The Da Vinci Cod, Part Deux

Despite all the brouhaha, the "Da Vinci Code" movie seems to have evaporated into the ethers. To my knowledge, nobody's talking about it. There is, however, a repercussion of Dan Brown's work that needs to be addressed: To wit, a cottage industry of individuals claiming descent from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Without naming names and URLs, and giving them publicity or Page Rank, certain people are claiming to be descended from "the Merovingians" and thus, according to the legends popularized by Brown and the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" authors, they are the direct descendants of Jesus Christ!

First of all, being a descendant of the Merovingians is not particularly unusual, as recent news articles have declared: "Genealogists discover royal roots for all. Millions have provable descents from medieval monarchs." I myself am provably descended from English King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who constitute one set of my 24th great grandparents. Much to the dismay of many people, I imagine, genealogists also state:

The longer ago somebody lived, the more descendants a person is likely to have today. Humphrys estimates that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, appears on the family tree of every person in the Western world.

The same could be said of Jesus Christ, were he a historical person who actually mated with Mary Magdalene. Crunching the numbers, practically all of us Westerners would be "grandkids" of JC and MM. According to the Jesus-in-India myth, many Easterners would also be descendants of Jesus, as would thousands of Japanese, per the Jesus-in-Japan myth!

But, it is my contention that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene are fictional characters, straight out of mythology, so they could not be spawning anyone, whether or not these claimants are descendants of the Merovingians. I further contend that these Merovingian legends are fiction designed to give that faction the "divine right to rule." The innocents among us appear to have little idea as to certain developments throughout the ages regarding mythology: Importantly, numerous families over the millennia have claimed descent from this god and that godman. Apparently, these recent claimants are oblivious to the claims of divine ancestry for all Egyptian kings and pharaohs, as well as for the royalty around the world. Were these claims of past royalty true? Did the gods who fecundated the mortal women who gave birth to these kings and queens really exist and walk the Earth?

In Greece, ruling families loved to claim they were descended from the Greek Son of God, Hercules. These families were called the "Heracleids," and they dated back many centuries before the Christian era. Does this fact mean that Hercules really walked the earth? If, by scientific scrutiny, we have determined that Hercules is a mythical character, then by the same scientific scrutiny - and integrity - we must also determine that Jesus Christ is a mythical character. Hence, no one - no matter how much they wish to be special - is descended from Jesus. It's all just another smelly fish story.