[.ca] The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail (ISBN 0099682419)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh, authors of The Messianic Legacy, spent over 10 years on their own kind of quest for the Holy Grail, into the secretive history of early France. What they found, researched with the tenacity and attention to detail which befits any great quest, is a tangled and intricate story of politics and faith that reads like a mystery novel. It is the story of the Knights Templar, and a behind-the-scenes society called the Prieure de Sion, and its involvement in reinstating descendants of the Merovingian bloodline into political power. Why? The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail assert that their explorations into early history ultimately reveal that Jesus may not have died on the cross, but lived to marry and father children whose bloodline continues today. According to the authors, their point here is not to compromise or to demean Jesus, but to offer another, more complete perspective of Jesus as God's incarnation in man. They claim that the power of this secret, which has, they say, been carefully guarded for hundreds of years, has sparked much controversy. For all the sensationalism and hoopla surrounding The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and the alternative history which it outlines, the authors are careful to keep their perspective and sense of scepticism alive in its pages, explaining carefully and clearly how they came to draw such combustible conclusions. --Jodie Buller

History or Speculation? You Decide,:
Before the reader jumps to the conclusion that this book presents historical fact, a few words from one of the three author's might be instructive. 'And so, our approach \oin writing the book\c was dictated by our material: by a need to synthesize and a need to confront and accommodate historical `anomalies' habitually ignored by conventional scholars. It was therefore not surprising that conventional scholars questioned our approach. But it was also significant, and not just coincidental, that the most sympathetic responses to our book seemed to come from literary figures-from important novelists like Anthony Burgess, Anthony Powell, and Peter Vansittart. For, unlike the professional historian, the novelist is accustomed to an approach such as ours. He is accustomed to synthesizing diverse material, to making connections more elusive than those explicitly preserved in documents. He recognizes that truth may not be confined only to recorded facts but often lies in more intangible domains-in cultural achievements, in myths, legends, and traditions; in the psychic life of both individuals and entire peoples. For the novelist, knowledge is not subdivided into rigid compartments, and there are no taboos, no 'disreputable' subjects. History is not for him something frozen, something petrified into periods, each of which can be isolated and subjected to a controlled laboratory experiment. On the contrary, it is for him a fluid organic and dynamic process wherein psychology, sociology, politics, art, and tradition are interwoven in a single seamless fabric. It was with this vision akin to that of the novelist that we created our book.' An example of the means by which this 'seamless fabric' is created is the author's justification for discounting the likelihood of the key events in Jesus Christ's life earlier in this introductory text. He writes, "It is quite simply more likely that a man would have married, fathered children, and attempted to gain a throne than that he would have been born of a virgin, walked on water, and risen from the dead.' Uneducated readers should beware (for presumably, educated readers will immediately recognize the 'evidence' presented in this book as academically suspect). The supporting evidence for the 'seamless fabric' presented in this book should be treated as, at best, speculative until further investigation of credible sources confirms it. Another book in this genre worth reading it ' Giorgio Quest '.

A gripping read:
Anybody who does not believe everything written in the bible will find this book interesting., and even those who believe in the gospel truth of the bible and have an open mind about it will still enjoy the probing nature of the book. The author said it himself that he does not believe or disbelieve what he wrote because they are more of the opinions of others. He used the particular phrase of "it is said that " in presenting his case. It should be noted that the book is written to present the cases of those who held the belief that Jesus didn't die in the cross and began a bloodline hat survived him and still survives until today, and those who do not hold that belief. And since the Christian world does not hold that belief, the book had to focus on presenting the case of those who support that belief even if it is far-fetched. I am a Christian and I do not believe the skeptics, still I find this book interesting. It lets one get an idea of how things were during the early days of the church, an unsettling situation which could not be devoid of the emergence of myths. What is myth or reality about the life of Jesus is a question of faith. Still this book is a recommended read.Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE DA VINCI CODE, THE MESSAINIC LEGACY , UNION MOUJIK.

