Hey golf, you will enjoy this. Hope you can tune in my friend.
sKally
'Beyond The Da Vinci Code' [now, on History channel]
by sf 13 Replies latest jw friends
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sf
A friend of mine turned me onto Dan Browns 'Angels and Demons'. He said it was the same author who wrote The Da Vinci Code. I asked, "well shouldn't I read The Code first"? He said "no...you need to read Angels first". And so I did.
I could hardly put it down. I read it in one week. All 620 pages. He said to then read the Da Vinci Code, in which I have yet to do.
As I was surfing channels I came upon History Channels program tonight. Very interesting indeed.
I still plan to read The Code.
sKally
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Leolaia
It was pretty awful, imho.
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Justin
I recommend reading Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code by Bart D. Ehrman, published by Oxford University Press in 2004. Ehrman is a critical scholar who provides his readers with the latest information and does not require them to return to some sort of fundamentalism to avoid the errors of The Da Vinci Code.
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Daunt
Spoiler.. I saw it... didn't like it all too much. Sorry if I give away too many spoilers but it was really just, "Here goes the Da Vinci Code's story... none of it could be proven... BUT IT COULD HAPPEN WOOWEE ooo!!" Sorry if I gave it away again in advance.
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Leolaia
Daunt.....Exactly. It was very uncritical and embarrassingly accepted a number of the book's questionable premises. For instance, the council of Nicea was presented as the meeting convened to include or exclude the gnostic books from the Bible. Those books were rejected by orthodoxy way back in the second century! I seriously doubt that Thunder Perfect Mind or the Gospel of Philip ever came up for consideration for inclusion in the NT. There was already an overall concensus. And not a hint that council had anything to do with Arianism, not Gnosticism.
I was also bemused at how the "Holy Grail-is-really-the-royal-bloodline" thesis was never really challenged, the arguments against it were never discussed. Such as, for instance, that the etymology of "grail" has nothing whatsoever to do with a bloodline (it comes ultimately from Latin cratalis "vessel," with Late Latin gradalis and Old French grazale as intermediate forms of the Burgundian French graal, which was the dialect spoken by Robert de Boron who first wrote about the Grail story), or that the story about the Grail itself comes directly from older Celtic legends.
Justin....Indeed! I gave that book to my mom as a Christmas present.
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Golf
sKally, two locals brought it to my attention. There are two books, one with pictures and one without.
Why people just can't except secret societies is beyond me. There's at least three groups in my community. The secret is, the society that control these groups are behind the scenes. These used groups are just fronts.
Someone recently posted about spirits or demons that don't exist. Well, any time they want to visit me, I'll introduce them to people who do. In my community groups casts evil spells on others. Of course, if no one wants to believe it, so be it. People considered my grandmother a witch.
I remember playing in a golf tournament in Jamaica (runawaybay) with a group of golfers and we were invited to a party where demons resided. The tour master said, people have been challenged to stay over night at this mansion and one or two took the challenge. Anyways, supposedly they lost their minds. I was interested in the party not the demons, besides, I was having my own spirits.
So, the History Channel? Thanks for the info.
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Midget-Sasquatch
I read the novel to see if it had any new spin on stuff I had already read from the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the 80's. It put forward that whole san greal ---> sangreal ---> sang real argument bit if I'm not mistaken. The source for all those "revelations" was supposedly a member of Priory of Sion. The document that was used to support its existence was hoaxed.
IIRC, the oldest legends of the holy grail are roughly from about the same time frame as the Arthurian ones and from that same part of the world. So why would you be looking for hidden meanings in the word in Swahili? Urdu? or to the point, French?
The "messages" in Davinci's paintings was a new take. If you look at the actual Davinci paintings mentioned in the book though, you see that their trying to read way too much into them - like some of the supposedly subliminal messages in WTs, ads, etc.
I think the author of this novel, must have had some idea of the flaw in just sticking with the sang real bit. So he tried to show a connection of the original chalice with Magdalene by way of the motifs of the blade and the chalice in the Sacred Feminine ( Honestly though, I wouldn't be suprised if he misportrayed even those symbols).
