ABC News, Infotainment, Conspiracy Theories and Kooks
There's an interesting story in the New York Times today about the ABC News special in which reporter Elizabeth Vargas sets out to show that the old conspiracy theory about Jesus having a wife (Mary Magdalene of course) is true. The special is based on Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code," which is in turn based on some pretty far out versions of history, including the supermarket-tabloid-caliber scholarship in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."
I think it's great that somebody decided to examine the books and the belief system they promote; after all, there are far more accepted, legitimate views of the history in question than the one Brown presents (Constantine deified Christ at Nicea? Yikes.) and it would be good to contrast them. But that doesn't seem to be what ABC set out to do, at least not based on their guest roster which seems to include principally radicals, conspiracy theorists, dissenters and folks with axes to grind. Which, again, is all fine, they're entitled to their opinions, but where's the other side? And how could ABC news have balanced the piece to show that the other side represents the vast majority view of serious scholarship, while the view represented by the conspiracy theorists is that of a tiny, tiny minority?
There's an interesting story in the New York Times today about the ABC News special in which reporter Elizabeth Vargas sets out to show that the old conspiracy theory about Jesus having a wife (Mary Magdalene of course) is true. The special is based on Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code," which is in turn based on some pretty far out versions of history, including the supermarket-tabloid-caliber scholarship in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."
I think it's great that somebody decided to examine the books and the belief system they promote; after all, there are far more accepted, legitimate views of the history in question than the one Brown presents (Constantine deified Christ at Nicea? Yikes.) and it would be good to contrast them. But that doesn't seem to be what ABC set out to do, at least not based on their guest roster which seems to include principally radicals, conspiracy theorists, dissenters and folks with axes to grind. Which, again, is all fine, they're entitled to their opinions, but where's the other side? And how could ABC news have balanced the piece to show that the other side represents the vast majority view of serious scholarship, while the view represented by the conspiracy theorists is that of a tiny, tiny minority?
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