Some fairly large assumptions tossed in with mind numbing details:
When I started reading the book I could not put it down. It truly is written like an epic novel. As I progressed however I began to notice a trend. In the opening of the book the authors spend a good bit of time explaining how much the bible is flawed. In the second part of the book they are using this "flawed" text as the root of their arguement. Most of their "fact" regarding Jesus' life comes from the gospel of John (which they claim is the most reliable gospel). It is supposed by many including Elaine Pagels (who recieved her PhD from Harvard in religious history) in her work "The Gospel of Thomas" that the Gospel of John is potentially nothing more than a Gnostic text meant to refute the Gospel of Thomas. I also found that when the authors could not find a situable obscure source to support their hypothesis they tended to burrow a few out of context bits from fiction. This is a 400+ page text of the most incoherent arguements and outlandish assumptions I have ever read. Near as I can tell the first half of the book is superfluous. They go into Merovigian kings, and this Priory of Sion for hundreds of pages, siting names, and dates. This is a common trick in debate to convince you audience that you are in fact knowledgable of your topic. Then the second part of the book is made up of wild assumptions based on grail myths and the Gospels.

Surprised:
Not a book that I would normally pick, choosing instead some other summer "fun" read such as McCrae's KATZENJAMMER or the innocuous SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Kidd, I instead sucumbed to the hoopla surrounding CODE and the lawsuit, and chose HOLY BLOOD. Now, that said, I was prepared to be disappointed. I wasn't. No, this isn't a page-turner like CODE. It's more "factual" and a little more "dry," but informative nevertheless. Would recommend this book for those who like the "details." Many popular books have created a genre that weaves fascinating esoterica culled from centuries of world history. They examine secret societies such as the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Catholic organization Opus Dei, the Illuminati, and the mythical Priory of Sion. The books argue that those mysterious groups have reasons to ensure that the truth isn't found. For example, the Da Vinci Code involves sinister plots to uncover a secret that has been protected by clandestine societies since the days of Christ. Two people work together to untangle the webs. The many books and films try to link their stories to biblical prophecies. The stories are often well-researched in the sense that they reference actual parts of the Bible. The stories are usually poorly researched in the sense that they should tell more about the real-life links to secret societies that caused the worst torture and slaughter in history. Authors of current bestsellers (e.g. THE DA VINCI CODE and HOLY BLOOD etc) make their stories relevant to current events. Such stories are relevant to the fact that the present government in the USA is anti libertarian and is out-socializing the previous administration by more than double and growing (in social spending alone). The demonic dogma of socialism and self-sacrifice is still growing all over the world. If you're looking for a book that will fill in the missing pieces of CODE, this may be it. If you want a light summer read that is fun, try either SECRET LIFE OF BEES, which has nothing to do with this subject, or KATZENJAMMER which is fun, bawdy, and off-beat.

Before you jump . . .:
Before the reader jumps to the conclusion that this book presents historical fact, a few words from one of the three author's might be instructive. 'And so, our approach \oin writing the book\c was dictated by our material: by a need to synthesize and a need to confront and accommodate historical `anomalies' habitually ignored by conventional scholars. It was therefore not surprising that conventional scholars questioned our approach. But it was also significant, and not just coincidental, that the most sympathetic responses to our book seemed to come from literary figures-from important novelists like Anthony Burgess, Anthony Powell, and Peter Vansittart. For, unlike the professional historian, the novelist is accustomed to an approach such as ours. He is accustomed to synthesizing diverse material, to making connections more elusive than those explicitly preserved in documents. He recognizes that truth may not be confined only to recorded facts but often lies in more intangible domains-in cultural achievements, in myths, legends, and traditions; in the psychic life of both individuals and entire peoples. For the novelist, knowledge is not subdivided into rigid compartments, and there are no taboos, no 'disreputable' subjects. History is not for him something frozen, something petrified into periods, each of which can be isolated and subjected to a controlled laboratory experiment. On the contrary, it is for him a fluid organic and dynamic process wherein psychology, sociology, politics, art, and tradition are interwoven in a single seamless fabric. It was with this vision akin to that of the novelist that we created our book.' An example of the means by which this 'seamless fabric' is created is the author's justification for discounting the likelihood of the key events in Jesus Christ's life earlier in this introductory text. He writes, "It is quite simply more likely that a man would have married, fathered children, and attempted to gain a throne than that he would have been born of a virgin, walked on water, and risen from the dead.' Highly recommended for those into serious literature: DA VINCI CODE by Brown, which is similiar, and TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE.