Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting reading ... but a false premise, August 18, 2001
As a sequel to the book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" you might expect a little something different then what you get out of this book. That is not to say this book is necessarily bad - just of a different type than its predecessor. (While being of a different type, it is of the same general theme.)The book is, in some ways, three separate books. Part One concerns itself more with the time of Jesus and the idea of apocalyptic and Messianic thinking. Part Two concerns itself more with the modern "search for meaning" and how religion plays a part in this but that this, by necessity, brings back some of the Messianic thinking of Jesus' time. Part Three centers on an alleged secret society, the Priory of Sion. Even with these differences there is a thread that runs through the parts - namely that of providing an end to the "search for meaning" by the restoration of a dynastic bloodline via the use of Jungian archetypes. It just so happens that this dynastic bloodline happens to be that of the lineal descent of Jesus. The secret society comes in because they are planning to do just this, according to the authors - restore a bloodline from the Merovingian Kings that, in turn, is claimed to have been descended from Jesus. All of it makes for interesting reading and I would say that Parts One and Two are, for the most part, very well put forth along with some social commentary that is thoughtful and well-put. (You can tell, if you have read "The Elixir and the Stone," that Bagient and Leigh's authorial hands are more in the first two parts than anywhere else.) What saddles this book, somewhat unfortunately, is Part Three which stands on much less stable ground than the material from the previous two sections. One complaint would be that while the first two sections are well written you are constantly waiting for the authors to finally make their point. You know they must have one and you can see they are groping towards it, but it is not really until Part Three that they finally just say what they want to say in any tangible fashion. Granted, all books of this nature have to have a set-up to a certain degree to posit their main point - but this one just seemed to drag on, particularly if you read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and pretty much knew where the ultimate destination was. The problem is that the Priory of Sion has been mainly proven to be a hoax. It really did exist and Pierre Plantard really was its "Grand Master" but the problem is that the organization was never what Plantard claimed it to be, which is where the hoax comes from. A review like this is not the appropriate forum to divulge all those facts but needless to say the relevant documents have been published (although mostly in France). I recommend reading authors like Pierre Jarnac and Jean-Luc Chaumeil for the real story of the Priory of Sion, an organization that did not exist until 1956 and was only resurrected in name by Pierre Plantard for a brief time after the false reports of Noel Corbu. Thus the final goal of the book (showing the alleged plans of the Priory of Sion) is undermined. (Of course, if you were not aware of this fact the end of the book might give you a little fright, postulating, as it does, a conspiracy theory of somewhat epic proportions.) What this book will probably show you is that Henry Lincoln (and the other two authors) fell for the stories of Pierre Plantard and a group of people that wanted to seem more important than they were - basically a bunch of myth-makers and pseudo-royalists. This is even more telling when you realize that none of the authors, after this book, ever took up this theme again. Henry Lincoln's later books (The Holy Place and Key to the Sacred Pattern) pretty much avoid giving too much mention of the Priory of Sion in any great detail. Baigent and Leigh, for their parts, separated from this line of research and did not contribute any further with Henry Lincoln. Beyond that, however, I would say the book is worth reading for the first two parts of it, which are very erudite in style. I would say that, regarding Part One, the authors do rely overly much on one particular researcher: Robert Eisenman. This is not to say that Eisenman's work is wrong or suspect - simply that you can tell they relied on him so much simply because his worked mirrored their own thoughts. One does not see a lot of dissenting views presented in the book that might cast doubt on the authors' theories as they are put forth. What is most unfortunate is that some of the well-stated ideas and concepts put forth in the beginning of the book may be marked as frivolous when one reads the latter portion of the book. My recommendation: take the good stuff at the beginning for what it is worth and be very skeptical of the conspiracy theory at the end. Do your research and you will find that the Priory of Sion really was nothing more than a few people's myth-making apparatus. In the end, I had to give the book only three stars. The third star is because the first two parts of the book are really quite good when you remove them from the context of the conspiracy theory put forth in the third part.
