GUEST BLOG: The Bomber Code

----------------------------GUEST BLOG: M Bradbury-----------------------------

I have read some of the critics reviews, and I'm really not sure what the American press were expecting, a type of mission impossible 4 action extravaganza with Tom Hanks and Divinci battling it out with light sabres - ending with a guest appearance from Jesus Christ telling tom hanks that he is his father

It's a good movie, a bit long at the end, but a fair rendition of the movie.

The book is better - I'm sure Opus day would say that about the Bible as well.

The historical Central question behind the movie and book is why was Mary Magdalene character assassinated by the Catholic Church from a disciple with a special relationship with Christ to that of a prostitute...

Dan Brown and his conspiracy chums suggest it's because of a Christ bloodline from Magdalene and throw in the worst excesses of internal power schisms within the Catholic Church during the crusades to back up this theory.

However - you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to have legitimate questions about the authority of the Catholic Church, and I think this is the tragedy of the book and movie - the council of Nissia in 325ad was a bringing together of all the bishops to discuss what would be in the Bible and to settle the theological argument that Christ wasn't simply a great prophet and the most perfect human being, but that he was in himself divine. The latter argument won the day because it gives the church more authority from a divine Christ rather than a great example of a person Christ. And the debate over what was to become the bible and the decision to leave the gospel of Mary out of the final version can be viewed as pure misogyny on the part of a group of powerful men, as opposed to the bloodline conspiracy. So the intrinsic flaws and vested interests of the powerful during the creation of the church, don't get scrutinised as thoroughly as they should 2000 years after Christ's death because it gets swamped by the grand conspiracy narrative.

A little like the release yesterday of the plane crash into the pentagon - there are serious questions about what the American Government knew or didn't know about September 11th, but that gets drowned out by grand conspiracy theories over a cruise missile striking the pentagon or not

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