As a novel, I did come to like the character of Silas.
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Celia
I was also bemused at how the "Holy Grail-is-really-the-royal-bloodline" thesis was never really challenged, the arguments against it were never discussed. Such as, for instance, that the etymology of "grail" has nothing whatsoever to do with a bloodline (it comes ultimately from Latin cratalis "vessel," with Late Latin gradalis and Old French grazale as intermediate forms of the Burgundian French graal, which was the dialect spoken by Robert de Boron who first wrote about the Grail story), or that the story about the Grail itself comes directly from older Celtic legends.
Page 277, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, by Michael Baigent et.al.
In many of the earlier manuscripts, the Grail is called the Sangraal; and even in the later version by Malory it is called the Sangreal. It is likely that some such form ? Sangraal or Sangreal ? was in fact the original one. It is also likely that that one word was subsequently broken in the wrong place. In other words, ?Sangraal? or ?Sangreal? may not have been intended to divide into ?San Graal? or ?San Greal? ? but into ?Sang Raal? or ?Sang Real?. Or, to employ the modern spelling, Sang Royal. Royal Blood.
In itself such wordplay might be provocative but hardly conclusive. Taken in conjunction with the emphasis on genealogy and lineage, however, there is not much room for doubt. And for that matter, the traditional associations ? the cup that caught Jesus? blood, for instance ? would seem to reinforce this supposition. Quite clearly, the Grail would appear to pertain in some way to blood and a bloodline.
Too bad I don't get the History Channel, I would love to see it.
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Leolaia
Celia....The statement in Holy Blood, Holy Grail is false, if not very misleading. Rather than Middle English sangrail "Holy Grail" deriving from a supposed Old French sang real "royal blood" (with san graal "Holy Grail" and the whole legend surrounding it referring to a cup or bowl being just a misunderstanding), san graal -- or rather saint graal -- was the original form with sang real arising later and only in English, not in French.
Only in late medieval texts is an association between the two expressions made, while earlier texts only refer to a "saint graal" or just "graal " as the object sought by the knights, and these early texts clearly describe the "graal" as the platter or cup that captured Christ's "blood" (Middle French sanc, not sang) on the cross. The later association of sangrail and sancgrail with "blood" is thus due to this crucifixion tradition, and not to any fictitious "bloodline", which is utterly foreign to the thought such writers.
The term sangraal, stipulated by Brown and Baigent-Leigh-Lincoln as the original form as a sang-raal compound, first appears in English (it does not have this form in French), as the transliteration of Middle French Saint Graal, in the works of Thomas Malory (c. A.D. 1450-1485) who spelled the term variously as "sangrayle", "sangrayll", "sancgreal", and yes, even "seynt Graal" (cf. Le Morte Arthur 10; Merlin 11.32; Arthur II. xi. 88). It is the "sancgreal" form that Malory punningly connected with the sanc "blood" of Christ; again, not as a "bloodline" but as the "Grail of Blood," the grail that held Christ's blood. The older French sources simply do not have a word "sangrayle," and neither do they refer to the sought-after "Grail" as the sanc real "royal blood" -- far from it, we always find allusions to the graal "Grail," le saint graal, le saint vaissel, la saint escule, la saint calisce, and so forth. In these sources we do not read of a san graal either, saint "holy" is not spelled san to my knowledge, at least in the Old French sources I have seen.
The older French works that Malory himself used only referred to "le saint graal" or just "graal" and even earlier English works about the Holy Grail attested the word also in the form "grail" a century before Malory introduced the term "sangrail"; Arthur and Merlin, written around A.D. 1330, thus says: "Til he wer born th at schuld do al Fulfille th e meruails of th e greal" (2222, Kolbing). The Vulgate Cycle of legends on Merlin, Lancelot, and Arthur, dating to around A.D. 1250, included the "Estoire del Saint Graal" and the "Queste del Saint Graal", and these poetic stories leave no doubt that the "Grail" referred to a holy relic, the vessel of the Last Supper used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood.