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Biblical scholarship and religion are two different things.., March 2, 2004
By A Customer
I'm a bit baffled by the animosity expressed in the reviews of this book. I can only conclude that it is the result of poor marketing pulling in the wrong audience, since when I read the sensational cover blurbs I, too, almost put the book down. Upon committing and actually reading the work, however, I was pleasantly surprised and very much enjoyed the authors' perspectives.
Frankly, there was nothing terribly earth-shattering inside. The book is largely a plausible and enjoyable exploration of Jesus as Messiah with an attempt to clarify what a Messiah really was (& is). This includes some discussion of specific problems of translation and misinterpretation. While this is hardly revolutionary scholarship, I must admit that I appreciate having specific instances of ambiguity pointed out to me by someone in a position to translate. One example of this is the authors' discussion of the association of Jesus with Nazareth, a town that did not yet exist in his time. They conclude that this is actually a reference to "Nazarean", which would tie Jesus to a radical political sect of the time. This political aspect of the Messianic is also expanded to include fascinating but brief perspectives on other candidates, including Constantine, Napolean & Hitler.
There are interesting--if truncated--discussions of Christian history, providing a thread of continuity to what is typically presented as very spotty, periodic and localized events liberally dosed with mythology and agenda. I was particularly interested to discover the importance of the Celtic church as a repository of scholarship during the middle ages, something I was unaware of. In contrast to the other reviewers, I noticed no glaringly hideous inaccuracies in the authors' presentation. For instance and in direct rebuttal, some of the Christian churches definitely DO differ on points considered heretical by Rome. The Armenian and Coptic churches, for example, DID splinter off after the Nicean council condemned their theology as Monophositic heresy. This was an argument that was ALL about the divinity of Jesus, something near and dear to Paul's heart. Pointing this out doesn't make one a bad writer, anti-Catholic or an evil person.
The book also discusses the vacuum of--for lack of a better term--"spiritual resonance" in modern western culture and official religion. The authors discuss the role of art, religion, politics & myth in fulfilling the deep psychological human need for meaning. They deride the application of advertising to capitalize on this aspect of humanity for petty gains.
While potentially interesting, the allusions to Jesus' bloodline, the Prieure of Sion, Knights Templar & other secret societies seemed rather peripheral -- intended primarily to tie this book to their previous best-seller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The linkages are a bit strained, but since this seems to be where the authors think their bread-and-butter lies, I guess they had to throw in something, however vague.
This is a great read for anyone who is interested in an introduction to the fascinating field of biblical scholarship without the necessity of devolving into scriptural dogma. I would also recommend Umberto Eco for readable historical fiction with a massive dose of erudition related to the same issues.
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37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Read for Fans of Umberto Eco, May 17, 2001
When it comes to writing about history from 2000 years ago through the Dark Ages, a lot of speculation is necessary. Literacy was low so there weren't many written records to begin with, and the church, etc., had a lot of control over what information could be dispensed. As a result, a lot of speculation over this period is necessary. Baigent, et al., recognizing this, for part of the book examine Biblical history using the oldest surviving records as a basis point instead of church doctrine or the latest translation of a translation, etc, of a pieced together, largely edited, and largely oral history called the Bible. Therefore, while their speculations may be as historically sound as anyone else's, some will denounce them as blasphemous. The rest of the book then seeks to at least verify that their interpretations of the Bible have existed long throughout history by trying to determine the beliefs of certain secret societies who claim to be guardians of "The Truth".However, now instead of being impaired so much by a lack of records, the authors are forced to speculate about the secret societies' beliefs. Despite tracking down sources within a secret society, the authors' job is made difficult by the fact that such societies not only keep their secrets secret, but also fractionalize, engage in internal political struggles and have their own debates about dogma. Like Foucault's Pendulum, which this inspired, this book is ultimately a detective novel about various writers trying to get inside the minds of secret societies and running into various obstacles. It may dissapoint readers who want all their answers handed to them (and the authors don't even pretend to have them), but life is not that simple. Sometimes knowing what the right questions are is just as important. This is a fun, interesting, thought-provoking, mind-expanding book.
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