Ship of Fools: Jumping on the bandwagon

Thread: Jumping on the bandwagon Board: The Da Vinci Code / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Amethyst (# 11068) on :

I thought I would post this here as it connects Dan Brown to Leonardo yet again, so please bear with me.

In yesterday's Metro (free local paper distributed on the Tube) there was an article about a new book by Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett claiming that Leonardo fabricated the Turin Shroud and confessed to the forgery in code (but of course). Dan Brown has apparently credited their previous work with helping him write TDVC.

They base their theory on a disputed painting of the Salvator Mundi, here, saying that this corresponds with the face on the Shroud. They also claim that it is Leonardo's self-portrait.

Now, these people have been trying to prove since 1994 that Leonardo created the Shroud. What I don't understand is this - there is documentary evidence that the Shroud was being exhibited in the 1350s if not before; Leonardo was born in 1452. Are people really so dumb? Or did the good Doctor pick up Leonardo in his Tardis one day and drop him off a century or two earlier?

Whatever you think of the Shroud (and I think it is worth continuing doing proper research into it, as do an army of forensic scientists and others) is this not just example of publicity-seeking morons who are trying to make a quick buck?

Posted by Gextvedde (# 11084) on :

Definitely the Tardis. He made it himself, he was quite a clever bloke really. He has now moved forward in time to the present to claim royalties for all the silly books people keep writing about him.

Posted by SteveTom (# 23) on :

I reviewed their previous book actually, on Mary Magdalene, and said it was the stupidest book I'd ever read.

I think I got rid of it, which is a shame because I'd like to see if it answers Amethyst's question, but I couldn't imagine any further use for it at the time. Shows how wrong you can be.

Note to self: never get rid of anything again.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

SteveTom

I have a useful filing category. (Heard about it in a film somewhere sometime). Its called "File this crap under 'Crap'". Crap is sometimes useful as a dreadful warning. Dont know this book, but it sounds like it's crap. So filed. Presumptuous, I know, but time constraints require judgment.

Posted by Amethyst (# 11068) on :

Trouble is we know it’s all crap but people believe it. I remember standing on a Tube platform with an ex-colleague and only just finding out then that she had a copy of TDVC. I tried telling her it was all bollocks, but her train came in just then and her last words were ‘Hmm, but there must be something in it…’ And this was an intelligent girl, who didn’t suffer fools or foolishness lightly.

So with all these new books coming out to coincide with the DVC film I guess we have more of the same to come. Puts me in mind of the ‘Paul McCartney is dead’ saga. Most of the so-called clues to his demise, such as the ones on the Sgt Pepper album cover, are just as daft as the DVC ones.

Steve Tom: 30+ years as a civil servant taught me never to throw anything away...

[ 20. April 2006, 10:58: Message edited by: Amethyst ]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Good point Amethyst. I posted this quote somewhere else, thinking it was Lewis, but somebody told me it was Chesterton.

quote:
"When people stop believing in God, they dont start believing in nothing. They start believing in anything!" Or words to that effect.

Trouble is that Christians (and members of other faith communities) get tagged with the notion that we are credulous fools who need a crutch. I quote another Lewis-ism. "Try being sceptical about something else".

BTW I was a Civil Servant for over 30 years too. Damn, just blown another hole in my UK credibility. You know the notion I'm sure. "Couldn't get a proper job, eh?" I also tell folks who think that to "try being sceptical about something else".

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:
"When people stop believing in God, they dont start believing in nothing. They start believing in anything!" Or words to that effect.
Trouble is that Christians (and members of other faith communities) get tagged with the notion that we are credulous fools who need a crutch.

Chesterton told a story about once being in a group of people where he was the only Christian. After the atheists had derided Christianity for awhile, the conversation moved on to luck. Everyone there except Chesterton either produced a lucky object or described a procedure that brought him luck. They seemed unaware of the incongruity.

Moo

Posted by Amethyst (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
<snip>
BTW I was a Civil Servant for over 30 years too. Damn, just blown another hole in my UK credibility. You know the notion I'm sure. "Couldn't get a proper job, eh?" I also tell folks who think that to "try being sceptical about something else".

Oh yes, indeed. I was often asked 'But what do you do?' They thought we just sat around drinking tea all day. The very idea!

Posted by Teufelchen (# 10158) on :

ISTR that the Metro story alleged that Salvator Mundi was Da Vinci's only confirmed picture of Jesus.

Last Supper, anyone?

T.

Posted by Gextvedde (# 11084) on :

My Aunt used to work at a book binders which produced a massive range books like this. When they produced too many copies of a book they threw them into a skip which the staff could then help themselves to. Because I’m ‘religious’ she used to get me loads of this sort of thing. I can boast a full shelf of hardback books containing conspiracy theories about ancient Egypt, aliens, where Jesus was really buried etc, all of them are absolute crap. The trouble is it gives the impression that there are a lot of reasons to reject any form of Christian faith. There probably are reasons but they are not to be found in silly books.

Has anyone else noticed that these people often put the fact that they have a PhD in bigger letters than their own name as if this gives the book more credibility?

Posted by Amethyst (# 11068) on :

Although I will regret it, I am interested in Renaissance art enough to want to know more about this Salvator Mundi ‘proof’. The picture is disputed, and as far as I know has been variously attributed to Leonardo, or his pupil Salai, or to be someone’s copy of Leonardo’s original.

I wonder what happened to Eric von Daniken? You must all remember him – I think in his version of events Jesus was a cosmic master from some distant galaxy, but I could be wrong. Oh – I just remembered, the Templars have his mummified head in Templecombe in Somerset. Jesus’s head that is, not Eric von Daniken’s.

Posted by Gextvedde (# 11084) on :

His spectre lives on in the writings of Alan Alford. Try “gods of the new millennium” for an entertaining read.

Posted by dinghy sailor (# 8507) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gextvedde:
Has anyone else noticed that these people often put the fact that they have a PhD in bigger letters than their own name as if this gives the book more credibility?

I always wonder, "What sort of crappy, tinpot university actually gave you one of those, you claptrap-spouting numbskull?"

[ 20. April 2006, 23:27: Message edited by: dinghy sailor ]

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dinghy sailor:

quote:
Originally posted by Gextvedde:
Has anyone else noticed that these people often put the fact that they have a PhD in bigger letters than their own name as if this gives the book more credibility?
I always wonder, "What sort of crappy, tinpot university actually gave you one of those, you claptrap-spouting numbskull?"

I assume it was for a thesis entitled How to get the maximum and most profitable publicity at the expense of the terminally gullible from the Media Studies Department of Braindead Polytechnic.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

"PhD" means "piled higher and deeper." Make of it what you will.

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

I've also heard "Pathetic, humorless dullard" and "Post-hole digger."

But yours is the most appropriate for the setting, seeing as it is preceeded in the US academic sequence for the sciences by "Bachelor of Science" (BS) and "Master of Science" (MS).

Again, use your fertile (sic) imaginations!

Blessings,

Tom

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