The first name given to the Grail in the Estoire del Saint Graal is escuele "bowl" which emphasizes the object's status as a relic. During the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea searched for "ces choses a quoi il avoit touchie corporelement en sa vie," the things Jesus had touched during his life, and found the bowl from which Jesus ate during the Last Supper (1:23-25). And then Joseph went to the cross and when he came to the body, " si concuelli le degout du sanc com il en peut avoir, si le mist en l'escuele, puis reporta l'escuele en sa maison, par qui Dieux fist en moustra puis maintes virtus et ne Terre de Promission et en maintes autres terres", he collected what he could of the dripping blood and put it in the bowl, and went home with the bowl, through which God later made his virtue manifest in the Promised Land and in many other lands (1:25), that is, as a holy relic. The story then goes on to relate three visions of Joseph regarding the blood, which invoke the mysteries of the Eucharist, and the blood of the calisce "chalice" being linked also with Christ's body and the bread partaken at Communion (1:86-88 ). Again, we are dealing with the blood shed by Christ -- not a "bloodline". The object referred to as the "holy bowl" and "holy chalice," is also called the "holy vessel": "Mais quant il virent la sainte escuele, si dist Nasciens ke tout chou qu'il avoit veu estoit noiens a veir encontre chel saint vaissiel," but when they saw the holy bowl, Nascien said that everything he had seen was nothing compared to this holy vessel" (1:163).
The Vulgate Cycle is itself dependent on the "Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal" by Robert de Boron (also called "Joseph of Arimathea"), written between A.D. 1190-1200. This is 250 years before Malory. And here we still find the notion of "grail" being a holy relic, without any whiff of a hint that a "bloodline" is really meant. The relic is first called a "chalise" in the text: "Cist veissiaus ou men sanc meis, quant de men cors le requeillis, calices apelez sera," this vessel in which you put my blood when you collected it from my body, shall be called a chalice (Joseph, 907-909). In addition to being called "vessel" and "chalice", the object is then given a third name:
'Et queu sera la renommée / Dou veissel qui tant vous agree ? / Dites nou, comment l'apele on / Quant on le nomme par son non?' / Petrus respont: 'Nou quier celer: / Qui a droit non le vourra nummer / Par droit Graal l?apelera, / Car nus le Graal ne verra, / Ce croi je, qu?il ne li agree: / A touz ceus pleist de la contree, / A touz agree et abelist / En li vooir hunt cil deslist / Qui avec lui puennt durer / Et de sa compeignie user, / Autant unt d?eise cum poisson / Quant en sa main le tient uns hon / Et de sa mein puet eschaper / Et en la grant iaue aler noër.? / Quant cil l?oient, sel greent bien. / Autre non ne greent il rien / Fors tant que Graal eit a non; / Par droit agreer s?i doit on (Joseph, 2653?74).
Translated: " 'And what will be the new name / Of the vessel that pleases you so? / Tell us, what name do they use / When they call it by its name?? / Petrus replies: ?I will not keep this from you: / Whoever wishes to use its rightful name / Will call it the Grail , / For none shall see the Grail, / I believe, unless it agrees with him: / It brings satisfaction to all in the area, / It brings grace and beauty, / All those delight in the sight of it / Who are able to stay with it / And benefit from its company, / They are content as a fish / That manages to escape / From a man?s hand / And swim away into open waters.? / When they hear this, they agree. / No other name pleases them / But that its name should be Grail; / It is right that one should be satisfied by it." Here we have a folk etymology of graal "grail" from the verbs graer, agreer "satisfy, please", with no hint of a fictitious "bloodline" meaning.
