So I just got done reading "The Da Vinci Code" and wow what an eye opener! If everything they say about the grail is true it would really mess things up in this world in terms of religion and faith.
What is your view on the holy grail? Is it just a plain old chalice or is it Jesus' blood line kept secret? Do you want them to find an unveil the grail to the world or keep it hidden for all of eternity?
The holy grail refers to the cup Jesus used at His last supper. According to the grail legends of the middle ages it contained the actual blood of Christ, thus it was seen as a profound Eucharistic relic.
Keep in mind that relics were a big thing in the middle ages. A piece of the true cross, the bones of the Apostles, the skull of St. John the Baptist, a drop of milk from the Virgin Mary's breast, and so on and so forth. The grail, then, was a massive romantic legend about perhaps the most important relic of them all--the cup Jesus used at the last supper containing His actual blood.
However it was only ever just that, a romantic medieval legend.
Dan Brown, in his novel, plagiarized the earlier work
Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which purports to describe the secret history where the grail actually refers to a blood line from Jesus and Mary Magdalene which passed into the Carolingian dynasty and so on and so forth. It was pure hokum. It became supremely popular recently through Dan Brown's novel.
If you were to use either books to try and pass a history test you'd get an F. There isn't a lick of credible history there. And from what I'm told by those who have read Brown's novel, the history is only slightly worse than the writing itself. I haven't read it personally, but I hear it's not a particularly good book.
For example, if I recall correctly, the book makes the claim that the Council of Nicea chose which books would be in the Bible. Well, that never happened. Also it makes Opus Dei, a Catholic lay order, into a militant monastic order--it's neither militant nor monastic, it's a lay order composed of ordinary people with ordinary lives with ordinary jobs. It also, if I recall, mentions a group called the Priori of Sion, which claims to be quite old; it's not, it goes back no further back than the 1950's. So on and so forth.
None of that would be problematic if it wasn't for the fact that, at least originally, Brown claimed the history contained in his novel was researched and factual. Without that claim, it would have likely remained under the radar and most people wouldn't have cared much--it'd have just been another novel. Unfortunately the claim to historical accuracy led to everyone and their mother who had an interest in history to have to go out and explain how, where, and why the book wasn't historically accurate.
-CryptoLutheran
