“Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci”
Tonight at 8 on ABC/Ch. 7
(three stars)
WAS Jesus married?
And was Mary Magdalene his wife?
Apparently, a lot of people will be upset if the answer to both these questions is yes.
As explained in tonight’s “Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci” – a new ABC News prime-time special inspired by the best-selling novel, “The DaVinci Code” – proof that Jesus of Nazareth was a married man enjoying conjugal relations with his wife would upset the apple cart, so to speak, of all of Christianity since Jesus’ divinity has been based for so long, at least in part, on the notion that he was celibate.
Or at least, that’s what I think the show is trying to say. If I’m fuzzy on the details, then it’s because I’m Jewish. I think non-Jews believe Jews understand as much as they do about Christianity – be it Catholicism or any other kind.
But I’m here to tell you: We Jews know very little about Christian dogma.
And on behalf of all Jews, I apologize for that. Besides, it’s not that we’re uninterested; it’s just that it doesn’t come up very often.
Thus, I find the whole Da Vinci Code business to be a tad confusing. As I understand it, the novel, which I haven’t read, posits the idea that the church hierarchy – that would be the Catholic Church – knew about the story of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene, along with the possibility that they had children, since early in the church’s history.
According to tonight’s ABC News program, the story was officially over-ridden by church doctrine and effectively suppressed by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century.
Because the church did not approve, the story was supposedly passed down covertly from generation to generation through a secret society of scholars who included Leonardo Da Vinci, who some believe included tantalizing clues to the secret story in some of his artworks, sketches and notebooks.
With the novel as a jumping-off point, the ABC show takes these ideas and travels the world talking to experts about them – theologians, scholars, a priest and the novel’s author, Dan Brown.
The show, anchored and reported by Elizabeth Vargas, does a pretty fair job of laying out the various arguments pro and con and presenting various pieces of folkloric evidence.
With its shimmering videotape of exotic, ancient locations – from the Holy Land to Europe – “Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci” is an extremely attractive documentary to watch. Not to take away from the intriguing tale it tells, but the show’s beauty is its best feature and well worth taking in.
From a scheduling standpoint, I’m not sure it’s the most compatible lead-in to Monday-night football, but if ABC thinks it’s the right move, who am I to argue with such experts?