Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln
I was first intrigued by the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail after reading of it in Dan Brown's blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Brown mentions the nonfiction book by name in his novel, which pulled this relatively obscure work written by some BBC academics into the spotlight and onto the New York Times bestseller list. After seeing it there for months, I finally broke down and read it.
The authors admit in Holy Blood, Holy Grail that they are not "proving," or even attempting to prove, anything. What they have is an hypothesis that they think is as likely as the story many of us have believed about Jesus Christ. Their theory is that Jesus either survived the crucifixion or was never crucified at all - someone else was there in his place - and that Jesus fathered children, probably by Mary Magdalene, either before or even after the crucifixion.
The book further proposes that the bloodline of Jesus Christ is that of a royal family in France's history called the Merovingians. The authors suggest that the Roman Catholic Church may have had something to do with the dethroning of the Merovingians in order to preserve the secret that Jesus did not die on the cross and that he was not celibate.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail goes into great detail about a group called The Nights Templar and also their founding body, the Prieure of Sion. And if you'll forgive me, I found much of the writing on these two topics quite labored and hard to follow. At least I'll admit that these subjects were far more understandable to me in fiction form in Dan Brown's book than in the rambling nonfiction of these three journalists.
If you are fascinated by these topics, you may enjoy Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but I must warn you - it's hypothesis could be quite offensive to many Christians. In fact, many who have read this book have deemed it rubbish not even worth the price of a paperback. So - with that warning - I give a reommendation only for the truly curious about this alternative history of Christianity and the Holy Grail legends to Holy Blood, Holy Grail. On the Book Beat for KSL Newsradio 1160, I'm Amanda Dickson.
