomon seem to have been far from celibate. But it just doesn't match any of the facts to believe Jesus did, and thats why it galls so much to have people taking the mere fact he went against the convention of the times and treated Mary Magdalene as a person. Sure its a more reasonable contention than the rest of it that maybe she was not a prostitute. But the thing I notice about the people who suggest she was not is that they either have an obvious disrespect for the man who made the first recorded statement that she was (and usually a generally negative view of the 'roman' church in general), and/or they lump it into issues of the way the later church treated women. The reality I see is that it was something that caused Jesus so much trouble, accepting a women who was a prostitute as a person, someone he would not be defiled by touching as was the 'custom'. And now his free acceptance of such a woman, and the controversy it caused at the time, is being used to paint Jesus in the same way we like to paint all our cultural icons. Why are tabloid newspapers full of the sex lives of celebrities ? Answer = because thats what we like to hear. It makes us feel we're normal as sexual beings. Why people have this need and why they have such an issue with the church about this is way beyond "on topic" here, but as someone not in any way celibate myself maybe I'm not the best person to comment on it anyway. But I am comfortable enough in my sexuality to realise that the ideal state we can achieve spiritually is to have moved beyond our evolutionary driven desires. This is the battle of man, our deep and subconsious understanding that we can rise above our instincts and be free to find truth, clear and not reflected in the muddy mirror of ourselves.

Anyway I'm rambling on. I must say something else on one of your comments;

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I don't know that speculation on the unknown life of Jesus is coming up with a whole new version of events. With the later material, the Merovigian kings, I agree there is some demonstrably false material used as fact, but again, this is a novel, and the whole thing is fiction. If fiction is based on valid speculation, and pseudo history, it's not "suspect" as a history book. The DVC is not terribly different from Stargate in that respect, is it?

This is the weird thing I find picking out The DaVinci Code for criticism. There are so many other things, as you say, that twist facts either in a supposedly factual context, or in a fictional context. But the thing is that no one takes Stargate as what seriously happened in Ancient Egypt and Nordic countries etc. There is this thing in many people that they want to have an excuse to deny christianity, they don't feel free to just ignore it as they do with other things they don't agree with. Thats why I get so angry with the young earth creationists because they give people plenty of ammunition to do so. When I was an atheist I simply decided it was all niave. I took the mickey out of people going to church worshipping some god that needed praise but was prepared to let people suffer terribly whilst he was being worshipped, when those people could be out using that time to do something about it. But where I am now, on an ongoing search for truth, I find this little novel sucks people into a view against what they instinctually want to ignore anyway. I just wish they would consider more why they have this instinctual desire to see all these nuns and priests look like the villains in life.

Simon