The Grail legend itself was launched by Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote "Le Roman Perceval ou Le Conte del Graal" around A.D. 1175. This story stands much closer to the original Celtic legends (cf. the Welsh Mabinogion epic, the Preiddeu Annwfn, etc.) than the later romances of Robert de Boron, the Vulgate Cycle , and Malory. Chrétien described the adventures of Perceval who, journeying home to see his mother, stayed at the castle of the Fisher King and witnessed a procession of servants carrying a "lance that bleeds" and a Grail: "Once she had entered with this grail (graal) that she held, so great a radiance appeared that the candles lost their brilliance just as the stars do at the rising of the sun and moon... The grail was of pure refined gold and was set with many precious stones, the richest and most costly in sea or earth" (Conte del Graal, 2.43-46 ). Here is the earliest legend about the Grail in the Arthurian cycle, and clearly the Grail refers to a physical object. Interestingly, Chrétien refers to it as a "graal" (instead of le saint graal) and elsewhere mentions it holding a boar's head -- suggesting that it was something of a platter rather than a chalice. The larger part of the story relates how Perceval, Gawain, and others sought to find the Grail, but the origin of the Grail is never clearly explained; the grail is considered more of a magical than a "holy" thing, nor was Christ's blood mentioned with it or even hinted to be a container of Christ's blood.
The "Continuations" of Chrétien's work develop these themes more explicitly and more fully Christianize the tales into stories relating to relics of the crucifixion of Jesus. But an examination of the Celtic sources that underlie the story shows that the Grail originated in pagan tradition and had nothing at all to do with Jesus. In the Welsh epic poem Preiddeu Annfwn, King Arthur sailed to the Land of the Dead to steal the "cauldron of the head of Annfwn," a powerful magical talisman which (like the Christianized "grail") was a metal container endowed with magical power. Another Celtic tale related the story of a pauper named Peronnik who learns from a journeying knight that two magical objects are found in a nearby castle: a diamond lance that destroys everything it strikes, and a golden basin , the contents of which would cure all ills. Like the knights of Arthurian legend, Peronnik then sets forth on a quest to find these miraculous objects. In the similar Welsh Mabinogion epic, the Fisher King is a lord encountered by the Welsh warrior Peredur (= Perceval in canonical Arthurian lore), who taught the youth etiquette and fighting techniques, whereas Peredur's uncle guarded a bleeding lance which was used to slay Peredur's cousin (which later became the spear that gashed the side of Christ in the "First Continuation" of Le Conte del Graal, written about A.D. 1200) and a silver vessel that held his cousin's severed head (which later became the Grail that held the boar's head and later a wafer in Le Conte). We can thus see that the Grail from the very beginning referred to a vessel, became associated with Christ only later on, and originated as a magical object in Celtic myth. The interpretation of the Grail as the bloodline of Christ is entirely foreign to the entire early Grail tradition, and itself depends on a very late form of the "le saint graal" as sangraal.
As for the etymology of Old French graal , which was first used in the cycle of Arthurian legends by Chrétien to refer to a platter, it is derived from Medieval Latin gradalis "shallow bowl, basin" (< Vulgar Latin cratalis < Latin cratella "small bowl" < Greek krater). We may note, for instance, that Helinand, abbot of Froidmont, wrote in A.D. 1215 that "gradalis and also gradale means a broad and shallow bowl, in which sumptuous foods together with their sauces are served to the rich, gradually, one piece after the other, in various arrangements. It is also known by the name graalz in common speech, because it is pleasing ( grata ) to those who eat out of it, either for its attractive appearance, for it is of silver or other precious material, or because of its contents, i.e. the manifold arrangement of delicious foods" (cited in Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Historiaie). This description is perfectly consistent with the earliest description of the Grail in Chrétien.
In Old Aquitanian French, the word was phonetically grazala (preserving the original consonant), and the Burgundian dialect also allegedly ellided medial consonants (graal < grazal). This was the dialect spoken by Robert de Boron, who popularized the Grail legend. The word is first attested in A.D. 873 in the will of Count Eberhard von Treviso, the grandfather of the German King Henry I, who left his son Adalardus V, among other items, three silver garalis. In another copy of the same will, the word calix (< chalice) is used for garalis; other wills use gradalis interchangeably with scutella, which later became escuele "vessel" (note again the loss of the intermedial consonant). We also find in A.D. 1010 an instance of gradal in Old Catalan.
The etymology by Baigent-Leigh-Lincoln and Brown is thus a specious one.