h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There we are. Thats the Grammar tweaking done. I don't think theres anything more. Thanks for all the help Isle. Much appreciated.

You say that the Old Testament describes the war of Lucifer against God. There is in fact no mention of this in the Old Testament or in any other part of the Bible. I don't know where the story comes from.

You're right. I have been misinformed. The war is mentioned in Revelations 12:7-9.

Revelations says:

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

Isaiah 14:12 says:

"How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!"

This is "Lucifer" rather than morning star in some versions.

Really enjoyed reading this, thank you. Good analysis of both Holy Blood Holy Grail and Da Vinci Code.

Couple of typos:
Para 5, cathch = catch
Pillar = pillar

Para 17, noone = no one
pilar = pillar.

Ooh spooky or what I came across this as I was listening to the audio book version of The Da Vinci Code

Noticed a couple of typos but nothing a trip through a spell checker won't hurt

You could go into a bit more detail about the demise of the Templars at the hands of Pope Clemant V, maybe add the bit about how the Templars being rounded up on Friday October 13th populated the theory that Friday 13th was unlucky

Good Piece, I enjoyed reading it

Morningstar was actually a title given to an earthly monarch by his sycophants, and not a reference to Lucifer.

Obviously, Lucifer had never 'laid low' nations, but the man's army had.

Isaiah was riduculing the thought of considering earthly rulers as having been heaven sent.

Has anyone mentioned yet that the 'Revelation' in the title of the 'Book of Revelation' is singular? No need to perpetuate the common error.

I read your entry, it was rather interesting and i learned quite a lot from it. but there are still some problems.
You write rather angry. it is probably unintentional and it is a fault that i share (in RL), for me it is because of being too fanatical about some subjects. but angry writing makes the reader (at least me) read very fast to match the tone, and not pay enough attention to the details.
Also, it is still (even after the changes you made) a bit confusing.

If you bring up the marriage between J and M, you should also mention the other "children of Christ" story, where he (and probably M.) traveled to Nepal and had children there. (Sorry, i read the article years ago and can't give you the source).

All in all, it is a very interesting subject, and should have more work on it done. Maybe make it a joint project with other interested researchers, and write in depth about ALL pro and con theories in a series of interrelated entries?

Interesting topic for an entry.

(actually, really I'm just here to see what happens when all the mentions of That Book draw ReddyFreddy in here.

Hey Sho, have you written anything on these characters?

me, nah.

I've often toyed with it, from the POV of someone who was there at the time - but that's pretty much covered by Bernard Cornwell (although some don't like it)

perhaps I should...

A fascinating entry, with loads of potential.

What I found to be of particular interest was "The Holy Grail first appears around 1180 in de Troyes's work Perceval."

In other words, there's no mention of a Grail by anyone who was around within 1000 years of the event in which it was supposedly a part, and that first reference is in a work of fiction. Seems to me that a lot of folks have jumped on the grail bandwagon since then.

Any idea when the existence of the Grail was first proposed in a religous/scholarly context, as an actual thing that really existed?

NBY

It was considered to be fact for two reasons. The first is to do with the literary style in the 11th and 12th Centuries and how it differs from today. The Perceval story is written in such a way as to make the reader think that it is based on an earlier story. At the time this was the way stories and tales were written. The more popular stories were those taken from earlier tales and improved on. If you did not have an earlier tale to adapt then you wrote your own in such a way as to make it sound as if there was a tale before it. This is probably what happened with Perceval. Our stories today are written to sound as if the writter has come up with the idea himself so modern readers assumed it was taken from an earlier tale wereas it quite possibly was made up by de Troyes himself. The possibility of an earlier tale linked so closely to Joseph of Arimathea led to alot of the grail hunts.

The second reason is to do with Arthurian legends and the Perceval story. Although both were written at a similar time and they are both very similar, Perceval and Galahad are basically the same character, they were written by different people who would not have had any contact. This leaves people to assume that they must be based on an underlying fact.

I suppose there is also a third reason people assume the grail is real. That's because so many people have actually found it. The cup in Valencia and the small cup in England to name two. So many stories exist of people seeing the grail and some even having the grail that it is hard to say for sure that it doesn't exist. Hope that answers your question.

Modern fiction dates from Cervantes who wrote Don Quixote as a direct attack on the cult of chivlarous Romances--tall tales that people strove to believe. He wrote in such a way that there was no pretence of truthfulness beyond a formulaic grounding in a certain place, time and social structure; this is the innovation of "the novel".

A century earlier Sir Thomas More had written the fantasy of "Utopia" but he had (curiously) introduced it as though it were fact. He had reported a visit he had made in RL to the Netherlands, naming the real event that brought him there, and some real people he had met there. One of the real people is credited with introducing to More a philosophical voyager whom he calls Raphael Hythlodaeus, who supposedly proceeded to tell More of his journeys to Utopia.

Now any learned reader would have recognised that the name Hythlodaeus is derived from the Greek for "dispenser of nonsense"; and that Utopia is Greek for "no place"--and so on. He meant perhaps to fool the common people, with a wink to the educated.

But on the other hand there *were* earlier cases of unashamed fiction: Aesop's Fables for instance.

Ain't it amazing what people strive to believe?

Its hard to really accept that the grail is really an object. It sounds too much like fiction.

Any word on this entry getting into the edited guide?

Hey. I'm back.

I see I'm still not into the Guide yet. What's happening with it? Is it going to get in?

Go and shout at PR

It won't get in before some of the suggestions are taken care of. Like that pesky 's' that I mentioned at the end of the title of the last book of the Bible.

Wow. "This Guide Entry has been hidden, because it contravenes our House Rules" -- haven't seen one of those before! Interesting? Or not?